Lou's Blog

This isn’t a new piece, but I ran across it tonight while perusing some of my files and thought I’d share it.

The best thing my mother ever taught me was to view every experience in life as an adventure. Have a flat tire? It’s not bad luck, it’s an adventure! Meet someone famous? That’s an adventure. The only rule is that it be a new or exceptional experience, but not necessarily a pleasant one. One memorable adventure I had was in the realm of exotic cuisine. My wife and I visited our favorite sushi restaurant where the new chef was informed that we were regulars. As a welcome he honored us with a free serving of tako. “How nice,” I thought, imagining tako meant a slab of salmon in a hard-shell tortilla. No such luck. It turns out that tako is the Japanese word for octopus.

What comes to mind when you think of an octopus? Perhaps an eyeless, mouthless head surrounded by tentacles? If that’s the picture that shows up for you, then you know exactly what I saw resting before me on my small sushi plate. The whole octopus measured less than two inches, from tip of tentacle to top of head. It was reddish, presumably from whatever sauce the chef had applied. Or maybe this was a red-ink octopus and the chef had black-, blue-, and fuchsia-ink octopi hidden behind his bar. My wife was so appalled to see this creature on my plate that the corners of her mouth immediately turned down in a grimace normally reserved only for the most gruesome episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She draped sheets of pickled ginger over her own slimy helping so she wouldn’t have to look at it. I admit that I also did not find this thing appetizing. Yet I recognized that I had been thrust into an adventure, and I found myself unable to turn away. I couldn’t not participate simply because I thought I might hurl. On the contrary, those adventures that begin with the threat of hurling are invariably the most satisfying.

I assumed as with other sushi that the entire piece was to be eaten at once, that I should not remove and eat the head separately, or bite off one tentacle at a time. Thus, while my wife watched in horror, I grasped the creature in my chopsticks and in one quick motion placed it in my mouth. Let me tell you, it was disgusting. I did my best to not think about what I was doing, tried to forget that there was a head and brains and heart in this little body that was crunching in my jaws.

I had the strange feeling of role-reversal, that I had become the evil giant in some deep-sea fairy tale told to frighten octopus children into eating all their plankton. Here this innocent Lilliputian octopus had unwittingly and unwillingly become my meal. A point of clarification: the thing wasn’t alive when it was delivered to our table, though it looked as though it could slither away at any moment. There was no struggle beyond that which was deciding to put it in my mouth and further deciding to not spit it out (a decision I had to make again and again with each chew). My wife had little confidence in me; she was surprised that I didn’t immediately spew octopus parts all over the table. She should instead have been pleased that I didn’t decide to play with my food. I imagined the octopus was still alive and attempting escape, sticking its head out of my mouth and then its arms, and then leaping from side to side between my teeth so the outline of writhing tentacles could be seen through the bulging skin of my cheeks. I imagined widening my eyes in surprise, pretending to be attacked from within, standing up and making loud gurgling noises and then collapsing to the floor in a convulsive heap. It was a fabulous opportunity. Fortunately for her and for the other guests at the restaurant, I was too involved in the adventure of chewing and swallowing to play much with this particular morsel.

The experience wasn’t entirely negative. It didn’t taste so good that I would want to order another helping—ever, ever again—yet my personal pride-o-meter peaked in the moments after I swallowed and kept it down. I was later told tradition says eating such things brings one courage and stoutness of heart. This must be true; that night I conquered a fear I didn’t even know I had until it reared its tiny head. Fortunately, I happen to know there are a great many fears yet within me; there must be a great many adventures waiting.