Foods

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The 100 foods to try meme has been going around today.  I didn’t do an
exact count, but roughly I’d say I’ve tried 80% or so of them.  And, being
allergic to milk and given up alcohol 26 years ago, I’m not going to try
most of the others.  (OK, OK, 25 years, 10 months, 25 days.  What’s wrong
with me rounding up?)

Instead, here are some foods I remember for various reasons.

Melon balls:  When I was very young, under the age of 10, I went somewhere
with my mother and they had melon balls.  They were the best thing I had
ever tasted and the memory of them remains with me 40 or so years later.  I
have had many melons and other manifestation of melons since, but none have
ever been as good as those were.

Snake:  I know I’ve already told the story of  eating snake in China.  I
didn’t like it because it was cooked too dry and was too spicy for me.
But, when I was young the Lechmere’s store near us used to sell canned
rattlesnake in a white sauce.  I thought this was great.  They also had
chocolate covered ants, which were my brother’s favorite.  We each tried
the other’s favorite, but mostly stuck to our own.  My 40 year old memories
of that canned rattlesnake are quite good.  I have no idea what I’d think
of it now.

Chicken in mole sauce:  When my last company sent me to Mexico, the plant I
was visiting had some of the mothers of the workers there make us lunch.
(Just as well give the kidnap and murder rate in that part of Mexico.)
They made us what they called a chicken in mole dish that was fantastic.
It was more of a chicken stew in the mole sauce.  I’ve never found anything
quite like it up here in New England.  My wife has tried several different
types of mole that you can order.  But, I don’t think I’ll ever find the
equivalent of someone who has been cooking it their whole like available
commercially.

Snail: When I was young, on New Year’s Eve my parents would go out to a
party at the neighbor’s house leaving my brother and I in the care of my
sister.  We would stay up until midnight eating escargot and watching
public TV.  That usually meant British comedy.  The escargot was OK.  It
was usually in so much butter and garlic that I couldn’t taste the actual
snail.  But, it is a good memory none the less.

The brown stuff with rice: On one of my trips to China we took a very long
drive to visit a factory.  It was about 6 hours each way.  We did not stay
for dinner, but drove back to Shanghai.  We stopped at a rest area along
the road and the woman who was acting as my translator handed me a plastic
bag full of brown stuff.  Not quite solid, not quite liquid.  “This is for
your dinner” she told me.  It had rice in it.  It tasted good.  You had to
squeeze it out of the bag into your mouth to eat it.  I have no idea what
it was.

Candy: when I was very young, maybe 3 or so, my father commuted by train
out from Boston each day.  One day we went to meet him at the train station
and he had me get on and ride with him to the next stop where my mother met
us.  The conductor for that 1 3/4 mile ride gave me a butterscotch drop
that was fantastic.

Those are all I can think of right now.  I’m sure there are others that
made a big impression on me.