#1. Bittercorn: It tastes like it sounds and it sounds like it looks and I guess that means it tastes like it looks too. Bittercorn is the gnarliest little green pointy booger you ever did see. It hangs like it wants to be a fruit and perhaps that's what god should have put in the garden if he really wanted to teach Eve a lesson. Actually, the first bite wasn't so bad, the outside has a meaty vegetative texture and tastes much like the unrightfully but much maligned zucchini. The seeds, however, are another story. Their putrid taste leeks into everything that surrounds them, the rice, the sauce, the meat. I can see their plate compatriots running away in fear, but it is too late, all are infected. Genna and I make it through the first few bites with little hassel, and then it is only a teary-eyed race to the finish, a delicate balance of rice then rank, rank then rice with an eye always on having the rice finish last. I lose.
#2. Cherrapunjee tomato: Holy crap! Ok, so at first, to the unknowing eye, it looks like it could be any regular beefsteak. One is soon to discover, upon closer examination,that this gem shows not the slightest resemblance to its hide-bearing fish-inbred modern day "sibling". First of all, it's red. I mean this thing is actually, truly, really RED. It's not tinted orange-red over waxy watery nothingness labeled tomato #4171. It's that luscious red that makes you think Happy Birthday Mr. President. It's the type of red that says, "STOP now! Wait just a minute and take a bite of my ripe, toned, fleshy roundness and see what you think." So that is exactly what we did, and
then came the revelation. I mean, if John had come down and told me from his own mouth what the end of the end would be like I would have to say, "No, my dear friend, this is what the end of the end is." It has the sweetest juice with ever so slight of a tang that cascades over one's tongue like you imagine that waterfall does upon those Sports Illustrated models wearing painted on bikinis. It has succulent flesh that exudes the zingy essence of earth, rain and piquancy. It has a tender skin, supple yet slim, easy to sink one's teeth into with not the slightest bit of force. Dear John, of all the revelations, I like this one the best.#3 Pig parfait: It's kinda like parfait I decided. They cut it out as if they were removing a plug
from one of those enormous wheels of aging cheese, only layered, like parfait. So there it is, core to surface: pig. The top layer, pig skin really, is like that tasty granola coating or chocolate frosting they put on top of the custard layer for pure tactile enjoyment. Makes mouth happy. In this case, it's a little different. I mean here I am burrowing into what is still clearly identifiable as soggy pale swine epidermis to get to its doughy interior. This custard relative is a section of fat so thick I can virtually see the entire piece dividing itself into artery sized globules to float itself down through my veins and waddle its fatty way to each valve of my precious ventricles. There it will stick its insoluble plump rump roundly into my cardiac organ and just bide its time. So, if we're talking custard comparisons we are talking custard made with cream and egg yolks, none of that Yoplait CarbSmart fake emulsified bullshit. The next layer takes custard to a new level: marbling. This ruffled fatty fun is some other kind of pig pleasure, layered on like a baby dressed for snow storm arms so stuffed they point out at right angles from their sides. The fourth and final layer is the reason we all lead ourselves to believe that parfaits, and pig, are something of a health food. The berries tell us, "Sure, it's better than ice cream then, right?" and that little slab of white meat clinging tenaciously to its fatty friends say, "I'm the other white meat, remember?" Still, though the health stuff might all be bunk with both parfaits and pig, when it comes down to it delving into those strata with its myriad layers of texture and taste is all the pleasure of each tier taken to the exponential power of combining it with each additional tier: a piled pig perfection to be admired.
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