My Cause is Supported by God…
Have you ever wondered how cool it would be to be the President of The United States of America? Beyond the obvious perks of the job, like company housing, you can also write something called an Executive Order. So you can write anything you want and it has the force of law as long as it doesn’t break any of those other laws.
George W Bush understood the power of this handy little bit of business. His very first Executive Order upon entering office was to ban broccoli on Air Force One. So, on pain of Courts Marshal, officers of The US Air Force could not sneak the stuff abroad. Jail time for having an illegal stash sounds reasonable to me.
So a bunch of hateful broccoli farmers took exception the the new rule and dumped a big truck load of the stuff at the White House gates. Bastards. I hope it was ground into broccoli mush in morning rush-hour traffic.
That was back in the good old days, when America stood for something. Our allies looked to us for guidance and we delivered. But no more, today we Tweet pictures of Big Macs inside the White House. Greasy food porn.
You can always tell when you’re getting old: someone asks you to talk about food you hate and you start off by longing for the good old days, when law and order ruled the land. These damn kids today don’t know what it was like. I remember our first microwave.
Foods that I’ll not be eating would fill an entire list: Like that blood pie: What the hell were you thinking? Oh yeah, and those slimy raw oysters. Really; are you sick? I sure would be.
But there is one dish that is singular. It doesn’t really qualify because I have had it – many years ago. I hate this food so much I actually have a physical gag reflex at the smell: boiled spinach.
When I was but a pup my mother decided that spinach was healthy for me. So she would whip up a steaming, smelly batch of the stuff and slop it on a perfectly innocent plate and place said slop in front of me. I was forced to eat it…
I damn well don’t eat it now and nobody’s gonna make me! My passion on this subject should not be underestimated. I don’t give a damn what you think: I WILL NOT eat that slime.
We must all stand for something. There are certain moral lines no man should cross. Some may say 
violence is acceptable when defending one’s family. If you choose such a trivial subject as your life, then so be it. However, my cause is supported by God… directly.
THE FOOD I HATE MOST THAT I’VE NEVER TASTED
I can’t really recall something so revolting that I would never eat it again. As opposed to bad wine –there’s plenty of bottles that will never reach my lips again.
So, to have a bit of fun, at the expense of more Corona-type misery, here’s a few things that I know I would hate, even though I’ve never tried them!
Raw oysters are one – effectively drinking slimy sea-creatures is, and always will be, a no-no for me. Particularly as they are still alive. Unless you cross my palm with millions of Turkish Lira, it’s not going to happen. Just the thought of it makes me want to vomit.
Caviar – I don’t know whether it’s just the way it looks, or the price tag that comes with it, but either is a good excuse not to bother.
Fried Mars bar. Apparently, it’s a delicacy in Scotland, the country that first tried this appalling experiment, but inserting a perfectly acceptable bar of chocolate into a pan of burning oil, to create a chocolate bar with batter on the outside is another reason to bend over the lavatory bowl in the bathroom. Or toilet, as we would say in the UK.
But, in first place, something I have also never tried, and also never will, but I know I hate with a vengeance. I give you……..fermented shark. It’s actually the national dish of Iceland, and known locally as Hákarl.
The shark is cured with a particular fermentation process and is hung to dry for up to five months. Sadly, during that time, a fishy taste is not the only thing your taste buds will pick up. It also has an extremely strong ammonia-rich flavour, which has given rise to many tales about how the carcass is bathed in urine throughout, or even worse, that after slaughter, the shark’s urine passes into the skin and stays there, waiting for you to access the delicate aroma………
Of course, I don’t know this from actually trying it, but famous UK celebrity chef Ainsley Harriott, during
his series “Ainsley Eats the Streets”, was unable to handle the heavy ammonia scent and described Hákarl thus: “….like chewing a urine-infested mattress”.
Good enough for me to pass on that.
The worst food I’ve ever had
Once, about a year ago, my wife told me:
– Listen, I always cook at home, what if you think about it, too. Aside from your pasta or Indian-style chicken that you cook rather occasionally. Think about it.
I sat down and thought: my number of cooking options are quite limited and kid’s preferences must be taken into account, too. I should have in mind a meal that would fit anyone but it must be something special, too. It must be delicious, kind of my signature: stylish, one of a kind, cool.
It still should’ve been some kind of meat. I respect meals made of vegetables but… ‘where’s the beef?’
Finally, the result of my brain storm was: leg of mutton. Not beef or pork but something unusual, not from everyday life, in Moscow, at least.
I knew it was a pretty hard task to find a good leg of mutton in Moscow. The best option would be to go to some Moslem minimarket where people would sell some good halal stuff to their friends. I didn’t know any such spot. Didn’t really bother to find it. Instead, I went to the nearest supermarket, just across the road from my place. There we go. This was mistake #1.
I’ve got, out of modest choice on the shelves there, my desired leg of mutton, a big chunk of it. Vacuum-packed. Heavy. Dense. Obviously, not fresh out of the meat market. Still, I stubbornly stuck to this choice, having no Plan B. Mistake #2.
At this point I was still thinking I was doing OK: surely not the best catch in town but the best I could get.
I grabbed this chunk and brought it home. When I proudly showed it to my wife, her face went cloudy:
– Where the heck did you get this thing from?
I tried to explain my decision mentioning from where exactly I got it and what my logic was behind it. She plainly told me that I fucked it up. Now it was time to try to cook something out of this old ram, long-gone and probably died of old age before being processed.
She washed it with fresh water, then put it into marinade for 24 hours. She changed the marinade a couple of times trying to get rid of that ‘old flavor the meat smelled of”. Next day we stewed it for another 5 hours.
When it was finally ready, we took it out of the oven anxiously looking what’s in there.
Well, the ill-fated leg of mutton had become softer. However, I must admit, that funky flavor was still with it. No, it didn’t stink. It was even juicy. But… you won’t want to have it on your table for a party, so to speak.
We tried to eat it. I’ve heard of stories that gold-miners in Fairbanks, AK, in early 20th century had tried 
mammoth meat extracted out of the permafrost: edible but disgusting… Plus this mutton smell…
We got rid of it. We still can’t get rid of the memories of it.