Now and then I have a wander through my old blog when the world news feels overwhelming and I need a distracting look down memory lane. So it was that the other day I happened upon this blog post, written after I had been in Scotland for just over a month. Many things here were still new to me, including the food we ate. Some of you may recall that I have written previously about Scottish “fast food” – I remember trying lots of new things back then, most of which I enjoyed. But not all!
I took a short, informal survey of a few ANC readers about publishing that long-ago blog post here, and they along with Doni assured me that you all can handle it. (I think my favorite reply was Matt Grigsby’s “I say pull the pin on that grenade.”) I will say it’s perhaps not a good read for the non-meat-eaters among you, so be warned! If you’re brave, though, step back in time with me to a summer afternoon in 2008…
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It was going to happen eventually. So far I have enjoyed whatever new delights Sem has set in front of me: stovies, oatcakes, various meat pies, Scotch eggs… I’ve tried them all and enjoyed each one. Then came Potted Meat.
Potted. Meat.
Even the name made me gag a little. I think there is potted meat in the US, or at least there used to be. A distant memory of it also being called “Potted Head” made my stomach flip a bit, too. I recalled seeing it in a small gas station convenience store down south, somewhere between the devilled ham and the tins of Spam. But eat it? Ye gods no…
Still, my Love assured me it was YUM, so we bought some.
It did not look YUM. It looked, in fact, somewhat like a cross between a can of cat food and Suelze, an icky gelatinous German concoction that haunted my childhood. The German version has other bits in it; pickle, I think, and maybe slices of hard-boiled egg. This… thing… however, was strictly shredded meat (or should I say ‘meat’) all mixed together with some kind of hideous meat-goo.
I could almost hear the sucking, slurping sound it made as it slid out of its container and onto the plate with a greasy wobbling splat. Indeed I would have heard it if I hadn’t been hiding under the kitchen table.
Sem’s barely-contained exclamations of happy anticipation brought me creeping closer… and then the dry-heaving began as he spooned some onto an oatcake. Look at it! Seriously, how could you do that to a perfectly nice oatcake? What did that poor oatcake ever do to you?! Please note the nauseating snotlike glob on the edge of the plate. My lip trembled and tears filled my eyes.
I was game, though. Determined, even. I tried it. After all, I make it a rule to try almost anything once. I considered it a run-up to trying haggis, which I hadn’t had yet. I reminded myself that I’m pretty sure I ate Friskies out of the cat’s dish when I was two or three years old.
Friskies are dry and crunchy, though. There is no covering of jellyfish slime, and they aren’t made up of unidentifiable bits of cow eyelids, cow sphincters, and cow ladyparts. Or if they are, they’ve been dried to such a degree as to not remotely resemble anything like the frizzeled bits of ick that glistened there in a nightmare lump before me.
After two careful and tiny avoid-the-goop-at-all-costs bites, I surrendered. I just couldn’t do it. I gave the remainder of my Potted Meat to my beloved, and fixed myself a snack I could stomach.
Now that’s what I call YUM. Apologies for the bad photo, though. It’s a little blurry because I still had the Potted Meat shakes when I took it.
But I won’t let this deter me. I will keep trying the local delicacies. And you, lucky readers, will get to hear all about it.
Anyone still hungry for their next meal?
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Back to 2018. I never tried Potted Meat again… and I never will. In ten years only one other thing has defeated me, something Sem used to enjoy before he had to restrict sodium intake: chopped ham out of a can (sort of like Spam). After my experience with Potted Meat I didn’t even try it.
So why did I forego my “try almost anything once” rule? Well, Smartie gave it a sniff…
…and her expression told me all I needed to know!
