Me Gusta

Denn du bist was du isst – Mein Teil, Rammstein

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Mouth

When you contemplate eating a mouth, it’s difficult to define exactly what you would be eating. 

Is it actually the lips?  The tongue?  At what point does the back of the mouth become the throat?  It makes me wonder whether when you’re eating a mouth, you’re actually eating an absence.  A void, if you will.

Yes, of course, a mouth has form and expression.  The knowing smile.  The tongue between lips, signalling anticipation or desire.  The truth of the matter is, all flesh goes down the same way.  A little struggle, a little retch and then swallow.  Been, and gone.

Toes

Toes present a particular problem. 1. They’re gross. 2. They’re gross. 3. They’re pretty, damned gross.  No matter - the dedicated gourmand must power on through and chow on the tootsies. 

They’re a little crunchy, a little… je ne sais quoi.   Gamey, possibly.  I’ve always thought that marmalade may help their passage – spread thick across the nails, with lashings of butter.  Marmalade or jam for toes, that’s the thing.  Toe jam.

Brain

Sorry to go all Hannibal Lecter-y on you, but I often match body parts to best accompaniment wines.  I don’t know – a kidney and a fruity, French red.  Ears and Viognier.  But the brain in that respect defeats me. 

By all normal expectations, you’d think of putting something classy on the table to go with the centre of all that we are; but to my way of thinking, it just doesn’t seem right.  For me, the brain suggests Blue Nun, cheap and cheerful, circa 1983.

Heart

Can you hope to eat a heart when you don’t have one yourself?  Or at least, when all you have is a barely functioning one.   Stone cold, black cold, there’d be no spices that could be added to my heart (even if you could pry it from my chest) to warm it or give it the necessary whoosh of flavour.

Still, I think of everyone else’s; warm, rare and dribbling, and I salivate on my serviette.

Eyes

People say the eyes are the windows to the soul and certainly, I’ve looked into many eyes in my time and viewed instantly the person behind them.  But me, I see them more as a rather fiddly cooking ingredient. 

There’s a danger they stay too jelly-like (and no-one likes jelly past the age of six), or it’s very easy to overdo them. What you have to do is take your time and prepare them well.  Get the oil hot, but not so hot you sear them.

I may be staring into your eyes even as we speak, but I’m imagining them in my big, red frying pan, looking up at me from amongst the garlic, ginger and onions.

Greggs

The young kid behind the counter in the bakery flinches when I grin at him.  Maybe I need to practise my facial expression because I’m not sure there’s enough distinction between my grin and my snarl.  In any case, he’s clocked me.  He watches me wiping the crumbs from my moustache, knowing that if it’s the gingerbread man this time, it’ll be the real thing next. Yum. Yum.

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