"Like What You Like"

In relation to food, if you like what you like, what's wrong with that?

Outside of foods and practices that harm you or your family, why can't we like what we like?

If "food snobbery" has its way with all of us, we will all be consuming only that which others say is really good, or good for us, or even socially acceptable.

Were you raised with any food "oddities," foods that elicit the most winsome of memories for you, but others visibly cringe at? Often dishes like this are related to our ethnicity; they are connective to our cultures and families--they represent the best of what we knew as children.

In the midst of trying to relate the beauty of a revered food tradition, little is more dismaying than having it trounced upon and denigrated by someone who just doesn't "get it." Ten to one, this person has a precious food tradition, too. What makes his or her recipe fabulous, and yours just plain weird?

Much has to do with what we were raised with, and much has to do with how open we are to trying other people's ideas of what good eating is.

I'm willing as a baby is to taste new offerings. A bit hesitant, but mostly game to begin with. Unlike a baby, too much information might influence my taste buds. If I know that certain body parts (sometimes referred to as offal) account for a certain flavor in a meat dish, I'm affected. Why a chunk of beef roast has more "social acceptability" to me than a pile of beef brains or a pig snout seems obvious to me. But really? After all, that beef roast very well came from the cow's behind, so how classy is that?

I'd like all people to understand the appeal of "menudo," and not insult me with derision of it. In a Mexican household, this main-dish soup is practically sacred. "Menudo por los crudos" essentially translates  to "Menudo for the hungover" but you don't have to be a drinker to love it. "Crudos" is pronounced, with a rolled r,"crew-dose," not crud-os which is ironically probably more accurate; it helps rid the body of that cruddy hangover feeling.

People make big pots of menudo on Saturday evening, and dive into it after mass on Sunday morning. One (who has indulged) drags one's self out of bed to attend church for the cleansing effect of religion, then to home for the cleansing effect of this cultural mainstay. Good menudo is bold and bolstering, spicy and richly flecked with fresh garnishes like chopped crunchy onion, cilantro leaves, and a dried herb blend of oregano and crushed red pepper. It is always laced heavily with squeezed lemon for tang, and all of this put together gets the pores flowing. All is right with a bowl of menudo when it makes you sweat--and sweat as we know, does detoxify.

Menudo may be touted as a toxin releaser and a good cure for a hangover, but most everyone who enjoys it enjoys it for the flavor.

What makes for the flavor? Admittedly, it's offal--kind of awful offal: tripe, if you must know. The same word used synonymously with garbage, trash, refuse.  To thicken the plot further (oh, I mean the soup) a soup "bone" is added.

This doesn't sound as bad as a pig snout, does it? Alas, the truth is it's a pig's hoof, or foot, and that sadly DOES sound as bad.

But a pig's foot it must be. Not too long ago I trekked to an authentic Mexican market for menudo fixings, something I hadn't made in many years. In Wisconsin, I have become far removed from the idea of pig's feet in my soup, so I asked the friendly butcher if good old beef soup bones wouldn't do as well.

You'd have thought I asked him if I could made a burrito out of Wonder bread. No, Lady, he smiled. It's always been a pig's foot and always will be a pig's foot, if you want true menudo.

So menudo as I've always known it is comfortable for me, but I sense your skepticism. I get it. I decline many "foreign" dishes myself, especially when too much information is given. But I like what I like, and you should with ease like what YOU like.

"Foraged foods" are not foreign to any of us because they are a part of our collective ancestry. It's how the earliest life cycles were sustained and it's a history that belongs to all of us. Time and the ages have removed us from the constancy of need to forage, but many people are doing it now more from enjoyment than real need.

Foraging doesn't honestly appeal to me, but those who love it should love it openly. A friend of mine so successfully owns the tradition that he's become an expert at it. He has been sought out by a publishing house and of late has been making the rounds to lend publicity to his wonderful book, "Trout Caviar." He is innovative with his ways of preparing wild foods, and fearless even about his "accidents." Some of his finest moments come from things he didn't intend.

I once enjoyed a foraging jaunt with a friend who has always used the wild to complement her cooking. She explained that a creek-bank near her home harbored fresh watercress, and we were going to have a salad from that. I remember my mother adding watercress to our salads, and&n;the thought of experiencing that picquant freshness again just had me excited no end.

She plucked a bunch of the found greens, and we went home to assemble the meal. As we talked and worked, she mentioned her process of ridding the greens of "critters." The plates we were eventually presented with were beautiful, and her grilled salmon divine. Still,  with every approach of my fork to the salad, I was pretty sure what should have been cracked peppercorns was not--too much squirming going on there.

I suspect "critters" are part and parcel of foraging. Anyone who practices it  might only suffer amusement at those who would be bothered by these little natural "details."

"Live and let Live," should be practiced when we think about the foods we enjoy the most. I have a feeling my friend, Brett Laidlaw (who wrote "Trout Caviar") would not condemn my menudo, would even relish it, but the both of us (I am sure?) frown upon macaroni and cheese that requires orange powder for its finished state.

But isn't orange-powdered mac 'n cheese considered an American mainstay in many homes? Is my food snobbery about this as wrong as someone's else's ripping on my menudo or his foraged delicacies?

Live and let live....and if we want to LIVE well, enjoy it all in moderation.

Final comment on this: Just saw a Food Network episode where Guy Fieri was tasting someone's enchiladas topped with barbeque sauce. Some things are just WRONG and this would be one.

Pictured: Classic red sauce enchiladas....haven't made menudo lately.