Feb. 8th, 2011

davidn: (skull)
Up until yesterday, the most uncomfortable thing that I've ever tasted was probably bubble tea, a Taiwanese concoction with beads of slightly frogspawn-like tapioca floating in any type of plant-flavoured hot water. I'm sure that it's an acquired taste and it was made wonderfully by the friend who offered it to me (I do apologize for calling it "the worst thing that ever happened" slightly later on, by the way - that was a bit rude) but I found that drinking it through a straw was not entirely unlike having an alien ovipositor inserted into your mouth and it forcing its eggs down your throat.

But yesterday at work, somebody had left a supply of... nondescript snacks out on the kitchen table. These things came in a packet with a squid, fish and lobster on it, written entirely in Chinese (or it may have been Japanese - I didn't want to go back and check) apart from the name "Treasure of the Sea". And if whoever invented this thought that the things inside were any sort of treasure, then I'd really like to see his face when he's first introduced to any of those three creatures actually properly prepared or cooked. Instead of any of the above, the packet contains a number of smaller packets that encase sort of... brown-green speckled lumps, about three inches long and approximating the shape of a fish. What most distressed everyone around me upon opening it, though, was the smell - almost uncannily as if somebody had shoved a three week old mollusc into the space heater.

However, I knew that there were some foods that smelled awful but tasted rather better - or at least overoptimistically half-remembered that. So I hesitantly put my tongue on to it, tasting that its primary ingredient was salt and that it seemed to be made up of a compressed roll of... stuff wrapped into the lump. Finally I bit down on it, whereupon it ejaculated a payload of fish juice into my mouth and the attempt was abandoned as the plan instantly changed to spluttering and hurling it binwards. Even after taking a drink of water to rinse my mouth out, it took a ton of soap to get the pungent stale fish smell off my fingers, and the odour even after burying it deep among the other rubbish was so offensive that I felt moved to surreptitiously swap bins with the one next to the paper-shredder out in the corridor. I'm still almost convinced that I'm now pregnant, and that a fish is going to pop out of my stomach and start singing showtunes at any moment.

Maybe I misinterpreted the packet and they were actually some sort of fish food. For really big fish. Who were unencumbered by a sense of smell, taste or indeed sight.

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

May 2020

S M T W T F S
     12
3456789
1011121314 15 16
171819 20 212223
24252627 28 2930
31      

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Page generated Jul. 9th, 2025 07:54 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios