No veggies here!
It’s been a while since I’ve written about one of my strange meat escapades, so here’s a new one.
Hiking in the Cordillera Mountains of the Philippines, I got to experience some of the freshest food I’ve ever eaten. Along the way, I stayed in local homes and ate the way that the locals ate. I quickly learned that Chicken Adobo is a local specialty and although adobo can be found throughout the Latin American world, I found it to be a bit different in the Philippines.
As I hiked, I passed chickens all over the place; in fields, along the path, and in courtyards. But I knew something the chickens didn’t: one of them was going to be my dinner.
One night, as I was sitting around and waiting for my meal, I saw a local grab a chicken and bring it to the slaughter. I had always been under the impression that chickens are slaughtered by cutting their heads off (check this out), and then they run around for a while without their heads. Apparently this isn’t true everywhere, because when my chicken adobo for the night was brought to me, I found a little something interesting in my bowl. It wasn’t the chicken feet or various organs (I was used to these by now), it was the chicken head that surprised me. Mainly the surprise was how similar it looked to a live chicken head, except it was covered in sauce.
I was mildly disgusted, but I got over it quickly. The chicken adobo was just too good, and maybe a little of that taste had been enhanced by the chicken brain itself, which I may or may not have eaten.
I was recently thinking about the general aversion to eating animal brains and animal blood. It’s really not all that much weirder than eating animal flesh. But then I realized that it is weird because zombies eat brains and vampires drink blood, so why would we want to be like zombies or vampires?!?! Forget it! I love garlic far too much!
All great points. But it really does beg the question regarding organ meat. I can’t think of any mythological creature that likes to eat kidneys or intestines, yet we get pretty disgusted when organs are offered. When I was in China, I sat down to eat some hot pot and one of the meats chosen was sheep kidney. It sounded nasty (especially considering the kidney’s function in the body) but when I tried it, it wasn’t so bad. The Chinese people I was with told me it be beneficial to my sexual parts, but really they said that about almost every food I had never seen before. Still, you’re not gonna find too many places around here with offerings like that…