entirely safe and fun

The German word for “lung” is “Lunge.” It’s feminine, and pluralizes to “die Lungen.” I learned this not in the “Visiting the Doctor” chapter of my German textbook, but in the “Food and Drink” chapter. Unaccountably, I was a little disturbed by this, despite the fact I was living in Lancaster, PA, the scrapple capital of the United States. At least when you’re being served Lungen you know what part of the animal you’re getting, right? Better the devil you know. EDIT: Ian reminded me of the “Scrapple” ad from the funny but quickly-forgotten Xbox game Whacked! I found a YTMND using the ad jingle and graphics from the game. “Grind up a pig, put it in a can, scrapple!”

Food devils… A few years later, while living in Pittsburgh, I received a can of Potted Meat Food Product as a birthday present. There was some discussion about the ingredients as I read them out loud. First, I misread “mechanically separated chicken,” printed right above the nigh-Epimenidean “partially defatted cooked beef fatty tissue,” as “catastrophically separated chicken” (some beer may have been drunk in the hours leading up to this). We speculated about the techniques used to catastrophically separate chicken - clearly it would have to involve explosives - and then about the mechanism used even to mechanically separate chicken. We were thinking Garden Weasel, which is significantly more appetizing than the actual answer (”a paste-like poultry product produced by forcing crushed bone and tissue through a sieve or similar device to separate bone from tissue”). Once discussion of chicken separation and the nature of PDCBFT had subsided, I continued to read the off the list. “…Water, partially defatted cooked pork fatty tissue, salt. Less than 2 percent: mustard, natural flavorings, demons, dried garlic, dextrose, sodium erythorbate, sodium nitrite.” About ten seconds later, one of my friends grabbed the can. “No way are there demons in that. Let me see!”

I donated the can to a food bank when I moved to California about five years later. It was a lose-lose situation; I’d feel guilty throwing it away, and I’d feel guilty about feeding it to someone. But one great thing about America is that I have an assurance from the market that someone eats the stuff - its very existence on supermarket shelves certifies it. Hopefully, it made someone else happy over the course of its unnaturally prolonged life, and did so in its intended role as food, or at least as a food product.

My woolgatherings, plus the possibility I entertained today of a taco with lengua at Taqueria La Bamba here in Mountain View - I went with pupusas instead - led me to browse through food articles on Wikipedia, which reminded me, finally, of this classic jeu d’esprit/vandalization:

Baby food

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Revision as of 22:45, 10 November 2005; view current revision ← Older revision | Newer revision →

For babies as food, see cannibalism.