Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.
What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever have eaten? I’ve got to admit, there are few things that I’ve heard of people eating that I haven’t idly nibbled. I grew up in the Midwest, and when I went to the occasional wild game feed at Mackey’s Bar in my home town, I routinely ate things like possum and raccoon. My theory has always been that if other people can eat something, I can, too. Anything. I’ve eaten snake and goat. I ate a nightcrawler once when I was a kid. If it had been clean, I might have even chewed it. I’ve eaten hamburgers that smelled funny before I (washed and) cooked them. I’ve eaten brain tacos. I’ve eaten several types of testicles (and no, that’s not a confession).
There are only a few exceptions that come to mind. I’ve read that rat is a delicacy in certain locales. I’d eat it in the proper restaurant. I’ve heard dog’s a common meat in some parts of the world; I haven’t been there. Pigeon’s another one, why shouldn’t those air rats be just as tasty as quail? Horsemeat, wouldn’t hesitate. I’m mean, I have truly few scruples when it comes to sustenance or even plain old curiosity.
I was a restaurant reviewer for three, maybe three and a half years. The two worst things ever served to me were cubes of fried fat that were supposed to be steak and a machine screw with my frog legs.
So I’ve got to ask you: how thin do you think I’d have gotten if I’d been stuck in the snow with a certain party back in 1847?
At any rate, it’s easy to make less-than-tasteful jokes about the Donner tragedy. The reason we laugh nervously when we hear them is because most of us know that we’d do some pretty distasteful things if we were faced with a choice between life and death.
RTV No. 2: People like Hitler get elected when nobody votes against them.