I walked by the potted meat section in the grocery store the other day and it struck me as a very strange name for food. It is not the most appetizing label to bestow upon something you plan to consume.
To me, the term potted meat brings to mind someone planting a steak in a flowerpot in hopes that come the spring a steak tree will bloom. On the other hand, maybe someone waters a strip of bacon in a barrel with the plan to harvest a bushel basket of pork chops.
Another food that has a less than savory name is liver cheese. I am sure there are folks out there that enjoy a liver cheese sandwich but to me, it is not very appealing. To me, it brings to mind something Dr. Frankenstein would cook up with the leftovers from his experiments. Perhaps it refers to an ailment that strikes the liver causing it to grow mold and the only way to cure it is to wrap the organ in cheesecloth.
When I lived in Delaware, they enjoyed a breakfast food called scrapple. Scrapple is a dish of pork meat mixed with spices, broth, and cornmeal that is placed in a mold and served sliced and fried. I always confused scrapple with the game Scramble. When folks asked me if I wanted scrapple, I immediately tried to think of words I could use for the triple letter score.
Finally, we come to catheads and gravy. When taken at face value this perhaps has the least appealing mental visual of any food. Do not get me wrong I love a good biscuit as much as any Southern-born and bred American. Heck, I could eat a biscuit with almost anything. However, the descriptive verbiage of this dish leaves me somewhat queasy.
Ultimately, it will not stop me from enjoying a good cathead but I may refrain from referring to it as such in circumstances that are more refined. Like if, I find myself at my veterinarian's office I would not say I am on my way home to chow down on a good old cathead. You have to read the room, you know.
As the Spanish proverb says, "The belly rules the mind."
Truer words have never been spoken. If pizza was called baked dolphin eyes, I would still indulge. I would even store it in my refrigerator for later because everyone knows cold dolphin eyes are great for breakfast.