Sweetbread

It had been a very long day. I had had a few meetings, quite a bit of driving in the bay area and a cocktail networking event. Plus, I was in the PST zone, which meant it was already about midnight my time. Paul, Mark, George and I went to this fancy restaurant called Boulevard (http://www.boulevardrestaurant.com/) for dinner.

I was more than hungry and was looking for a good meal before hitting the bed. The menu offered not much respite. Everything was heavy on meat. I eat poultry, sometimes, and nothing more than that. This menu did not have chicken on it. I decided to order lamb, which I had tasted once, a few years back. The appetizers section, however, threw me an option - Sweetbreads. the description did not talk of any meat. It contained terms like eggplant parmigiana and some vegetables. I was more than happy to order it. A few minutes later, George asked me what I had ordered. Once I told him of my choices, here's how it went -

George: "Wow, that was brave of you!"
Me: "Why's that?"
George: "You know what sweetbread is made of, right?"
Me: "Well, Uhhh... What is it made of?"
George: "I think it is either the brain or pancreas or something like that, of either a cow or a pig"

I could sense my appetite vanishing really fast. Our extremely friendly waiter was nearby. So, we asked him about it. He looked at me and said - "Sorry, man. I should have told you. It is made from the neck portion of a veal". Thankfully, we were having this conversation before the food had arrived. I let Paul and George take it once it arrived, while I played with the veggies. I was not really in mood to try out the entree either. But I did well enough to participate. The others did enjoy the dinner. I enjoyed the lively atmosphere.

Later, I looked up my appetizer (or, was it my de-appetizer?) on Wiki, and here's the definition - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweetbread.

Moral of the story: There's something new to be learned every single day!