My grandson introduced me to Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern on the Travel Channel and I have found my horizons expanding. Since I am descended from Midwestern cooks – although I don’t cook myself – my taste buds have not been challenged. Nor, it seems, has my eyesight. Watching the preparation of moosehead stew and the carving of a goose with the breast RED, not to mention the chunks of bear nostrils with bristles of hair still attached fried and served looking vaguely like croutons, is not like watching Grandma make a lattice crust for a pie. I cringe when I pull the sack of extra pieces out of the neck and belly region of a turkey, if you want to know the truth.

Andrew Zimmern puts food in his mouth and generally declares it delicious, adding sometimes comments such as: The stink gives it that special zing. I can’t quote exactly because I believe my memory is affected when my mouth is hanging open in astonishment at what I have heard. Today, Zimmern was in Sweden and sampled aged fermented herring that is akin to something rotten – really rotten. As the years of storage of the cans increases, the taste becomes stronger. Sometimes the cans swell up. The lady who prepares this culinary delicacy cautioned Zimmern that the smell can get into the furniture and so a lot of people prefer to eat it outdoors.

In his description of the flavor, Zimmern used the word putrid in several sentences . . . and he kept putting it in his mouth. While typing this, I have had to fight the urge to transform his name to Zimmerman because it is more common. Looking at the words together, I see that the letters deleted are M and A. That spells Ma and it makes me think of all the stories of soldiers on the battlefield crying out for their mothers. Perhaps Andrew has had so many battle of the dining table moments, that the “ma” just floated away in the ether of the psychic call for his earliest comfort.

They are now eating reindeer testicles and I just have to stop typing.