Sunday 3 June 2007

“When a Foot is not a Foot” - 19 May 2007

Today I went to a little village out side of Tehran called Abyane. On the way there were stopped to have ‘kale poche’ for breakfast (literally head and foot of a lamb). I had had this dish before on the very first day I came to Iran two years ago as a vegetarian waiting for an excuse to liberate myself. So I thought I was prepared…but unfortunately they had almost sold out and so all they had left was the poche – the feet.

But, mustering all the strength I had, I thought 'I have eaten the eye, the jaw, and the brain before: this cant be too bad, a little bbqed lamb shank, nice and crispy'

...Not quite.

The foot is from the knee down, so includes the shin area. The shin bone is removed and then the floppy leg is cooked very slowly in a broth. So no crispiness, no bone to munch on - just this tube of skin and squishy sinew with a little cleft foot at the end and a few ankle bones.

I just looked at it and searched and searched for a word to describe what I saw. But no matter how hard I thought only one word came to mind: ‘flaccid’.

So I took out the ankle bones, wrapped the little flaccid foot into a sheath of hot bread, poured on some lemon juice and tried to empty my mind and enter the realm of zen as I munched away on this squishy little sanger.

But unfortunately all I could think about was these little lambs running around on their little cleft penis feet! They looked so cute and fluffy. They kept falling over at first as they tried to stand on their unresponsive limbs, but the more they tried to run on their four flaccids, the stiffer their little footsies got...

Did I mention we were eating in Qom, possibly the most religious city in Iran.

I am going straight to hell.

RT x

No comments: