For dinner today I decided to make some more barbecue chicken. I had an extra piece of chicken defrosted from yesterday and I couldn't let it go to waste. In order to have a more balanced meal, and to avoid having the same main course two days in a row, I prepared my chicken into a sandwich with 12-grain bread.
The chicken was baking in the oven. I figured this would be a good time to analyze and open the can. First, analyzation.
It was a beautiful can with an easy-open top. Can I say that a can is beautiful? Since I am the owner of this can, am I allowed to say that I have a beautiful can?
Yes. Yes I am.
Note: I hope that every time I say "can" in this blog, that you don't think of anything except for my tin can.
Anyway. I started looking at my can in detail; looking for clues. Imprinted on the bottom of my can was the following:
10 2014 ME21
Perfect. I could tell that this can would expire in October, 2014. Furthermore, from the text "ME" I could tell that this can was imported from the great state of Maine. ME is the two-letter postal code for Maine. The "21" had to signify that this can contained 21 of something.
Fact: Maine is known for their lobster.
Obviously this can had to be filled with 21 pieces of lobster pre-cooked lobster meat. I shook the can. It sounded just like I'd imagine canned lobster meat to sound. Lobster is delicious, so I was very excited. I had to open the can as soon as possible.
It was white. It smelled kind of fishy. Could this be…? It can't be…
It wasn't.
It was something very different. Actually… I had no idea what this was. I just knew that it was not anything close to lobster. It almost looks like stalks of some vegetable that I've never encountered in my life.
I was frightened.
How do you prepare a vegetable that you've never seen before? How do you prepare a vegetable that might not even be a vegetable?
You boil it.
You boil it dead.
So that's what I did. I boiled the mystery stalks while my chicken baked in the oven. While the unknown food was boiling I tried to take a bite.
Apparently it didn't like that.
I can't really explain what happened. It squished, fell apart, and somehow stayed together, all at the same time. I basically failed at biting this white stringy "vegetable." The texture was unlike anything I've ever experienced in my mouth.
After a failed biting attempt, I decided to let it boil until the chicken was finished. The sandwich was prepared, and I grabbed exactly two of the sticks and put them on my plate. I grabbed a knife to cut this unknown substance into pieces. Apparently my incisors were inadequate to do the job.
It was not good. It was not entirely bad. It had a slightly-sour taste, and a very strange after-taste.
I consumed half of the can. No more. No less.
Later, Jake told me that this strange food was called "heart of palm." I still don't know what that means. Perhaps I'll look it up.
--John D.
1 comment:
Interesting. It looks like a dish that I used to eat in Papua New Guinea. It was basically an undeveloped reed. the name escapes me right now, but it was not a favorite of mine
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