I visited an Asian supermarket yesterday for the first time, and saw things I had never seen before in a store. There was a Tai fruit that looked like something from a science fiction movie; Mike said it stank bad when you cut it.

The prices were great though, and the store was bustling. We headed to the back, to the meat, and that’s when things got interesting.

First, you can get birds with the feet on still, and the heads. I thought to take a picture but didn’t want to attract too much attention. There is something macabre about seeing faces on the animals you’re about to eat: we don’t have to trouble ourselves with that in most American stores.

As we got deeper into the meat aisle, I grew more and more transfixed by the contents below the plastic: guts, bones, heads. The smells grew more and more pungent as we got closer to the back counter. The guys in the back were in camouflage coats, with surgical masks, and blood-stained aprons. There was no effort to hide anything.

Maybe it’s my imagination or my weak suburban stomach, but I started to get queasy and had to exit up the condiment aisle, back out into the fresh air.

Categories: Diary

Tags: DPchallenge, life, postaday, vegetarian