Exotic meat me in St. Louis

I have to admit it, we are a family of meat eaters. Actually we don’t consume animal flesh any more or less than other kinds of food but the point is we DON’T exclude the stuff. Yes, it takes work to keep up with the caloric load required to write a blog, so pretty much I am an equal opportunity eater. Yeah you guessed it , as a famous lawyer once said (almost) about my big mouth … “if the food fits you must INGEST”!

So keeping that ‘craw-motto’ in mind, one of our more favorite things to do when we wander far off to exotic places, like East St. Louis, is try different and interesting foods. All kidding aside, there is a little place there that a lot of downtown business folks flock to for crispy pig snout sandwiches in BBQ sauce. I have never seen them but I guess I could eat almost ANYTHING if it has enough bar-b-que sauce on it?

My daughter has always seemed to have inherited my ability to consume all types of foods. When she was very young, her favorite thing was to munch lemon wedges that are served with water. My family would wince as she’d suck the things dry with nary a shutter and no sugar. It also took awhile to train her to stop eating roasted peanuts, SHELL AND ALL, like they were candy. It was weird to watch and the incessant crunching disturbed the other inebriated patrons at my favorite pub.

All of us here have eaten elk, reindeer, and turkey sausage. Honestly once you mix in all of the same spices and smoke the stuff, like beef jerky and sticks, it all tastes good and is very edible even for those with less adventuresome palettes. We’ve eaten all the normal meats but less popular in Western cultures, like duck, lamb, Ostrich, Frog Legs, Gator, Fish Cheeks, eel etc. My Uncle during the Marines survivalist training, had to capture and eat raw monkey rump which when skinned looks a little too human baby-like for my taste. To this day, he says it did not affect him, but I swear I’ve caught him, MORE THAN ONCE, eating a banana and clanging little finger cymbals together over and over again.

Despite the disgust that many might feel, I too would truly like to sample dog, tiger, snake, and yes even monkey as long as they were grilled up with maybe some onion, bell pepper and a side of Chianti and yes - you know you want to say it … (ffffaaavaaaa beansss). Feel free to provide your own ‘Silence of the Lambs’ succulent sound effect as long as you get the point - I’ll try any exotic meat. The only thing is, I hope that I do not run into some BIGGER animal who feels the same way – now that is a concept I just cannot get my head around?