little bitty girl

As most people can probably tell, I really love food. I am almost always astounded that I am not some fat, stropping cow (which you know, one day I think I will be if I don't watch myself as I eat almost as much or more than Stef and dude is twice my size) especially since I love noodles - pasta, vermicelli, egg, rice, spirals, you name it and I love it. What comes as a pretty close second and is often cooked with my first love is seafood. What can I say? I grew up by the sea. I have many fond memories of going to the seashore with my mother on Saturday mornings and picking out freshly caught fish for the weekend meals.

I have a really odd (at least most people think so) habit and love of visiting wet markets when I travel. Sure there could be some beautiful park or exhibit somewhere, but give me a fresh wet market any day. I really do feel food is where the heart is and key of understanding any culture. I know for myself, there is so much love, thought and tradition that goes into the preparation of one's native foods. That's why I whenever I travel, I tend to ask locals where they would go to eat if they couldn't go to their mothers. I don't care if the place is small, dark, dank or a little dirty. Second rate pish posh restaurants in other countries are places fools go to pretend to "experience" someone else's culture.

Anyway.

I am so in love with seafood that I think the entire time when Stefan and I were visiting the Seattle Aquarium, I was pointing out fish that I've never tasted before. I think the kids around me were quite grossed out when I stated aloud that octopus was quite tasty raw, as well as cooked.

"You know, if you don't watch it, you're going to get gout one day," Marie mentioned when I was extolling some other virtue of some seafood I had seen.

Gout? As in Henry VIII? The fat, horny, sacrilegious, unscrupulous monarch from the 15th century?

I always thought that gout was a sickness of the rich in medieval times from eating far too rich foods?

Turns out both Marie and I are right.

Supposedly, "Gout (also called metabolic arthritis) is a disease due to a congenital disorder of uric acid metabolism. " It is caused from eating rich foods such as seafood, alcohol, gravy to name a few. One of the main signs of gout is that it attacks the big toe, then leads to other digits, then the feet and finally the entire leg and your whole circulation.

All I can say is my big toe is looking just fine and Japanese people eat seafood all the time, and you don't see them dying off by the masses from gout.

So I stick my tongue out to you Ms. Marie and will continue eating my gouty seafood.