Gross Stuff at the Grocery Store
When I was a kid, I ate virtually nothing. I liked donuts, pancakes, French toast and pizza. That’s about it with the exception of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. My mother and I had many battles about my eating practices, with the proverbial, “there are starving people in Africa” line spoken on an almost daily basis. I would eventually win the majority of these battles as I’m she would eventually tire of looking at me sitting at the table alone with a cold plate of untouched food in front of me and acquiesce to my eating a PB&J sammich instead. I graduated high school at 5 foot 10, 129 pounds, an emaciated rail, and it was mainly because I hated food. I was not trying to be a dick about it and I appreciated her efforts but I simply didn’t like food. It wasn’t her fault, she was a good cook and I never blamed her, she was merely working with the disgusting tools nature provided her.
While my pallet has broadened a bit, there are still foods that no matter how old I get, I will not eat. Most of the foods I despise are you run of the mill variety but the subject at hand here are foods, and I hesitate to even use the word food when it comes to these treasures, that no one should be eating. I mean, somebody is buying these things and encouraging the store manager to continue stocking them.
Pigs Feet –
Surely you’ve seen this atrocity on the shelves of your local supermarket. It is exactly what I said, a jar of the feet of a pig. What demon could possible possess someone enough to make them want to eat an animal’s foot? Especially the foot of a pig. Have you seen what pigs walk around in? They skulk around in mud inches deep comprised of their own shit and piss. What genius thought, those feet look delicious and should be bottled and made available at local stores? Mothers often use the phrase, “your room look like pig sty?” Why? Because a pig sty is the epitome of filth.
Next time your grocery shopping, look for the pig’s feet, they’re always by the soup. If you hold the jar up to the light and thank God the Hormel people have opted for a clear glass for this epicurean delight, you can actually see the fine pig hairs still imbedded in the skin.
Feet are gross. They’re dirty. They take the brunt of most of the swill we delve into on a daily basis and I do not want to ingest them. A woman’s finely manicured feet in a pair of heels is an outstanding look but I have never been overcome with an uncontrollable urge to shove her foot in my mouth. I know there are people that get into that sort of thing but that is not my bag. I have way too many germ issues to indulge.
Forty years ago, I knew this little green looking kid named Bart, I’ve mentioned him in here before. Well Bart, in addition to having a weird fluorescent green color to him and pointed fingers, that made him look like Bat Boy, wore these brown plastic sandals that made an obnoxious farting noise when he walked. My sister and I used to get in trouble for calling him Bart the Fart. I think of Bart sometimes when I see the bottled pig’s feet while shopping. How can I be expected to eat something that makes me think of a green bat boy’s farting feet?
Tripe –
Tripe is defined as the culinary term for the stomach tissue of a cow, goat or sheep. Why in the hell is the stomach of a goat used as a culinary term anyway? Are you kidding me? I really don’t think there is much point in going any further here. My God, why? I venture that the first person to eat a farm animal’s stomach was probably starving and I get that. You’re going to die from hunger and all there is a cow stomach available, I guess you start eating but some idiot along the way ate this shit and enjoyed it enough that it now has a culinary term. I am disappointed in humanity.
Potted Meat –
Apparently those that enjoy the epicurean delights of this Potted Meat stuff colloquially refer to it as “pottage meat.” I’m not sure if this mispronunciation is due to there being a direct correlation in IQ points and an appreciating for this can of sadness but I’m pretty sure there has to be some mental deficiency responsible. We all know what hot dogs are made of but I have a pretty good feeling that I am right in assuming that this Potted Meat stuff is made from the stuff we wouldn’t dare make a hotdog out of. I thought about what sort of pieces of an animal would be left after the hot dogs fixins are taken out. I thought of things like cow utters, pig and goat utters would probably be included here as well. Utters would be something that I wouldn’t want in my hot dog but would expect in something called Potted Meat. That flap of skin thing that hangs down off of a chicken or turkeys neck would work well here too.
Organ Meet –
I don’t mean the liver sold in the meat section. Although that stuff is just awful. What I’m talking about here is that bloody sack of innards you find inside of a turkey. It’s like somebody stowed their garbage inside of my Thanksgiving dinner bird. Why is this in here? Did I ask for this? Can I get a turkey without the guts? My mom used to boil this little bag of goodies and eat them like potato chips while she prepared dinner. The thought of watching her take a bite of the heart was and still is enough to make me never want to eat again.
