Commentary - pcgazette.com

Commentary
pcgazette.com

Certain things shouldn't go into one's body

By JIM SCHUH
of The Gazette
There are certain things you should not put in your body.

Cheap booze is one. Rings in your navel or studs in your tongue are two others.

So far, I have successfully been able to avoid any temptations to succumb to these fad insertion practices.

I've also had a little time to ruminate about this subject in the year since I retired from broadcasting, and I've come up with a few more that should give sensible people real pause for thought.

Two that particularly cross my mind are eating unusual foods, such as chittlins and lutefisk.

I realize there could be a legion of lutefisk lovers lurking out there, and that they may rise up and sock me with slabs of dried codfish. But I ask why would anyone want to ingest a gelatinous former sea creature that's been soaked for a month in lye? Even if it is dripping with warm melted butter, and served with lefse and meatballs to help hide its aroma and flavor?

In mid-March, Martha and I went to Alabama to visit relatives, and during our trip, we deftly managed to avoid attending a chittlin supper. We conveniently "forgot" about it until it was too late to go.

I had read details of the event - the "39th Annual Chittlin Supper" - in the Northwest Alabamian newspaper. It takes place in Arley, a community of a few hundred, and this year it happened on St. Patrick's Day - March 17th. I'm not sure if they chose that evening because it was a Friday, making it easy for lots of people to attend, or because the thought of eating chittlins causes many people to turn green.

One good thing - perhaps the only good thing - you can say about lutefisk and chittlin suppers is that they help raise money for worthy causes. Most lutefisk dinners enhance the coffers of rural Lutheran churches, while the chittlin supper I was delighted to miss helped gather funds for the Meek High School Band in Arley.

The sponsors were the Winston County Chittlin' Eaters Association (abbreviated WCCEA, and descriptive of a noise commonly heard while devouring chittlins) and the Meek Band of Champions Boosters (MBCB, another frequent sound audible during chittlin ingestion).

So far, I have not described what chittlins are. I'm not sure you want to know, but in the interest of good journalism, here goes: Chittlins are hogs' small intestines. I'll now excuse you if you don't wish to read any further.

The Alabama newspaper article describes the preparations this way: "There are several steps in making good chittlins, starting first with cleaning them. Any fat and whatnot (?) is scraped away, leaving only a thin membrane, which is cut into cook-size pieces. This process usually takes several hours..."

My brother-in-law, Rudy Wilson, is approaching the age of 70 and boasts that he has lived all his life without eating chittlins, and he says he has no intention of starting now. Tongue-in-cheek, he tells me he's always heard there are two ways chittlins can be cleaned - creek-washed, or stump-slung. To "creek-wash" chittlins, Rudy says you lay them in a creek and let the slowly meandering waters attempt to purify them. To "stump-sling" them, he says a person grabs a handful, and repeatedly strikes them on a stump to remove the "whatnot." Ugh. (That's another sound you probably hear at a chittlin eating fest.)

The Arley band boosters bought what they called "pre-cleaned chittlins" this year. (That doesn't really make me feel any better about them.) The newspaper quotes Dale Ganey, a chittlin aficionado who heads the booster club, as saying, "They looked really good. They still had to be cut into the right size, but it went a lot faster this year."

One clue that you don't want to be around these colon delights comes from a description of the preparation process: they cook them three times, and the first time it's boiling them outside in big black pots. Presumably, that eliminates some of the, um, "whatnot" and saves marriages of the chittlin cookers. I suspect any guy who would bring home a pot-full of these "delicacies" to boil inside a house could pretty well count on an appearance in divorce court.

After much of the "fragrance" dissipates into the outside air, the chittlins move inside to the kitchen for pressure-cooking, and later, deep-frying. Mr. Ganey says the thrice-cooking process ensures the chittlins will be "tender, and if you fry them right, they are nice and crispy." Without ever seeing them, his description leads me believe these things are similar to batter-fried chunks of cellophane. While chittlin lovers paid $7 to engage in their passion, it seems to me a more rational approach would have been to pay them $7 for eating these innards.

(More next week.)

