I Will Wager You Did Not Know This

File this away under “things I learned that I did not know while watching the Colts play the Bills:”

CBS seems to really be pushing an original show they’ve come up with called Clarice, as I’ve seen multiple commercials for it before we’ve even reached halftime of the Colts-Bills game. The show is supposed to be the story of FBI agent Clarice Starling who was played by Jodie Foster in “Silence Of The Lambs.”

The movie always reminds of one particular line Hannibal Lecter – played  by Anthony Hopkins - says to Clarice about a census taker who once tried to test him:  “I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.”

The line was sufficiently creepy for me to remember, but what I didn’t know is it was an inside medical joke. I looked up the line to make sure I quoted it accurately, and came across this explanation: Lecter was probably being treated with drugs, which I certainly hope a maniac like him was. The drugs were probably called monoamine oxidase inhibitors, or MAOIs.  Since Lecter is a psychiatrist, he knows this. Which means he also knows this:

The three things you can’t eat with MAOIs are liver, beans or wine. So he’s telling a joke by saying he ate some guy's liver with fava beans and a nice Chianti to indicate he’s not taking his meds. And creep everyone out.

Learning this has been the highlight of an otherwise less than exciting game so far….