Charlie… bug-hunting
I’ve never had the best of relationships with food… I was a fussy eater when I was little, and even now, I have particular quirks that can irritate anyone who is nice enough to prepare food for me, yet seem perfectly logical to me.
For example, I have mixed feelings about stew… No matter what you call it, casserole, stew, cassoulet, ragout – to me it is a dish to be regarded with great suspicion as it appears an excuse to cover a variety of items that I might not like with a coloured sauce in an attempt to disguise them.
Like mushrooms. I can appreciate them for their … aesthetic value, but whenever my mother puts mushrooms in a dish, I will systematically pick them out and lay them on the side of my plate like a row of slimy brown corpses…
I don’t like all my food items to be touching. If I have something like baked beans, chips (fries) and sausage, there has to be a clearly delineated zone between the said items. This makes perfect sense to me – who wants to eat chips soggy with bean juice?
And yet, I love reading recipe books, I am fascinated by cookery programmes, follow various food blogs and can eat out once in a while without too much mental trauma…
Dinner out with my son and a rare exception to my general rule of no sneaky sauces or intrusive ingredients… a lovely risotto
My mother is of the generation where food equates to love; for her, you demonstrate you care by cooking for someone, pressing extra portions on them, piling their plate high. Every food shopping trip is planned with military precision … and yet we still end up going back for an ingredient that she can’t possibly do without… much to my exasperation.
I go “off” items with, to her annoying unpredictability, refusing to eat things that my mother considers a delicacy and that I will have nightmares about… lobster equals luxury food item to my mother; to me… it’s basically a giant bug that belongs in the realms of horror. Or at least in the sea where it lives.
My younger son is vegetarian, which is beginning to appeal to me quite strongly. It seems cleaner, somehow, and kinder. I’m not condemning meat eaters at all – who am I to judge? Indeed, as long as you eat meat with appreciation and gratitude for the animals’ sacrifice, then fair enough.
I would NEVER attempt to impose eating regulations on my cats, they are obligate carnivores after all and need a protein based diet, so I will (mostly) hunt far and wide for the perfect of catfood that will satisfy my girls’ delicate palates…
As for me? Well, I know I don’t have to go too far to hunt down my next packet of biscuits… or watermelon!