Vegetables –
For my 49th birthday last year as a gift to myself, I gave up vegetables and specifically the guilt associated with not eating them. I despise them. I love fruit but vegetables are like their evil twin. Socrates was a firm believer in opposites. Like you can’t define light without experiencing dark, life without knowing death and so on. I believe the same idea applies to fruits and vegetables. You cannot understand just how good God given fruit is until you sink your teeth into an artichoke and witness first-hand the work of Satan.
If the entire vegetable section at the grocery store were suddenly eliminated I would be elated. I hate vegetables. They taste awful. I do like corn and potatoes which I am told are not really a vegetable but a starch which easily explains why I like them, they aren’t vegetables.
When I tell people that I don’t like vegetables, and I do feel the need to interject my opinion on them regularly and usually unsolicited, they always say something like, “well, you just don’t know how to prepare them.” This is a frequent response to my distaste for Brussel sprouts and broccoli as I think they are reaped from the pit of hell. “You have to sauté them in olive oil and butter then once they’re done cover them in cheese.” What? The fact that Brussel sprouts and broccoli have to be slathered in butter and coated with cheese is a testament to just how disgusting they truly are.
Case in point, everybody love to eat kale and spinach now, it’s the thing to do. However, I don’t see people walking around with a bag of greens. What they do is shove them into a smoothie covered in fruit and yogurt so they don’t have to encounter the acrid and rancid taste of these vile weeds. Consider this, if salads are so good, why does a multi-billion dollar salad dressing consortium exist? Vegetables are so awful that we will spend five dollars on a jar of dressing just so we can bury the taste.
What’s the deal with balsamic vinegar? I don’t remember this stuff when I was a kid. But I have a theory that without it, literally no one would be eating Brussel sprouts. The balsamic people really have saved the sprout people and I don’t think enough credit is given.
The question has to be asked, “If vegetables are so effing good why are there so many ways to prepare them with the intent of covering up the taste?”
I have tried for years to force myself to like tomatoes to no avail. I have one in an occasional cheeseburger and the foul taste is so overridingly powerful that the bitterness sullies my fine meal. People say, “Oh tomatoes are so delicious and sweet.” Wrong. You know what’s sweet? Ho-ho’s. Ho-ho’s are sweet. I like everything made from tomatoes, like pizza sauce, salsa and ketchup but the thought of eating them solo is nauseating.
Once you put a tomato on something there is no going back either. Those slimy seeds start spilling out all over your food like a monster from a 50’s sci-fi movie and you are not getting them off at any cost. And, trust me, I can taste every last one of them.
Don’t even get me started on mushrooms. I think they taste just like the dirt they are picked from and continue at the age of 49, like a five year old, to pick every last one of them out of anything I’m eating. I looked up the definition of “fungus” and this is what I found:
A spongy, abnormal growth, as granulation tissue formed in a wound.
And people eat this?!?!
When we were kids my mother used to make us imbibe this foul drink for breakfast every morning. It consisted of, what I surmised to be, unsweetened cocoa powder and sawdust swirled together in a cool glass of water. My mother hated us eating anything sweet. I delivered the Cleveland Press when I was in elementary school and I would do my collections on Saturdays. I would always plan my route to end up at Bordonaro’s , a local grocery store, so I could buy a box of Ho-ho’s and binge eat them all before I got home. To this day I cannot eat anything for breakfast but sweets. My mother and sawdust drink did some serious damage.
My favorite meal of all time, as I have discussed here before, is a gas station tuna sandwich, a bag of Munchos, a 3 pack of Ho-ho’s and a thick chocolate milk. If it were societally acceptable, I would eat this for Thanksgiving dinner and if I was on death row, I would chose it as my last meal. Why do we provide death row inmates with a last meal anyway? It’s not that I’m pissed about them getting preferential treatment, they’re going to be put down the next day and the least we can do to alleviate our collective guilt is to offer them a nice meal. What I wonder about is that when someone dies, don’t their bowels release? Really, if I have to clean that mess up, I’d be more inclined to give them a glass of water and wish them well.
“Hope you had a hell of a piss, Arnold!!!”
Aloha
JP Shaver Says.... 