Mama Diaries

Sunday, January 26, 2014

The Search for Octopus Balls

"Mama," my nine-year-old son said.  "We need some octopus balls."

My eyeballs nearly popped out of my head.  "Excuse me?  What did you just say?"

The boy repeated himself.  "Octopus balls. We need to go get some.  They're really yummy!"

I didn't know whether to laugh or vomit.  I took a deep breath and gathered my thoughts.  "Okay.  Are these some kind of sushi/Asian food?"

"Yeah, Mama.  My friend's mom made some for me. And she told me where to get them."  He slapped down a calendar with the store's name on it and a package wrapper of the stuff.

I looked at it dubiously.  "We'll see," I said.

Today I decided to find these octopus balls.  "Come on, Bubba.  Let's take a little trip."

We ended up in a Korean part of town.  All the stores had Korean signs.  All the people walking around were Korean.  And I didn't have a clue what the signs said, or what the people were saying.  We walked into the Korean supermarket.  Korean music was blaring on the speakers.  Korean salespeople with headsets on were blabbing about Asian pears and fish heads. In Korean, of coarse.  My boy and I were the only Caucasian people in the place.  We wandered around trying to find octopus balls.  We saw piles of live blue crabs squirming in buckets, ready for picking.  We saw whole fish lying on ice in the center of a main aisle.  We saw things, which I couldn't even begin to describe.  It was like walking into another country.

After wandering the store for thirty minutes, and not finding octopus balls, I decided to ask a worker.  "Excuse me.  Can you please tell me where the octopus balls are?"

She looked at me like I had three noses. She shook her head, said something in Korean, and walked away.

"Dude," I said.  "It looks like we're not going to find our octopus balls."

So we wandered around for another fifteen minutes, picked up some packages of food with Asian writing on them, that I have no idea what they are, but I'm going to feed them to my family anyway, and headed to the checkout.

That's when I spotted the Macaron cookies.  "Dude!  Normal food!"  Of course we had to get some.

So that's my story of the search for octopus balls.  If we survive eating the food we purchased, maybe we'll take a trip to the Atlantic Ocean and find some real octopus balls.  Or not!

32 comments:

  1. In stores like that, you pretty much have to know what you are looking for before you enter. You'll have to call that mother and find out what on earth she really served.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was octopus balls. She gave me the wrapper. They just didn't have it when I went. I ended up with squid balls. Close enough!

      Delete
  2. LOL at the title of this post.

    As a vegetarian, my stomach turned reading some of this.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I thought it was clever. ;0)

      I'm not a vegetarian, and my stomach turned, too!

      Delete
  3. You must have had culture shock!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Umm yuck big time, /I'd be very glad I never found octopus balls

    ReplyDelete
  5. Try Chinatown, exotic edibles can also be found there, at least in Vancouver. I've never seen them, but I haven't looked either.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've visited Chinatown in San Francisco, and found some pretty interesting dishes there.

      Delete
  6. This would be a great chance for you to connect with your friend's mom and see what it was that she'd made!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. She gave me the wrapper, and they were octopus balls. The store just didn't have them when we went.

      Delete
  7. This would be a great chance for you to connect with your friend's mom and see what it was that she'd made!

    ReplyDelete
  8. So funny! Always go with the cookies.

    ReplyDelete
  9. You were very brave to go searching. I wouldn't.

    Love,
    Janie

    ReplyDelete
  10. Even if you'd found those balls, I imagine there may have been a trick to the prep...especially if they were still alive, hehe. It so cool that you could get that international experience so close to home!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I found squid balls, and the instructions on how to cook them were in Chinese. I fried up some oil and plopped them in. They turned out pretty good. I must've done something right.

      Delete
  11. I'm sure you could find goat balls if they are out of octopus

    ReplyDelete
  12. Octopus is delicious, very chewy, but delicious..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've heard octopus is rubbery. Maybe someday I'll get brave and try some.

      Delete
  13. My hubby loves octopus. I just see tentacles and squirm!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've eaten calamari. The breading helps cover the tentacles, so I find that somewhat tolerable!

      Delete
  14. One of the searches which is probably better left unfinished :)

    ReplyDelete
  15. Hahahaaha, nothing like balls for supper. Oh my goodness. You should get a Mom Award just for looking.

    ReplyDelete