Food of thought

I had this strange conversation with a lady on the phone yesterday and wonder if she has got over the shock just yet. She had left a message on my answering machine at work and I called her back, only to find out that she was inviting me to a wine and pastries festival hosted by a local French organisation. How she got me as the one to call, I do not know, and do not much care about, though she did say that she had found someone to cover the event for her. But we chatted for a while and I told her that if she promises to feed me lots of chocolate pastry, I would definitely be there. Judging from the silence that followed my comment, I figure I should be a little more formal when I wear my journalistic cap, especially if I have never met the person I am talking to. But her comeback, once she had recovered, was fairly quick. She told me that there would be no chocolate, only brioches and croissants and a few puff-y indulgences, but that we could always make up for the lack of chocolate another day. Which left me speechless.

That has happened only a few times in my long and culinarily indulgent life. Perhaps the first time ever was when I was confronted by more French fries than I could even start to eat. It was in a small but famous inn high in the mountains of the Black Forest in what was then West Germany, in a small village called Waldhillsbach, known all over the country and perhaps beyond for its wonderful blue trout. Being a gourmand rather than anything close to a gourmet in those youthful times, I shuddered at the prospect of first meeting my fish, then having it cooked for me, and shuddered some more at the idea that I would actually eat fish. Being a stout and stout-hearted ten year old, I chose roast chicken and, inevitably, chips, aka French fries.

It was, for me, a wise decision. I watched in horror as my parents and their guests – a couple and their young son, Bengalis – chose their fish and saw it off to the kitchen with due ceremony. The food arrived, my chicken nicely grilled and succulent, the fish strangely grey-blue and staring with its fishy eyes, still in its fishy head, with a distinctively fishy leer. Not being one who liked her food to watch her as she ate, I delicately looked away from the piscine offerings and concentrated on my own foul play. It was delicious. But defeating. I managed to eat a lot of the Halbes Huhn, a considerable portion, but even I, known for my prowess at the sport, gave up about a third way through the chips. There were just too many of them. It felt as if it was sort of a Tantalus dish of fries – the more you ate, the more there seemed to be. Finally, breathing heavily, I stopped. But Father did not stop teasing me about it…I still get hints of the way I could not eat my chips, even today. I maintain my silence.

I was also defeated many years later by a chocolate sundae. Frozen yoghurt, actually, an overdose of chocolate that left be feeling and perhaps even looking rather bilious and exhausted. And silent. I wrote about this not too long ago, I know. More recently, there was another defeat on my plate at the local branch of the Hard Rock Café. I asked for a burger and got through the vast quantity of fries and of some of the veggies, but left most of the bun and some of the meat on my plate. But I know how to beat that one – from then on, I just ordered the insides, without the bread! Very quietly.