Monday, November 2, 2009

Kiwi Food of the Week

At first I was puzzled by the popularity of this week's food of the week. The ubiquitous teal cans are nearly a national icon, and yet this dish is decidedly American in origin. But then I realized, this food fits on well with the Kiwi identity: humble, unfussed, convenient and the perfect plate for their beloved barbies. No need to bust a gut sussing out why Kiwi love their:

Baked Beans

There’s an overwhelming amount of things I don’t excel at- being a fully realized human being, for example. But I think I make some damn fine baked beans and that’s an exchange I’m comfortable with. So perhaps I didn’t open the tin of Wattie's Baked Beans with Sausage with an open mind. Or maybe I’m just too sophisticated for my own good. (Unlikely- I eat kidney beans straight out of the can AND enjoy it.) Whatever the case, I couldn’t enjoy these beans. They weren’t awful but like that lunchlady in Rocket Science said, “They’re not terrible if you’ve never had really good ones.” Well, I have.

What was awful was the “lamb” sausages. I can’t complain about the taste since they didn’t really have any but the texture was horrible as mechanically separated meat tends to be. They were reminiscent of those reconstituted chicken-nuggets-shaped-inexplicably-like-dinosaurs our elementary school served. And don’t tell me they “weren’t that bad,” Mom. Even as a six-year-old I remember thinking, “I deserve more than this.” Disgusting.
Still, those cylindrical tubes masquerading as sausage are definitely not the worst meat substance I’ve had while here. That title would go to either the raw muscles or the mackerel spine I stupidly agreed to eat.

My Niuean flatmate Lili likes muscles. She likes them raw with a bit of lime juice and salt. I was naively excited when she offered me one. Growing up in the desert has made me associate seafood, any kind, with worldly sophistication. Muscles? How cosmopolitan! Raw muscles, oh how cultured I am for eating bacteria-harboring seafood that could potentially kill me! How utterly urbane. That illusion was shattered as soon as I smelled the muscle. I struggled to get it into my mouth, and it’s a battle I’m not sure I’m glad I won. It was slimy, rubbery, and tasted like lime-y bile. Still, I did manage to choke it down which was farther than my German flatmate Lisa got. Victory: America!

Americans have been widely criticized for being too distanced from the sources of their food. We don’t want to think about the fact that what we’re eating used to have a face. I don’t consider myself particularly patriotic but for this, I say God bless America! As passionate as I am about all aspects of food, I am happy to let future generations deal with the ramifications of me enjoying my chicken featherless and tuna headless. Ew, ew, ew to meat in its natural state. I am hedonistic, not socially responsible. For this reason, I was unprepared for what can out of the tin of mackerel in tomato sauce I bought on whim. I was expecting only the meat, like canned tuna. What came out was the whole fish, halved lengthwise so all the guts were clearly visible. I screamed a bit and decided immediately it was too gross for me to eat. So I offered it to my Tongan flatemate Marion who told me canned mackerel is her favorite because, besides being “really yum”, it has a soft, edible spine, unlike other tinned fish. I must have looked incredulous when she told me this because she said, “Honest! You should try it.” Well, I did.

I don’t think I was even aware of the taste. It was the knowledge of what I was eating that was most horrifying. And the look of the thing. I wish I’d taken a picture so everyone could see just how brave I was. It was just like a human spine, except with tiny, tiny vertebrae. Oh god, and the texture: hard and first and then SNAP! It crumbles like a fishy marzipan. Just think about it make my stomach wonky. And that was two months ago.

Perhaps worse than the fear I felt during this wretched experiment was the embarrassment I suffered afterward. Marion is normally extremely polite and mild mannered. She found my reaction so funny she could not bring herself to stop laughing at me for about fifteen minutes after I took my first and last bite. Even when I left the room. It reminded me very much of the time Carolyn dared me to eat the pork fat from canned baked beans for two dollars. I will never forget the penetrating power of that screeching cackle. I earned that two dollars and I think that’s an appropriately relevant anecdote to end on so I think I’ve earned the right to end this post. Rachel out.

4 comments:

  1. It wasn't two bucks, it was five. And c'mon, that shit was funny.

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  2. I've always thought myself the unwise and brazenly dangerous one in our relationship, but this post has shamelessly shattered any former hope I had of at least appearing reckless by comparison. Actually, I now realize that you have surpassed me in almost all (important) aspects of my simple, simple life-- clothes and food.

    Sure, I've been fiercely protective of you and Molly at Pitchforks from time to time, whenever one of those junky freaks hopped up on something Molly would kill for thought they could interrupt our conversation about food/clothes and ask to talk to you. I DON'T THINK SO. But you have the huevos mas grandes that I can only sacrifice to my monkey gods for, in the hopes that I too could have the nerve to even consider eating a fish spine. I can't even eat canned meat. Molly can though; did you know she hoards cases of Vienna sausages? Her new favorite thing to eat is Vienna sausages and cheez whiz smashed between two slices of wonder bread and fried in bacon fat. She calls it "getting her whiz fix," referring to herself in the third person, as in, "Molly doesn't care if the whole apartment smells like bacon, Molly's getting her whiz fix!" I'd probably be disgusted if my capacity to hate wasn't already filled to the brim with pity.

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  3. I was googling sultanas so I could finally put my suspicions that they are nothing more than raisins to rest, and I came upon your blog.

    I'm an American living in Auckland and having similar Foodtown confusions (what is with the marshmallows here!?!! They taste like medicine).

    Also, you like Withnail--awesome. Also, you going to see Jarvis at Vector?

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