Mudman in earth cafeteria,
I eat aardwolf. I eat ant bear.
I eat mimosa, platypus, ermine.
“White meat is tasteless, dark meat stinks.”
(The other white meat is pork, triple X.)
Rice people vs. bread people.
White bread vs. wheat bread.
White rice vs. brown rice.
Manhattan vs. New England.
Kosher sub-gum vs. knuckle kabob.
“What is patriotism but love of the foods one had as a child?”*
To eat stinky food
is a sign of savagery, humility,
identification with the earth.
“It was believed that after cleaning, tripe still contained ten percent
excrement which was therefore eaten with the rest of the meal.”**
Today I’ ll eat Colby cheese.
Tomorrow I’ ll eat sparrows.
Chew bones, suck fat,
bite heads off, gnaw on a broken wing.
Anise-flavored beef soup smells like sweat.
A large sweaty head bent over
a large bowl of sweat soup.
A Pekinese is ideal, will feed six,
but an unscrupulous butcher
will fudge a German sheperd,
chopping it up to look like a Pekinese.
Toothless man sucking
a pureed porterhouse steak
with a straw.
Parboiled placenta.
To skewer and burn meat is barbaric.
To boil, requiring a vessel, is a step up.
To microwave.
People who eat phalli, hot dogs, kielbasas
vs. people who eat balls.
To eat with a three-pronged spear and a knife.
To eat with two wooden sticks.
To eat with the hands.
Boiling vs. broiling.
To snack on a tub of roasted grasshoppers at the movies.
* Lin Yutang
** Mikhail Bakhtin