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I feel compelled to answer another TITMT question from Janet: “What’s the strangest food(s) you’ve ever eaten?”

And by compelled I mean that I already had a partially-written post nearly on topic [which, coincidentally is also how I had all the Lily Tomlin stuff for the last one of these I did] and since I’m scratching around for posts anyway this is as good a time as any for this one, not that I want to ramble on or anything….

But first, here’s a quick story about something I did not eat. My first trip outside the U.S. was to Costa Rica [a beautiful and friendly country and I highly recommend you go there]. I know only a very little Spanish. [The basics, you know: Cerveza, Baño, ¿Tiene una hermana?] We relied on a phrase book and the English skills and good graces of our hosts to muddle our way through. One day we were sitting in a small restaurant and I was reading the menu posted on the wall. I saw the word “Perro” and thought, “I know that word! ‘Perro’ is ‘dog’. I have dos perro at home. Holy crap, do they really serve dog here?” Then I noticed that it was followed by another word that I recognized, “Caliente” — hot. Whew!

When I was a teenager, I could eat anything. And I pretty much ate everything. [This came back to bite me, so to speak, when my metabolism slowed down and my eating habits didn't....] After dinner, clearing the table usually meant that I would eat anything that was still left. I just got taller and stayed skinny as a rail. One night I was “clearing” the table, grazing. I don’t remember what the main course was that night. In fact I remember only two specific things that were on the table because I have been allowed to forget. We had salad and we had some kind of meat [which was all gone] with gravy. I picked at scraps of lettuce while clearing away the plates and at one point I grabbed a piece of lettuce and dipped it on the gravy and popped it on my mouth. To my teenage mind [to be honest, also to my now middle-aged mind, but that's not necessarily relevant] I figured it all goes to the same place anyway. I had just had a meal that included those two items, just not in immediate proximity to each other.

My father did not [does not] share my viewpoint. For years [decades!] afterward, whenever that topic of odd foods comes up — like my little hot dog story from Costa Rica or my taste for Asian foods or trying chocolate-covered insects or reindeer stew or whatever — he says, “Well anybody that would eat gravy on lettuce would ANYthing!” [But he eats scrapple and I won't.]

I did eat gravy on lettuce. Once. Thirty-some years ago. And apparently, that is the strangest food I have ever eaten.