Our family never really had any weird food traditions around the holidays. I did date a guy for a while whose family always had spare ribs and sauer kraut on every holiday buffet. We did a "soulful" Thanksgiving with a lot of Deep South dishes a few years back. And Tom's mom used to make "ham balls" which she thought were very popular until I confessed I was feeding them by the handful to the dogs.
But we never went for monkey meat.
From WaPo...
Customs officials searching the bags of an African man who flew into Dulles International Airport on Friday discovered three charred monkeys in his luggage, as well as deer meat and dried beef, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials said yesterday.
The man was traveling from Bangui in Central African Republic, a small country north of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He admitted he was carrying the meat, a common food in parts of Africa, after a trained dog alerted authorities to the man's bag, customs spokesman Steve Sapp said.
The monkey carcasses, inadmissible under U.S. law, were confiscated and are being inspected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; monkeys can easily introduce infectious diseases to humans, Sapp said. The other meat was destroyed, and the man was allowed to enter the country without penalty, Sapp said.
Foreigners visiting the United States sometimes try to bring with them exotic foods that are part of their native cuisines, especially around the holidays. But this was "a first for many of us," Sapp said.
All together now: "EEEE-yuck!"
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