Kitchen Hand has started a meme that I've played into and will continue here.

The theme is: Things I never ate as a kid.

There I mentioned raw oysters, which I didn't have until I was 21. I can add boiled crawfish at 31 at Ralph and Kacoo's in Dallas. (Finally made sense to come to the source.)

Commenters there speak of growing up with oxtails and tongue.

Those I didn't have until I boarded in the house of the alumni director of Reed College '75-76. I was about 18.

The director's mother lived in the house, too. She was about 86 (maybe 76?) at the time, mostly blind, and a wonderful cook. She had learned her skills at about the turn of the 20th century and developed them for decades.

She made beautiful dark brown gravies, sumptuous legs of lamb, delicate soups -- anything she turned her hand to was to devour with pleasure.

I was too self-absorbed at the time to take advantage of being near her.

She made the first oxtail soup I ever had, and the first tongue. She taught me that if you're going to kill an animal, say grace, and use every part of it. They were delicious.

I tried to cook tongue once, a long time ago, and was so disappointed that I never tried again. Now it's out of the question. Mudbugs are okay in this household, but not tongue. As for oxtails -- I might try now that I'm a better cook, but I'm not counting on it holding a candle to hers.

Wherever you are ma'am, thank you. If I said it everyday then, I didn't say it enough.

How about you?

PS. Oh, did I say? The alumni director was a woman.