Friday, May 06, 2005

What not to eat

Five friends sit on the patio at Amadeu's, a Portuguese restaurant in Kensington Market. While Naomi and Deb are at the dollar store buying small, brightly coloured birthday gifts that vibrate with fine, third-world craftsmanship, the waitress brings out a small plate. The plate is resplendent with a watery orange-brown sauce. In the sauce are numerous bite-sized pieces of what appears to be a meat or meat by-product. After a consultation with the waitress, in which Kennedy's Portuguese fails to provide an answer, further consultation between the waitress and various semi-bilingual patrons inside ensues. Eventually, the mystery food is identified as chicken giblets. Tom, Donna and Kennedy smile politely and express their gratitude. Soon after, Deb and Naomi return from their excursion.

Naomi: What are those?

Kennedy: (confidently, despite being unable to translate the word earlier and knowing full well that Naomi will not likely understand Portuguese) Moellas.

Naomi: (not understanding Portuguese) What?

Donna: (facillitating) Chicken giblets.

Naomi: (scrunching her nose) Giblets? Back home, you buy a chicken and inside is a bag full of giblets. You pull out the bag and feed it to the cat. The giblets, not the bag.

Deb: (matter-of-factly) So it's cat food.

Kennedy: (full of ethnic angst) If the cat's not interested, you could always feed them to a Portuguese person. Cow tongue, pig snout, they eat everything. They're like the Inuit, they use it all. Hey, we can't build a house or make a shirt with this...

Deb: ...so let's eat it.

Kennedy: Exactly.

Tom: (recalling and relating a tale) We had this German roommate once. He cooked kidney one day and the whole house smelled of piss.

Donna: (grimacing) That's not right.

Tom: (hypnotically, as if recalling a horrible accident scene or painful chilhood trauma) He had spent a long time in the kitchen cleaning the kidney, too. To wash away the pee.

Deb: (concisely) Anything you need to wash the pee from is something you shouldn't be eating.

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