This may be the most abstruse, esoteric comic I’ve ever posted here. Who even knows what charcuterie is? Personally, I refuse to eat any type of processed meat. Sausage, cold cuts, anything that gets ground up and smushed back together is not OK with me, and nitrates/nitrites tend to give me a migraine. If I am going to eat meat, I prefer it to look like the actual animal, or at least be the largest possible chunk of that animal, and I would rather get it fresh and cook it myself so I know exactly what’s in it. After 20 years of vegetarianism, it’s hard not to be picky about eating animals.

Besides, do you know what’s in processed meat? No, you do not. Nobody does, not 100%. Not even the garde manger chef who made it. Anything could be in there. Karen Cushman nailed it when she wrote, “sausages are where butchers hide their mistakes,” even though she meant it as an example of snobbery. If not wanting to eat this makes me a snob, so be it.

The original gag is not mine. My brother, probably the only person in the world whose ideas I actually use, sent me an email saying he thought the idea of a “sharkcuterie” would make a funny T-shirt, but he had no idea of what a sharkcuterie would be. And then I spent literally an entire day thinking of puns for stuff that sharks would buy in a preserved meat market. Some of the rejects: mako bacon, porpoisemeat/toroisemeat (I was trying to make a pun on “forcemeat,” the very idea of which sends waves of nausea rippling through my gut, but neither of them really work), and some kind of joke about scotoplanes, which are also called sea pigs. But seriously, who knows that? I had to look all of this up, and it bummed me out that I couldn’t think of anything for terrine, galantine, or confit. Clam chops is funny, even though lamb chops aren’t really charcuterie because they’re not preserved. Poetic license. Or, comic license, I guess. In addition, I also considered making the sausages hanging on the wall look like eels, sea urchins, and anemones.

Anyway, those are some goofy looking sharks. They both need orthodontists.

Also: head cheese. Ew.