At the Mouthfuls of Madness

Are secret foods held in the deepest dark black aisles of the long dead cyclopean supermarkets in the farthest reaches of madness? The truth of this has left my mind reeling into fragments. The awesome abominations I have learned of can do the same to you, but here I document only one.

It happened in fall of my 3rd year in the Research and Development Department at the Nabisco Food Corporation that I found the journal of one Prof. T. N. McCready. McCready had been the East Asian correspondent for the R&D department, visiting and reporting on the cuisine of the Mongol's Steppes and the deepest jungles of French Indo-China, but it is one unusual entry, timed and dated... his last odd and vexing entry, that has left a constant dread in the bottom pits of the cockles of my soul:

Dec 13th
9 PM
The Isles of Zippon are filled by flavorful delights and tasty oddities that make the tongue and the soul leap in delight. I have found many an exotic concotion that are sure to make the lads and lasses in the Occidental hemisphere spend many a shiny new penny. But most intriguing is this tale that my matron has said breaks down into "the burned flesh/bindings of that Honorable He Moss Beareded One of the many arms/cylinders/appendages that Sleeps Ocean Bottomed." Certainly a terrible tongue twister, but surely the boys in marketing can conjure up a more appetizing name. I have yet to sample some and I have only heard of it this morning from the elderly groom of the sweetshop that laughed and muttered about it. I noticed everyone in the room, my matron included, had blanched at the naming of it, and it took a long and weary argument to convince them to take me the journey to the lone place it is prepared. Seemingly it is a guarded delicacy and they must fear to let the unwashed caucasian devils have their taste of it. Fortunately the place that it is prepared is not far away, but it is remote, on the other far end of the rocky cape that no roads go to, my party must travel the long route around by boat. My party starts out early tomorrow morning.

Dec 14th
10 AM
After much ado our vessel has launched into the bay. Nary a boatsman could be found keen for us to make use of his craft as taxi around the small cape. It seems tale of my journey did go from tavern to tavern last night and all souls are now opposed to my tasting of the delicacy. Only in paying a large sum of the local currency to one of the young seaman could my party convince a vessel to set forth.

Noon
At the brink of the cape the skies have turned a noisome grey and horrible gales began to make a great howl.

4pm
Inexplicably our craft had been caught in some subsurface estuary or current and it took many hours to correct the course. The now dark, stinking clouds have completely veiled the good mother sun.

8pm
Due to the inclement climate, the inhospitable ferrymen, and the strange tides of this island country, a journey that should have been a half a days travel has taken us now into the dark of night. Luckily my party has sited the lamps and torches of the inhabits of the far side of the cape and the young seaman assures us that the party can touch land soon. A strange reek emanates from this side of the bay. Faint now, but growing more odorous and more potent.

Midnight
The STENCH! The Stench! I all but gagged upon the rotting sweet tang in the thick thick air. I cannot see how this horrible stench is emitted, perhaps some local vegetation or fruit native to this side of the island (my matron lies retching in the boat from it) but out guide and boatman seem indifferent to it, if not perhaps, reverent and desiring of it. I can only best describe it as the smell that Alexander the Great must have left Thebes rotting in. My Guide has suggested the party tarry till morning to seek out the craftsmen of the delicacy, and even though my olfactory senses beg of me to leave this horrible place soon, the murk-some dark that lurks beyond the light of our torches is more the horrible.

Dec 15th
Dawn
I have seen the origin of the stench. Strewn on the beach. Rows upon rows upon rows upon ranks. Like the vast lines at the Battle of Agincourt. Dried and shriveled by the hot rays of good mother sun. Shrunken. Shining. Squid. Their vast brows dried up. Those eight appendages gnarled and twisted , as if affixed in a frozen seizure. The Eyes. They eyes. DAMN THEIR EYES!
People have come forth from the tree-line at the edge of the beach. Carrying baskets they are going through the rows and ranks and taking some squids and leaving the others. Females carry deep clay buckets containing a slop they sludge on the squid corpses then men have not taken. It is surely that this is the base of that food I am supposed to eat. I have come so far to quail now. I must.

Noon
After much haggling my guide (my matron remains a pale quailing mess at the bottom of our boat) has convinced one of the men to take us to their home in the forest and allow me to sup upon the delicacy. The path to their village is lined by foul effigies of wood and stone. Idols depicting half squid and half human abominations of both sexes. Some engaging in blasphemies to our Lord. I question this Madness I have been put into.

1pm
There is some argument. I am sitting awaiting for them to bring me a sample of their concoction. A few moments ago the apparent chief looked in my direction and gave a horrible grin and shout, all the others going silent and all filing out. My guide patted me on the shoulder, laughed, and said "Yes! Good! Food!" The limit of his English.

Dec 18th
3am
Just awakened. I have had a feverish nightmare. three days gone, I think. The taste. the smell. They showed me the thing I ate! THEY SHOWED ME THE THING I ATE! NOT THAT SQUID ON THE BEACH!
They brought it to me on a plate. One complete piece. Small, pale and shriveled. I admit I saw no resemblance. I saw NO resemblance. It was tough. certainly. My delicate teeth could not rip or tear easily. I had to expend all my jaw strength, like chewing and biting into a rawhide bucker. Rotting horrible rotting flesh. maggotty, foul, sour, and yet sweet like yellow bile. As if they had captured the essence of the five humors in this food. Sweat broke on my brow, and the horrible churning in my tract belied vomitus but no... no... nausea soon turned to desire! I quickly ravaged the little that had been left and demanded MORE. MORE! I stood up and pointed beckoning and demanding for more like a savage Aurrang-u-Tan man. And they brought me more, heaps, piles, mountains. And like a mad thing I ate, laughing. Everyone laughing. screaming, cackling. An orgy broke out around me. And then there was no more and I demanded more. And then he showed me, the mad chieftain brought me deeper into the forest. A large barn like structure is there.
You can find it there still! Now I realized how the curing squid on the beach had reminded me of the ranks and files of military! Human heads! but not humans! Not the heads of squids but CHILDREN! but not children. FOUL BLASPHEMIES BEFORE GOD! Inside not squid, not man, but caged abominations at once both the small supple pink flesh of human and the heads of squids! tentacly beards trailing across the chin and down to the chest! All chained, all savage, some being slaughtered before my eyes. Their horrible heads chopped from that that had once been human!
And the man kept laughing! laughing! laughing!