WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Bottle of red, bottle of white — at the 2006 Torino Olympics, it all depended upon your appetite.
The choices for diners at the Beijing Olympics won't be that simple.
Mug of Tsingtao, skewer of fried scorpion — that will be more challenging for the uninitiated, not to mention songwriters trying to find something that rhymes with it.
For thousands of visitors about to descend upon Beijing, a myriad of such choices await at upscale restaurants, never-ending rows of eateries and the city's famous open-air marketplaces, from which a smorgasbord of aromas drifts into the warm summer breezes.
So what's your pleasure — pig's stomach or pig's ear? Camel paw or donkey? Grasshoppers or cicadas? So many insects, so little time. After all, the Summer Olympics last only 17 days.
"The food's good," says swimmer Ryan Lochte, a former Florida Gator who has visited China twice. "I mean, they have McDonald's there. It can't be that bad. I love McDonald's."
Exactly when the golden arches started leading to gold medals, we're not sure. Luckily, the U.S. softball team also has made multiple trips to China.
"We went downtown," says slugger Crystl Bustos. "We found all the eating spots."
Finally, some thought for food. Recommendations? "They've got T.G.I. Friday's."
In truth, when in China, Bustos and her teammates also eat as the Chinese do.
"You could still have an adventure and go eat some Chinese food — some real Chinese food, not like over here," Bustos says.
And? "I don't know what it was, but I ate it."
This isn't stuff you'll find on the menu at P.F. Chang's. Take the luxurious Guo-li-zhuang restaurant, which bills itself as the world's first establishment specializing in serving specific parts of male animals extremely difficult to describe in a family newspaper.
The Travel Channel's Andrew Zimmern ate there — and liked it — as part of his series, "Bizarre Foods With Andrew Zimmern." Around town, he also sampled donkey, and ordered up some crunchy cicadas on a skewer.
"This is horrifying," he said, pointing out that creatures tend to taste like whatever it was they last ate, and this cicada probably was found in a barn and ... never mind.
The U.S. Olympic Committee is trying to make sure its Olympians don't pig out on pig's ears. The USOC recently gave Olympians an etiquette class in which they learned to never clean their plates, because the Chinese take it as a sign guests weren't fed enough.
Some U.S. Olympians are going into the Games open-minded.
"Since not too many people get this opportunity, I'll be willing to try some stuff while I'm in Beijing," basketball player Sylvia Fowles says. She's a native of Miami who played at LSU, where, she says, she stayed away from "that crawfish stuff."
She won't always be certain exactly what she is eating in China, where menu translations aren't straight out of Webster's. Take the place that used to serve fried carp but unfortunately transposed the "a" and the "r."
Already, the Chinese have served warning that if any Olympic visitors have a craving for Fido, they'll be disappointed. Authorities have removed dog from the menus at all officially designated Olympic restaurants. They have, however, said precious little about another favorite: cat.
American Olympians won't have to deal with such matters if they choose not to. A majority of their meals likely will be consumed inside the Olympic Village, where the food operation will be managed by Jennifer McCrary, food and beverage director at the Palm Beach County Convention Center.
What of those reports that the USOC was bringing massive amounts of food to Beijing? Misleading, says Nicole Saunches, USOC manager for marketing communications. The USOC's chefs will cook at the USOC training center, not at the village, and primarily for officials. The shipped food is courtesy of sponsors.
"We actually shipped more to Athens than we did to China," Saunches says. "Part of that is we had more food sponsors in Athens than we do now. It's not out of a fear of the food. It's more what our partners provide us and what will reduce our cost at the end of the Games."
The USOC leaves it up to each sport's officials to advise athletes on dining out, but most athletes tend to be cautious enough that they'll likely wait until after competition before getting adventurous. Consider that when swimmer Dara Torres is home in Parkland, Fla., she special-orders organic food from Tampa to keep her 41-year-old body revving in high gear.
Olympic nutrition isn't what it once was. The earliest modern marathoners sipped brandy while running 26.2 miles. By the 1970s, an American who set records in the decathlon revealed his secret: "little chocolate donuts."
(Alas, it was just John Belushi, in a "Saturday Night Live" parody: "It tastes good, and they've got the sugar to get me going in the morning.")
Come Friday, Aug. 8, training time will cease. It'll be time for the real thing. Time for the Opening Ceremony, highlighted by the lighting of the Olympic caldron.
Anybody have some skewers and scorpions?
Hal Habib writes for The Palm Beach Post. E-mail: hal_habib AT pbpost.com.