You may reach Jim Schuh at the Gazette, or by e-mail at jpschuh@excite.com.



	Certain things shouldn't go into one's body By JIM SCHUH of The Gazette There are certain things you should not put in your body. Cheap booze is one. Rings in your navel or studs in your tongue are two others. So far, I have successfully been able to avoid any temptations to succumb to these fad insertion practices. I've also had a little time to ruminate about this subject in the year since I retired from broadcasting, and I've come up with a few more that should give sensible people real pause for thought. Two that particularly cross my mind are eating unusual foods, such as chittlins and lutefisk. I realize there could be a legion of lutefisk lovers lurking out there, and that they may rise up and sock me with slabs of dried codfish. But I ask why would anyone want to ingest a gelatinous former sea creature that's been soaked for a month in lye? Even if it is dripping with warm melted butter, and served with lefse and meatballs to help hide its aroma and flavor? In mid-March, Martha and I went to Alabama to visit relatives, and during our trip, we deftly managed to avoid attending a chittlin supper. We conveniently "forgot" about it until it was too late to go. I had read details of the event - the "39th Annual Chittlin Supper" - in the Northwest Alabamian newspaper. It takes place in Arley, a community of a few hundred, and this year it happened on St. Patrick's Day - March 17th. I'm not sure if they chose that evening because it was a Friday, making it easy for lots of people to attend, or because the thought of eating chittlins causes many people to turn green. One good thing - perhaps the only good thing - you can say about lutefisk and chittlin suppers is that they help raise money for worthy causes. Most lutefisk dinners enhance the coffers of rural Lutheran churches, while the chittlin supper I was delighted to miss helped gather funds for the Meek High School Band in Arley. The sponsors were the Winston County Chittlin' Eaters Association (abbreviated WCCEA, and descriptive of a noise commonly heard while devouring chittlins) and the Meek Band of Champions Boosters (MBCB, another frequent sound audible during chittlin ingestion). So far, I have not described what chittlins are. I'm not sure you want to know, but in the interest of good journalism, here goes: Chittlins are hogs' small intestines. I'll now excuse you if you don't wish to read any further. The Alabama newspaper article describes the preparations this way: "There are several steps in making good chittlins, starting first with cleaning them. Any fat and whatnot (?) is scraped away, leaving only a thin membrane, which is cut into cook-size pieces. This process usually takes several hours..." My brother-in-law, Rudy Wilson, is approaching the age of 70 and boasts that he has lived all his life without eating chittlins, and he says he has no intention of starting now. Tongue-in-cheek, he tells me he's always heard there are two ways chittlins can be cleaned - creek-washed, or stump-slung. To "creek-wash" chittlins, Rudy says you lay them in a creek and let the slowly meandering waters attempt to purify them. To "stump-sling" them, he says a person grabs a handful, and repeatedly strikes them on a stump to remove the "whatnot." Ugh. (That's another sound you probably hear at a chittlin eating fest.) The Arley band boosters bought what they called "pre-cleaned chittlins" this year. (That doesn't really make me feel any better about them.) The newspaper quotes Dale Ganey, a chittlin aficionado who heads the booster club, as saying, "They looked really good. They still had to be cut into the right size, but it went a lot faster this year." One clue that you don't want to be around these colon delights comes from a description of the preparation process: they cook them three times, and the first time it's boiling them outside in big black pots. Presumably, that eliminates some of the, um, "whatnot" and saves marriages of the chittlin cookers. I suspect any guy who would bring home a pot-full of these "delicacies" to boil inside a house could pretty well count on an appearance in divorce court. After much of the "fragrance" dissipates into the outside air, the chittlins move inside to the kitchen for pressure-cooking, and later, deep-frying. Mr. Ganey says the thrice-cooking process ensures the chittlins will be "tender, and if you fry them right, they are nice and crispy." Without ever seeing them, his description leads me believe these things are similar to batter-fried chunks of cellophane. While chittlin lovers paid $7 to engage in their passion, it seems to me a more rational approach would have been to pay them $7 for eating these innards. (More next week.) You may reach Jim Schuh at the Gazette, or by e-mail at jpschuh@excite.com.