The Hubs and I decided to get a quick bite to eat at a local restaurant here called The Cabbage Patch. It's just a little ways out of town, a nice drive along the river...when it's not raining, and cold enough to make you wonder why you didn't just stay in your warm house with a bowl of hot soup! But hey, I wasn't in the mood to cook soup or anything else. So if the Hubs says lets hit The Cabbage Patch, I'm sure not gonna argue.
I had the Country Fried Steak. What's that...do I mean Chicken Fried Stick? Well heck no, not this far north of Mississippi. Up here, they call it Country Fried Steak. And if you call it Chicken Fried Steak, it really confuses folks around here.
"It's not Chicken, M'am, it's, er, beef," the waitress will say.
"Yes," I say, "it's beef...that's fried...like Chicken."
And while she walks away pondering the Chicken vs. Beef dichotomy, I'll have a little chuckle at the inside joke that anyone who's ever lived inside of the state of Texas is in on. We know what Chicken Fried Steak is, and it's just kind of funny when it's not listed correctly on a menu.
At any rate, this isn't supposed to be about my dinner. No, no. It's about the Hubs dinner. I guess he likes to live on the edge once in awhile, walk on the wild side, so to speak. So instead of having the Lasagna special, or the usual burger, he decides to order...Smelt.
Smelt?!
[What the hell is Smelt and why is it on a menu?!]
Smelt is just a little fish, apparently fairly common in the Great Lakes area (how did I not know this?), that don't get much bigger than 7 inches long--but that's on a good day. The ones the Hub was eating weren't any bigger than, well, bait. And seriously, that is what it reminded me of when he was eating them. And it really kind of grossed me out. There is something fundamentally wrong with eating a fish that most folks would use...to catch bigger fish. It's just messed up. Think about it: would you eat a baby chick, instead of a full grown chicken? I think not. To me, the Smelt are no different, even though they're basically full grown and fully capable of giving their lives for someone's supper at The Cabbage Patch. But still, look at those little fishy eyes and tell me that doesn't bug you, at least a little. Yuck.
His were fried, sans the eyes and fins, which is fortunate for both of us. Because had I seen a single eye in that pile of fried Smelt, I would have promptly projectile vomited my not-quite-Chicken Fried Steak.
Check, please!