User:Trbabb/Delicacy
A delicacy is generally some horrible thing that no one in their right mind would ever dream of eating, but that some idiot somewhere eats anyway.
History of the term[edit | edit source]
Long ago, some caveman, let's call him Og, was starving in a desert. On the verge of death, Og searched around for something to put in his mouth. But the only thing besides rocks and sand that Og could find was the Gondwanean Phlegmbeetle, a horrible species of insect that smelled like rancid caviar, sunned itself on piles of shit, and had wiggly antennae sticking out all over it. Weighing the prospect of eating this thing against death, Og reluctantly decided to try eating the phlegmbeetle. He grabbed it by its squirming thorax and held it up, contemplating its wriggling appendages.
Just then, another caveman, Grog, who knew his way around the desert a bit better than Og did, came walking over the nearest sand dune just in time to see Og lowering the hideous bug into his mouth.
Og chewed. As he chewed, the Gondwanean Phlegmbeetle squirmed. Slippery, lumpy juices oozed out from the bug's crushed carapace, and the taste reminded Og of how his grandmother's feet smelled. Nevertheless, Og was grateful to have the feeling of something filling his shriveled stomach again.
Now, Grog, who had watched the whole thing in quiet amazement, had always thought that the last thing he would ever think of putting into his mouth was a Gondwanean Phlegmbeetle. But lo and behold, this other dude seemed enjoying it.
"Oy!" called Grog. "Does that thing actually taste good?"
"It's the best thing I've eaten in two weeks," replied Og, who was never very good at saying things directly.
Grog thought about how hideous the Gondwanean Phlegmbeetle was, and concluded that it must indeed be delicious if Og could bring himself to swallow it. In fact, he was so thoroughly convinced that before long he had made a habit of eating the phlegmbeetle himself. When asked why he bothered to eat such a horrible thing when there were plenty of perfectly good birds, rodents, succulents, and fish around, Grog would reply that it was the best thing that he'd eaten in two weeks. He honestly believed this, because, like most humans, Grog would say, do, or believe almost anything so long as he had heard someone else say, do, or believe the same thing first.
Eventually word got around that phlegmbeetles did, in fact, taste like Granny Ungh's feet, and that Grog had unwittingly copied the eating habits of a starving man. Grog soon began to find his tastes a bit harder to explain. Thus, to avoid looking like a fool, he started calling the phlegmbeetle a "delicacy", which he said was a very special dish that only people with very refined tastes liked to eat.
This trick worked quite well, as the people of Grog's tribe didn't want the others to think they had un-refined tastes. It only took a few of these people to start eating the phlegmbeetles on their own before everyone else started copying them. Soon the entire tribe was popping phlegmbeetles into their mouths and telling each other that it was the best thing they'd eaten in two weeks.
To this very day, the term "delicacy" is still used by cultures to justify their own idiotic eating habits, and for selling weasel shit to yuppies as coffee.