FEUD—OR, SOMEONE’S IN THE KITSCH CHIN WITH DINNER

by Cynthia MacGregor

Most people eat three meals a day, except for black widow spiders, who eat three males a day. If your Aunt Edna sends you cookies, you might eat one mail a day. Not everybody calls their meals by the same names. Some people eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Others eat breakfast, dinner, and supper. Some people combine two meals and eat brunch, but no one I know eats dupper or linner.

Food is fun to eat and fun to cook, except for wry bread, which is always sort of sorry, and shellfish, who don’t share, even though certain kinds are shrimply delicious. Lobsters are also known as crusty shins, even though they don’t have any identifiable ankles (or aunts). They do have claws, but no flying reindeer. Crabs have bad dispositions. Clams are the silent type, even though the people who fish for them, clammers, are noisy. I oyster be ought to name all the fish in this category, but when I try, I usually forget scallops, which not only have no shell but also no hair, which is why the scallop is so visible.

I love eating certain kinds of fish with all my heart and sole, and apparently many of my neighbors agree, as fish are a strong drawing cod at many local restaurants. Some people eat fish because they’re so healthy and others just for the halibut. At the rate this nation is consuming seafood, if we don’t empty out the oceans in a few more years it’ll be a major mackerel. Some fish restaurants are very informal in decor, while in others you’re served with much pompano and circumstance.

Some fishermen fish off the dock, while others, in search of such delicacies as fish eggs, roe out to sea. When the fish see the boat coming, they get out of there in a hurry—salmon time and others not. Fish travel in schools, usually in a very orderly fashion, tuna row, but apparently they don’t learn much in these schools, as they still haven’t learned to avoid getting caught.

Although fish is delicious, my personal favorite food is chicken. Watching a hen run across a field is poultry in motion, but I’d rather see a chicken on my plate—upper or lower. Chickens have no cholesterol, hens they are very healthy to eat. Eggs have cholesterol, though, and I wonder eggsactly where that cholesterol goes when the egg becomes a chicken. I have enough chicken recipes in my recipe box to create an all-chicken cookbook—most of my other books have been for parents or kids, so if I wrote such a book, it would be a real pullet surprise.

The cattlemen have a real beef with folks who tell you not to eat red meat more than three times a week. Of course, they have a steak in getting you to consume more of their product.

There there is a very pig market for pork products. I ham a fan of well-prepared pork myself. A good cook knows about the danger that lurks in pork and how to overcome those little worms—the trick he knows is to cook it adequately.

Here is an assortment of odd facts—some of them very odd indeed—pertaining to food:
• It must rain a lot in Hungary—they sell a lot of goulashes.
• Most bakers have good manners because they are well bread.
• An arthritic cake master spends her day among bakin’ and aches.
• A considerate cook never peas in the carrots.
• Fish are great singers—they have the scales for it—but bakers always get stuck at the beginning of the scale—all they have is Dough.
• Baking soda is not found in the store’s beverage department!
• Swallow a little yeast when you go to bed at night and you’ll rise easily in the morning.
• If your electricity goes out, you still can power your fridge off the currants in the jelly. If you don’t have currant jelly, though, then you’re in a jam. If you have only damson jam, you’re plum out of luck.

Not everyone’s taste in foods is identical. Some people eat sweet breads, while others eat sweetbreads, and I have heard there are people who eat a food made from sheep’s stomachs, though I think that’s a lot of tripe. Pigs feet are popular with some folks, but I think swallowing them is a feat, all right. Some people are liver lovers, while others speak up in favor of eating tongue. The cow, unfortunately, can’t say anything about the matter. There are even people who are partial to a dish called “prairie oysters,” but I think that’s so much bull!

Some people like waffles, but others show more determination. Some folks like bagels for breakfast…if you want to be funny and eat a musical instrument, that’s your privilege, but I take breakfast more cereally than that. Horror movie buffs like their bagels with scream cheese, but the headbanger crowd prefers butt-her.

Some wag once pointed out that you’ll never starve in the Sahara because of the sand which is there, but I’d like to add that an insult comedian’s audience will also never starve—with all that ribbing, there are spare ribs for all. Similarly a failed stage show, even if the audiences stay away, at least provides food for its cast and crew—obviously the show is a real turkey. And if you’re hungry in your living room, just go to the sofa and eat the stuffing.