h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I had alligator for a starter once when having dinner in New Orleans. Didn't like it much though, it tasted most like raw perch. Raw perch in a badly spiced tomato sauce... No thanks.

I haven't eaten alligator, either. Or rattlesnake or iguana. All three have been offered at one time or another. I do like crayfish, which is another item some folks find disgusting.

Dimitri, how long did you live in Memphis? Long enough to acquire a taste for cole slaw on your BBQ sandwiches? Please tell me you don't have little Graceland souvenir lying about.

I once took the wrong exit out of Memphis and was so tired that I didn't realize where I was until I started seeing the outskirts of Little Rock. People shouldn't drive when they're that tired. It definitely taught me a lesson.

If you slept all the way to Little Rock, Hypatia, you must have been tired. You must have totally missed West Memphis.

I lived in Memphis until I was 11. Then we moved to Chicago for a year - we kids thought we were leaving the country, and were disappointed that the money and stamps were the same. Of course, those were the only things that *were* the same. We had become refugees, but didn't know it. To this day, quite unfairly, I hate Chicago with a passion. My gratitude to Pittsburgh for being so wonderful after that knows no bounds.

We didn't worship Elvis back then, for two reasons. Elvis was still alive, and everybody knew he was just this singing truck driver from Tupelo. Two, my dad had the same barber as Johnny Cash - in other words, Sun Records was just this hole-in-the-wall recording studio whose "stars" mingled with the general population.

What we did was watch local television, which showed country music people like Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton on Saturday evenings. Sponsored by outfits like Martha White Self-Rising Flour (with "Hotrize").

Memphis barbecue is delicious. Me, I like the cole slaw on the side. The best barbecue was made by Mayor Loeb's brother. The Loebs were Jewish, but apparently did not keep kosher. I don't know what the rabbi thought of all those little fast food places with piggies on them. Next door to Loeb's dry cleaners, of course.

But then, Loewenstein's department store (pronounced "LOH-when-steen") did the big Christmas show. You might say we were all kind of eclectic...

Now, I have dissected a crawfish in school, and wouldn't touch that on a dinner plate. But my mom was from the Delta, and she'd eat all sorts of things my mountaineer dad thought was disgusting - frog's legs, possum, etc. My dad said you'd have to be starving to eat a possum, but my mom said as a kid she once took one her dad caught to the school principal (a family friend) - in a tow sack. My mom was fearless, the possum was alive at the time and she was a second-grader.

Yes, Mala - they were too dumb to move out of the swamp. What saved them was apple trees. Cider disinfected the swamp water.

Oddly, rattlesnake does sorta taste like chicken, it was certainly a lot less game tasting then bear. I had an uncle who was a hunter. I don´t think I would have liked being Davy Crockett´s family---they seemed to have bear all the time!

Loewenstein, eh?

Reminds me of when Kermit the Frog claimed somebody once wrote an opera about frogs

I'll bite. Did someone once write an opera about frogs?

All I know is the croaking chorus from Aristophanes.

Brekkekek, brekkekek, koax, koax...

Lohengrin

I did say in advance, remember?