Eating Your Heart Out with Relish

My mother will tell you that my favorite fairytale princess was always Snow White.  One of the biggest reasons my mother knows this is because she was one of those women who threw all of her talents into motherhood and in the morning her question (when it just happened to be a pancake morning) was, “What do you want for your pancake?”

Now, this question might mean something like, “Do you want syrup or jam?” in another household, but in ours, Mom was an artist.  So my answer was always, “Snow White.” 

Out came my Disney story book.  Mom would find a suitable picture of Snow White, and using a little spoon would dole out a small line of batter and recreate the picture on the pancake griddle.  Then she’d let this outline darken a bit and fill it in the rest of the way with batter.  The result was a Snow White shaped image, complete with shadow and detailing that flipped right onto my plate and filled my morning with a lovely montage of singing birds and mining dwarfs.  

When I got older and actually made it all the way into the third grade, our teacher decided that we were ready to put on our first school play!  The play was “Snow Prince and the Seven Dwarfettes.”  I was little and scrawny but I rocked the auditions so thoroughly that my teacher had to track my Grandma down in the super market one day to tell her that I should be in more community theater.  (I know, I am awesome.)  So, scrawny or not, I was given the role of the evil king who wishes only to be the strongest strong man in the land.  This was my motivation for wanting to kill Snow Prince with a poisoned apple.  While preparing for this role, I read the actual Brothers Grimm version of the tale and was shocked that Disney left out scandalous details like the Wicked Queen being forced to dance in red-hot shoes made of lead in the end.  But one striking detail captured my imagination when I read the line regarding the pig heart the huntsman gave to the Queen, “She ate the heart, I am sorry to say, with relish.” 

“Gram,” I said one day while she was preparing one of our own chickens to eat for supper.  “Do people eat hearts?” 

“Why yes, they do,” Gram said.  “Do you want me to cook you this chicken heart and you can try it with dinner tonight?”

“Yes!”  Oh, I was excited.  Not only was this a secret detail of my most favorite fairytale, this was also a chance for me to really enhance my eight-year-old acting skills with a little method acting.  So that night a small lump of browned flesh was on my plate and without any hesitation whatsoever, I ate the heart with relish (which I read as “gusto,” but only now am thinking the Queen might have eaten it with some sweet relish).  And do you know what?  I loved it. 

Eating the heart became a little secret between me and my Gram.  She always cooked it for me and I always ate it with relish (gusto).  Every now and again, I will retain the heart from my turkey or my chicken (store bought, not farm raised, unfortunately)and cook it.  Sometimes I use a sprig of rosemary to pin it to the breast of the bird I’m cooking and I’ll eat the heart and think of Gram and the farm, and all those days I spent honing my performance as an evil king. 

So last night, Joseph decided he would cook.  He must have been feeling particularly Southern (as it comes on more strongly from time to time), because he bought gizzards and hearts of chickens at the grocery store.  He bought the hearts for me.  He made a breading from scratch.  He got our kettle of oil hot.  And he deep fried all the hearts and gizzards for our dinner.  The breading smelled good.  The sizzle sounded wonderful.  And then he pulled out the pieces for us and I popped one heart into my mouth and bit down.

Squeak. 

I just couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t.  For whatever reason, the chewiness of that heart just wouldn’t allow me to swallow it.  So for dinner, I had a bit of bread and some red wine we made from blueberries, and I allowed Joseph to eat his chicken pieces with relish (gusto) on his own.  He laughed at me for a good long chuckle, but I felt sad as I pondered the question you must all be asking, “Have I lost my evil kingliness?”