Dad and the Picoroco

It’s been a while since I’ve talked about my father, so let’s get back to the personal for a moment, for not a day goes by that I don’t miss him tremendously.

I’ve been reading a lot of Anthony Bourdain lately.  The recently released Anthony Bourdain Reader is a collection of previously unpublished works and stories that remind us of his brilliance.  Not only could he maneuver his way around a kitchen, provide you with a guided tour of Manhattan’s finest restaurants and travel the world finding cuisine you’ve never seen or heard of, but he could also, quite masterfully, put a sentence together, honest, dark, heartfelt, introspective, captivating.  If you’re a service industry worker and haven’t devoured his masterpiece Kitchen Confidential, then you’re doing yourself a disservice.

One excerpt from Bourdain’s latest collection is entitled “How Anthony Bourdain Became Anthony Bourdain.”  I know, you’re already enthralled by the title, as you should be.  In it, he discusses how he found himself becoming like his late father, his mannerisms, his expressions, his looks, his behavior.  If you’re an aging male, you can undoubtedly relate.  He also discusses the importance of meals, not necessarily what you eat but with whom you eat, a lesson his father shared with him early on.

“He taught me early that the value of a dish is in the pleasure it brings you; where you are sitting when you eat it – and who you are eating it with – are what really matter.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Bourdain’s piece got me thinking about the many meals I shared with my father, how much he loved food and how special those times were where we just sat at a table together, alone or with others, full plates in front of us until empty, Dad’s lips smacking unmistakably with every joyous bite.  In fact, many of the memories I have with my father were shared over a meal and a bottle of wine snuck in for good measure.

Dad always had a knack for choosing the best item on the menu.  For years, growing up, after sharing bites of what we’d ordered, I’d inevitably taste his dinner and think “Damn!  I should have ordered that.”

Dad was also daring when it came to food, far more daring than me.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’ll knock down some raw oysters and sushi, but there was one meal, ages ago, that we didn’t share.  No way, no fucking how.

We had just moved down to Santiago, Chile.  It was 1983.  I was a scrawny, bratty, wide-eyed 15-year-old, soaking up an entirely new culture as quickly, as thoroughly and as amorously as I could.

One afternoon, the people who worked for him, his right-hand men, decided to take us out on the town.  Imagine a “third world” country, farmer’s market atmosphere where delicacies are served in what could easily be considered frightening fashion to anyone who has never wondered how a Sabrett hot dog is made.  If you remember the scene from American Gangster where Denzel Washington travels to Bangkok to visit his cousin and says they’re “eating cockroaches,” well, it was almost exactly like that.

“Try this,” they told dad once we’d been seated outdoors on an unpleasantly hot day.  “It’s a delicacy,” they said.

I suppose they didn’t lie as the Wikipedia page for what the Chileans call picoroco also lists the shellfish as a delicacy.  A very unappealing delicacy, as I suppose many around the world are.

Seafood is incredibly popular in Chile.  While beef rules Brazilian and Argentinian cuisine, anyone who has ever spotted Chile’s place on a map understands the country stretches along the entire Southern coastline of South America.  In other words, seafood is king. That’s not to say there wasn’t meat to eat but if you’re a 15-year-old boy being thrust into an altogether new environment, you had better get out of your comfort zone quickly.

Dad was far more eager to do so than I.

When the server brought over the crustacean, it was alive (that’s right… ALIVE) which is a perfectly acceptable way to eat it for anyone not running this website.  Picoroco can also be cooked and prepared in a soup but that’s not how it went down that way.  It went down Dad’s throat whole.

I still remember to this day dad’s underlings encouraging him to eat it, not as if to dare, but perhaps to test his mettle.  And I can still remember that fucking whatever it was pop its giant head out of its shell as if to say hello before meeting its demise.  This was no tiny oyster.  This was like Jabba the Hut in Empire Strikes Back.

I’m not Anthony Bourdain and I am most assuredly no Dale Humpherys.  Eating live picoroco, which he and I mistakenly called cocoroco for years, is not on my bucket list.  Dad can have that accomplishment all to himself.  Had there been cellphones back then, this video of my father would have gone viral for certain.  Fortunately, my memory is vivid enough to remember that meal, and so many other special ones that he and I shared.

Thank you, Anthony Bourdain, and I suppose his father too, for reminding me of those special moments, how meals shared, and who we share them with, are times to be savored forever.

Salud!