Thursday, April 22, 2010

New Experiences

I tend to think I'm an adventurous person. I like to try new things - cultural things, food, music, etc. I dislike visiting restaurants I've been to before, unless the food is such that I cannot have it anywhere else. I tend to like to be the first person who points out something new and fabulous to my social group.

So, that being said, while I was on vacation I thought it best to try the most interesting things available to me. We went to a Dominican Restaurant on property, and I ordered the goat.

Goat.

This doesn't seem like such a departure from my normal habit of being the adventurous one, but somehow this little dalliance into the outer boundaries ran me smack dab up against what is apparently the limit of my tolerance for new and interesting. The goat was served on the vertebrae, which was initially a bit of a shock. I got over it, tucked in, and tasted it. I must admit, it was rather ok, if not downright palatable for the first few bites.

At some point around bite three, it occurred to me that I was eating goat. I'm not quite sure why this didn't sit well with my sensibilities seeing as how I'm rather certain baby calves are cuter than baby goats (although I have no proof of this.) But for whatever reason, it started to prickle the hackles on the back of my adventurous spirit.

Somewhere around bite four, I noticed what I thought was a mushroom. Hey! I like mushrooms! And mr. snark claims to be allergic to mushrooms (which he very well may be, but I'm pretty convinced he just doesn't like them) so I was thinking about this as I moved my fork towards the assumed-mushroom. The thought process went a little like this:

oooh...a mushroom...I'm such an adventurous eater, trying goat in a foreign country, look at me go! I'm one of those women who backpacks across Europe and meets fabulous people and has all these life altering experiences and then writes a book about it. And maybe I'll get to meet famous people... hey this has a strange texture for a mushroom and kind of an odd liver taste...and... oh. oh my. oh no this isn't a mushroom at all, and oh my goodness, it's in my mouth, and we're in public, and I can't... oh god.

Mr. Snark notices my obvious discomfort and inquires into the state of my personhood at which point I must answer negatively, and then, ever so politely, and with as much decorum as I can muster, spit whatever it was back onto my fork and quickly hid it under a chunk of goat-still-on-the-backbone and looked vaguely towards the direction of Europe, sighing ever so slightly, wistfully, mournfully, for all the backpacking through Europe that I might never do.

I spent the rest of the vacation being as adventurous as "The Pasta Trio" which came with three different sauces. Ooo, three different sauces!

In retrospect, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Not every new experience is going to be a good experience, but that doesn't mean I should stop trying new things. It probably just means that maybe I shouldn't try to push the envelope quite so much. I mean, goat? That was totally on the menu just to trick the unsuspecting tourist into trying to appear adventurous to their companion.

Well you win this round, world. And yes, I suppose this means Mr. "Chicken Fingers and Fries" Snark wins a little bit too.

2 comments:

Carolyn said...

It is really, REALLY hard to go wrong with chicken fingers and fries.

Mo said...

In my experience, goat is never anything but chewy. Like, lets chew on some tires chewy.

Blech.