North Carolina Oysters, or as we used to say in Louisiana, Suck the Head and Eat the Tail

Well, I've probably seen it all now. My friend Leslie and I really like this restaurant in downtown Asheville called Limones. They serve old time country Mexican food, and just about the best scallops in town. There's a waiter there who knows us by name, and is always suggesting new restaurants around town that we should try, and what we should order at the new place. Recently he suggested a place and their "Sweet Breads". I guess if you're a fan of Hannibal Lector movies, you know that means brains (or technically, glands in the brains). Now I'm just not going there. But my friend Leslie seems to be a woman up for adventure, and she was willing to give it a try.

Fortunately for me, she gave them a try when I was not with her. Because while I'm willing to be fairly adventurous when it comes to food, I have some bone crunching memories from childhood. And I do mean bone crunching. I grew up in New Orleans, where people love to eat crawfish. And it's a big joke around there, that you "suck the head and eat the tail". I never could stomach sucking out the head content of a crawfish. I did try it a few times, but sexual innuendo aside, it just don't taste good.

But back to the bone crunching. My momma, bless her heart, loves to crack open chicken bones and suck out the marrow. She's done this as long as I've known her. At some point, I think around age 13, I realized this was really disgusting to me, and I promptly announced that I was becoming a vegetarian. This actually lasted for quite a long time, until I realized that I really missed eating seafood, and so it was back to crawfish, and shrimp, and other creatures of the sea.

But not brains. And despite my friend Leslie's many charming features, I just don't get it. So when we went to Limone's 2 nights ago, she and our waiter friend had a nice conversation about "Sweet breads". And by the way, did you know that our local organic grocery store carries sweet breads now, so you can have them any time you want. And they also carry tongue and North Carolina oysters. Do you have any idea what those are? Talk about sexual innuendos!