More to food than meets the eye

I know the real reason you read this column is for answers to the big questions. Like, "What exactly is tapioca?"

After fetching my beautiful bride a cup of the sweet but inconsistently textured pudding from a local Asian restaurant's buffet. I asked her that question and she didn't give me a real good answer. She thought it some kind of noodle or pasta or maybe a grain.

Actually, tapioca is a starch made from the roots of the cassava plant.

It is said the Mayans first figured out how to extract the tapioca portion from the poison portion, which they used to tip darts and other weapons.

So maybe the Mayans didn't perfect the calendar because they figured sooner or later a bad batch of tapioca would kill us all off.

Another food in that "what the heck is it" category is tofu. It is like gelatin but not usually sweet. I'm not sure I like having it in my mouth. It doesn't taste bad, in fact it doesn't have much taste.

It just reminds me a little too much of a big old hunk of fat.

My research tells me it is actually something of a soybean cheese. Nope, still don't like it, I'll sooner eat couscous.

Couscous is a dish you don't see on American tables just every night but I do like it and its name is also a lot of fun to say for some reason.

Head cheese is pretty interesting to look at in the meat case at a deli or butcher shop but I've never been brave enough to tell the butcher, "slice and wrap up a pound of that head cheese for me." The "delicacy" is actually a meat jelly made from parts of the head of a calf or pig. I'll take my slice from the other end of the hog, thank you.

Even so, put a plate of calf fries (Rocky Mountain oysters) in front of me and I wouldn't hesitate.

Call me strange, call me particular but don't call me to the table if dog meat is on the menu — sorry Mr. President.

I might take a taste of Mr. Ed but I would probably turn down caviar if you offered.

Wild fowl, fish and game of all types is great, and healthy for you too, but vegemite is bad — real bad.

I've been duped three times by two different Aussies into trying this national delicacy from down under but never again — not even on tofu with wasabi sauce on the side.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at: [email protected]