DINNER WITH TONY
for Tony Frazer’s birthday
I’ve eaten roasted cricket,
live translucent baby shrimps
jumping in a bowl of noodles
from a squirt of chilli,
birds’ nest soup long ago,
rotten fish soup in a Slovak-
Vietnamese restaurant,
kangaroo in Vienna,
seen Glasgow street food enlivened
by marinated meal worms
scorpion lollipops, beetle crunchies,
never tasted the witchetty grub,
the honey ant or vegemite.
Haggis I like and I read
it was hunted by a Swiss
tricked by Aleister Crowley.
Fugu, Tony tells me
is for absolute idiots
who only want to brag
they’ve eaten it raw and lived.
I’ve never tried escamole,
ant larvae from agave roots.
There are hornet grubs in nests
in the lamyai tree
which my brother swears
taste like hazel nuts when fried.
Fermented fish, sir? Hakarl -
Basking shark or surstromming -
herring or lutefisk - old stockfish
from a marinade of lye,
a tuna eyeball to stare us out,
Sannakji, octopus as fresh
as anything alive can be,
Ying yang fish, a scream of a dish,
Ikuzukuri, heart still beating.
Or, sir, something from terra firma?
A substantial fried cow brain,
Rocky Mountain Oysters –
Serve ‘em up, dish ‘em out, Rawhide!
Mopane worms, stewed, boiled or fried,
from streets broad or narrow
where she wheels her wheelbarrow
crying “Dried lizards, dried lizards,
not alive, not alive O!”
A celebrity dish, A-ping,
fried after resting with intent
on James Bond’s naked shoulder
or yak penis as prepared
expensively, barely legally
at the Guolizhuang restaurant.
Now for dessert, sir, I suggest
after the casa marzu
something even more delicious
for the mind and senses;
Shearsman’s list, to be savoured
with a demitasse of kopi luwak
or a single Japanese malt
which Tony has declared
simply the best in the world!
for Tony Frazer’s birthday
I’ve eaten roasted cricket,
live translucent baby shrimps
jumping in a bowl of noodles
from a squirt of chilli,
birds’ nest soup long ago,
rotten fish soup in a Slovak-
Vietnamese restaurant,
kangaroo in Vienna,
seen Glasgow street food enlivened
by marinated meal worms
scorpion lollipops, beetle crunchies,
never tasted the witchetty grub,
the honey ant or vegemite.
Haggis I like and I read
it was hunted by a Swiss
tricked by Aleister Crowley.
Fugu, Tony tells me
is for absolute idiots
who only want to brag
they’ve eaten it raw and lived.
I’ve never tried escamole,
ant larvae from agave roots.
There are hornet grubs in nests
in the lamyai tree
which my brother swears
taste like hazel nuts when fried.
Fermented fish, sir? Hakarl -
Basking shark or surstromming -
herring or lutefisk - old stockfish
from a marinade of lye,
a tuna eyeball to stare us out,
Sannakji, octopus as fresh
as anything alive can be,
Ying yang fish, a scream of a dish,
Ikuzukuri, heart still beating.
Or, sir, something from terra firma?
A substantial fried cow brain,
Rocky Mountain Oysters –
Serve ‘em up, dish ‘em out, Rawhide!
Mopane worms, stewed, boiled or fried,
from streets broad or narrow
where she wheels her wheelbarrow
crying “Dried lizards, dried lizards,
not alive, not alive O!”
A celebrity dish, A-ping,
fried after resting with intent
on James Bond’s naked shoulder
or yak penis as prepared
expensively, barely legally
at the Guolizhuang restaurant.
Now for dessert, sir, I suggest
after the casa marzu
something even more delicious
for the mind and senses;
Shearsman’s list, to be savoured
with a demitasse of kopi luwak
or a single Japanese malt
which Tony has declared
simply the best in the world!
