Naturally, this called for going out and sharing epic food: BBQ.
This place is very close to my home by bus. We had to make a reservation, since it was Saturday, but once we were all there and inside, it was awesome. Each little dining area was on a raised platform with space under the table for your feet, and you took off your shoes before sitting down. We had a six-person table with two grills, one for each half of the table. The grill was literally a metal bowl with live coals in it and a grate on top. For NT$500 each, we were allowed to keep ordering as much raw food as we wanted to cook: beef, pork, seafood, vegetables, etc. We were also given a soup , which sat on a little gas burner between the two grills. Everyone got a little bowl and a shallow dish filled with sauce.
Once we sat down, we had two hours to eat as much as we could. We got down to business immediately.
Yes. That's bacon.
The white ones are abalone, I believe. I ate one, it was yummy but chewy.
It was great. We talked, we laughed, we ate lots of good food. I ordered pineapple cream puffs at one point that disappeared among us in seconds, and I saw whole fish half a foot long being cooked on the grill on the other half of the table. The grill that Angie (one of the TAs, I've changed her name here) and I dominated mostly ended up with brightly colored food, like whole shrimp (they started out grey and turned a scorching orange), abalone, and strips of meat. The other grill was covered in piles of food all turning crisp and brown, usually with one of the whole fish's tail sticking out on one side, with little flames licking through the trage. Angie and I had beauty-contest food, while our dinner companions had hardcore grilling action goin' on. :) BBQ is serious business!
Which brings me to the chicken hearts.
I knew what they were as soon as Angie put them on. Angie is stupendous; she's already traveled and worked abroad, she's fluent in English, and she is incredibly adventurous. She encouraged me to try a chicken heart, and I did. I couldn't help making faces while I ate it, which Angie and the other two girls thought was hilarious (and it totally was). Angie also had me eat chicken with soft bone in it (edible and safe, otherwise they wouldn't be serving it) and a piece of abalone. These are all things that I was hesitant to try, and although all three were exceedingly weird in texture, they weren't at all revolting in taste. The abalones were chewy, but tasted like regular white fish, which I like. The chicken heart tasted like chicken. The chicken bite with bone was a little like eating rubber, because I had to work to chew it up, but it wasn't bad.
Later that evening, after we'd all gone home, I thought about how I'd been reluctant to try the odd food, which hadn't actually been odd at all--just things I wasn't used to. They weren't even in the realm of eating bugs or domestic animals I'm more used to seeing as pets (for example, there are places in the world where guinea pigs are food, not companions)--in other words, foods way way outside my realm of experience or comfort. I eat chicken all the time in America, just not the hearts, and for some reason the very idea of putting an animal's heart in my mouth, chewing it up, and swallowing it grossed me out a little.
So tonight I bought some with my meal, because I think it's crazy for my brain to be influencing my opinion of perfectly edible food. I don't want my own hangups about what should be eaten get in the way of what I eat. I'm sure the aversion to eating unfamiliar or "odd" foods outside my culinary experience is an important survival trait, only eating what I've been taught to by my culture. But what if, given time and enough consumption, I end up liking chicken hearts? (My stomach churned a little at that, so I think I've a while to go.) For example, tofu is now a major part of my life. I eat it without thought. If you tell me something is tofu, I trust it. Everything from the taste to the texture makes sense to my palette. Experience, I think, is the key: if you have enough experience with something, be it a culture or a food or a type of person (race, gender, ethnicity, fashion sense, religious beliefs, etc.) you then know what to expect. Knowing what to expect is comforting. Too many surprises can be stressful, and not knowing what will happen if you eat a food or do something that's "normal" to you in a foreign culture or say something to a type of person you're not familiar with could have unexpected consequences, and without enough experience, you have no idea what those consequences might be.
Getting out of your comfort zone can be tough. I'm sure some people are better at it than others. I like taking the time to mull things over before deciding what I think. I need time to think, process, and absorb. I prefer to think something over for a while before going ahead and trying it. But sometimes, such as with the chicken hearts, it just needs to be accomplished right when the opportunity comes up, and not later when you "feel like it," because who knows when that will be? I'm glad Angie was there to push me into eating chicken hearts, and abalone, and chicken with cooked bone ("Chew, chew, chew!") because I'll remember it then next time I'm presented with the opportunity to try something new, and I'll be much better equipped to let go of my reservations and eat the proverbial chicken heart.
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