you are what you eat

it was bound to come to this and you all knew it. a post about the, um, well, let's just say, "interesting" things we've all eaten. that snail posting got me in the frame of mind to talk about foods (and here i use the term loosely) that seem, and sometimes actually are, less than appetizing.
first let me just say that i love asian cuisine. vietnamese, thai, chinese, japanese, korean, whatever, i love them all. i know where all of you are going with this and the whole "you never know what they really put into chinese food" thing, and all those jokes about missing cats and such; and sometimes asian cuisine can come up with some pretty unusual things. the one that really put the brakes on me happened one day during dim sum. my friend Joan lives in an area of bensonhurst brooklyn that is sometimes corner to corner traditional italian and asian. but just down the block from her is a dim sum place that on the weekends is jam-packed with asians, line out the door, waiting list type of crowd. the food there is really great but every time we go we are the only caucasians there and have to order by basically pointing at things and hoping for the best. one time, during a particularly frenetic saturday dim sum someone at our table pointed to what turned out to be, get ready for this...chicken feet. it is actually kind of shocking to see those little clawed things all sticking up at you from a bowl. we all looked at each other and basically i was the only one even remotely interested in trying them. all i can tell you from the experience is that there really isn't much there, and i hoped that they washed all the chicken shit off their feet before they served them up. i really couldn't figure what to do with them and the idea of sucking on chicken feet, well, you get the picture. i tried chewing gingerly and i could see that all the servers were just looking at me and probably thinking god knows what. i finally gave up, and i can't expect that i missed much. i invite your comments on this one in particular, as i am curious about others experiences on this aspect of food and drink. for those of you interested i have included a link over there on the side to a site that will give you "tips" on cooking chicken feet. bon appetit and as they say, "one man's meat is another man's poison"

ME, JOHN AND JOAN :^*