MR says: Lunch and dinner poems (breakfast is too early for poetry...or food) are my specialty. This poem was written for Diane M.'s mom. It necessarily had to be read at her next invitation to me to dine, in that salmon mousses don't work unless they are complete surprises. In case some of you are gasping in horror at my lack of a gracious appreciation for a free meal, may I remind you that, legally, mousses made from anything except chocolate are exempt from expressions of gratitude.
Mousse on the Lousse
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Here’s an ode to salmon mousse:
A food of no apparent use,
Unless, of course, that moussy salmon
Were made available in a famine.
It’d be a welcome cornucopia
In a place like Ethiopia,
Where your second choice as fare
Might be dirt and sticks and air.
But if you be a well-fed fellow,
You’ll not want fishes in your jello;
And any denizen of the deep,
Congealed, can take a flying leap!
Among them, take your shark parfait,
Your flounder flounce, your carp pâté;
Cast away your catfish custard
With a hint of mudfish mustard.
And let no fishy in the stream
Wind up in my icy cream.
No frozen daiquiris made from pickerels,
Grouper glacés, perch popsickerels.
Who knows, but what this salmon mousse
Was once a steelhead, name of Bruce;
Fat, unfettered, on the loose,
But now reduced to Bruce the Moose.
Alas, what self-respecting steelhead
Would turn into a mousse, congealéd;
A moose is one thing, fish another:
What fish can be a moose’s mother?
But I digress, our moose named Bruce,
Abused, subdued by hunter’s ruse,
Caught his antlers in a noose,
And was diffused to salmon mousse.
And when this mousse was thoroughly beaten,
By the Roys, it was eaten,
And when we tired of finding fault,
We asked for pepper and the salt.
Not that condiments could help;
And what if they should pass the kelp?
“Here, Mike, have some jellied seaweed
Upon which untold fishes wee-weed."
“Have you tried these fish-eye wontons?
And for dessert, there’s bass-y bonbons.
We got a piranha pie after dinner:
Better not stick your finger in ‘er!"
“And Michael and Jan, guess what Floss did?
She made you guys a codfish frosted!
Why even the ice cubes in your tea
Came from something in the sea!”
So make me no more salmon mousse,
Texture: boingy; color: puce.
Molded shape and taste, real salmony:
General summary: a major calamony!
And if ya’ll serve some gelatinous dish
Into which ya’ll done flung a fish,
Among those diners you’ll be feedin’,
You won’t see Michael Roy eatin’.
Michael Roy, 1991