Culinary delights.

Incase you didn't get it from the title of this blog entry, I'm writing a book. It's about some of my experiences as a musician, both in the Drew Davis Band and elsewhere. For today, here's an excerpt. This takes place almost 10 years ago and relates to a tour I did in mainland China with several of my USC music school homeys. This excerpt is self-explanatory. Hope you like it.

We were in a town called Kunming in the Southern Chinese province of Yunnan. The local promoters had taken us out to lunch and had been plying us with beer after beer. After catching a bit of a buzz, they ordered a plate of large sea snails. Now, I’ve eaten Escargot, Abalone, and Conch, but this was somehow different. These sea snails were cooked in their shells that were about four inches long and had a typical swirled, conical shape. They appeared to have been steamed or something. The promoter guys dug in and each ate a couple of the snails. No one in our group showed much interest, not even the models! But I had been acting my typical fun-loving self and had been going beer- for- beer with the locals. They wanted me to try a snail but I was still hesitant. So they ordered some very strong rice wine and we did a couple of shots. I was nicely toasted at this point, so when they brought up the snail again I thought, “What the hell? You only live once. When’s the next time I’ll be in China?” and I went for it. You know those painful memories that you block out? Like breaking a leg or something. You know it happened, but your memory of the moment is somehow a little fuzzy, you can’t quite remember exactly how the pain felt. Well, this wasn’t like that at all. I remember biting into the snail with such vivid detail that it still turns my stomach to think about it. The entire table was watching me as I lifted the shell to my mouth. The foot of the snail (the part that sticks out of the shell) looked to be well cooked and I hoped that it might be like eating a large piece of Calamari. As I attempted to sink my teeth into what can only be described as a piece of smelly, oceanic tire rubber, my gag reflex kicked in. The entire table was watching, however, so I mustered all the intestinal fortitude that I could and I continued to try to eat this snail. Biting through the foot of the snail was fast becoming untenable; it was so tough and chewy. So, I took the next step and using my teeth pulled the entire snail out of it’s shell and into my mouth. Surprise! Although the foot of the snail was indeed cooked through, the rest of the snail was as raw as if it had been lifted that very moment from the depths of the sea. However, with a mouthful of snail and an entire table watching there was no turning back. I chawed my way through the snail until the moment of swallowing came. I took a shot at swallowing. My esophagus shot back and the snail didn’t go anywhere. I tried again, and again the snail didn’t move. On my third attempt to swallow the snail I actually got part of it to start sliding down toward my stomach and then mercifully the rest of it followed without further incident. I burped, the table cheered and that day, in my own small way, to the locals I became a culinary hero.