I could never be a food critic.
I read those books by Ruth Reichl
that detail all the different dishes she's tasted in her capacity as a restaurant critic for the New York Times. And while I do enjoy a variety of cuisines, there are some things that you just can't get me to eat.
Sushi is one of them; I love Asian food, but I like my fish cooked. I just can't get past the idea that the food is raw. (My kids will eat it happily, however.)
And then there are the "mystery cold cuts." I avoid those like the plague. My mom used to shop for meats in a local pork store where they made their own bologna, sausage and hot dogs. Whenever a kid came into the store, the butcher would hand over a slice of bologna--not American cheese as most delis do around here. That was good bologna. So I never minded running an errand to the pork store for Mom.
One day, though, I went in at a very busy time, and the gentleman ahead of me had ordered some head cheese. (For the record, there is no cheese in head cheese--and you probably don't want to know what is in it.) So instead of handing around slices of the locally-famous pork store bologna, the butcher gave everyone in the store a slice of head cheese to munch while they waited.
I tried. I really did. I even tried the strategy of remembering that the family in Little House in the Big Woods (a book I'd loved as a child) made and ate head cheese. But a few nibbles later, it was clear that this was just not for me. Instead, I tried to figure out a way to conceal the mostly-uneaten slice of lunch meat until I had left the store.
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