#delicacy

Like who is looking at this horde of grey leggy things and saying, “Let’s make them expensive.”

All the wiggly things and all the fishes in the sea, not so expensive, but we are looking at these leggy things and going, “Is class!”

And someone is going, “No, we take the leggy things and when we take them apart and cook them, we have a pink question mark, is very expensive question mark.

and we will serve them with spicy tomato pulp and rich peoples they will be asking questions with their plates, tiny toothpick questions.”

who is doing this to the shrimps? who is making them classy?

One Sunday night, I decide to indulge in some white wine sauce with mussels (how else is one supposed to cope with being a plebe who has to be somewhere on Monday?). After I eat a bevy of these mussels, I go into the bathroom to relieve myself (saying “piss” or “pee” sounds too colloquial for my taste). The way in which I squat allows me to look squarely at my labia, which is so disgustingly similar to mussels that I almost want to retch. There they are: the same folds, the same alien-like aesthetic, the same membraneous look. I can’t stop staring at it and flashing back to all the, for all intents and purposes, labias I just ate. And yes, I know labia is the plural of labium, but labias just sounds better to me, alright?

I have to ask myself how I manage to continue eating such foul sea fare when all I think about every time I bite into one is the incredible resemblance it bears to my vagina. Why do I keep coming back for more if this is the only association I make with it? Am I an undercover lesbian? Do I secretly want to eat pussy? I have no idea. All I know is, I shouldn’t want to keep eating mussels, because they look utterly repugnant. Everything about them is so overtly sexual. The way you cook them and the shell just opens, like a goddamn pair of legs. 

Yes, to be sure, eating mussels is an obscene act. One that should be done alone and in embarrassment. It’s like you’re some sort of fetishist who gets your jollies from consuming only those culinary delights that specifically resemble genitalia. I carry my secret shame with me. I feel like everyone else knows that mussels look like labias, but no one wants to call it out because it would ruin their appetite for this particular seafood for life. And that’s another thing. Mussels are from the ocean, adding to their vaginal comparisons in terms of odor. Yet, in spite of all these obvious connections, everyone seems to be perfectly at ease with taking a voracious bite from a sauce-laden bowl of mollusks. Well, I won’t be silent anymore: labias and mussels are the same thing. And I’ll be damned if I try to deny it any longer. But, of course, I won’t stop eating them. Like the pussy, they’re just too good.

© Genna Rivieccio 2014