Dan Vinson is an industrial designer living and loving in Long Beach for 5 years. He can be reached at bellemachina@yahoo.com.
A Fine Meal
My mouth got me in trouble plenty. Once, it was rewarded with a fine meal with just desserts. I’d like to say the boast left a bad taste. Why feed one lie with another. So, here’s how it happened that I began to taste a bigger life.
The summer of 1991 found me in white collar heaven as a single man living on an expense account in the city of New Orleans. Actually, it was more of a per diem purgatory with thirty bucks a day in padded receipts to support two rents. By July, the apartment’s swimming pool was a bathtub like eighty three degrees with a pre BP slick of suntan oil. A Dutch pastry chef named Thys and I spent far too much time poolside dialoguing bikini girls into becoming his stateside wife.
Thys had jumped a cruise ship with 25 thousand reasons for an American woman to marry him into citizenship. One of the women he approached brought the ire of her giant older brother. Dutch boy actually offered to buy a Kuwaiti lady. In 1991, the first Iraqi war made this type of barter difficult to transact. Especially, when the impromptu transaction occurs poolside between a slightly slow Netherlands native and a very protective family. Thys thus learned about arranged marriages in Muslim families through a series of half Farsi half English slurs.
Being a peacenik at heart, I intervened, “Hey, anybody want to buy my sister?” This diverted their efforts towards other primal desires.
“What’s she look like?”, they answered in chorus.
“Her one eye is sure pretty and her kids help her with the crack problem,” I advertised. “But, she is one hell of a dancer. Now, any offers?”
The United Nations would have been proud of the pregnant pause I afforded our new international guests. Though none of the assembled had the gift of English as a primary language, they all got the the joke.
“What color is the good eye?” Thys added to milk the joke further. He knew damn well I didn’t have a sister of appropriate age or I would have already sold her to him.
“See, he don’t care about looks. He’s looking for a green card” I said to calm the waters further.
“Aren’t we all?” said the giant older brother. “My name is Kasim, people call me Kaz.” extending his hand in my direction.
Shaking hands with the biggest Persian I had ever seen in my quarter decade on this rock, I smiled and returned the introductions. “I’m Dan and this Nordic erection is my friend, Thys. You’ll have to forgive his quick approach, he’s working on a time limit here.”
We spent the rest of the afternoon making nice and getting slightly plastered. Rules of engagement with the fairer sex were shared about all of our cultures in a he man exchange of bigger dicksmanship. Though many of our native societies rules were very different, we all shared the common quarry.
Kaz was an easy laugh with plenty of stories as wild as mine. He joined us on further adventures as we sought Thys a bride in the Big Easy. For the next several months, attractive tourists and locals both were continually assaulted by our trio’s proposals of matrimonial contract.
After a while, Thys’s desperation at wife hunting left Kaz and I to more refined conversations. If cars, motorcycles, and movies are indeed considered more evolved, then we were developing a friendship of common cultural appreciation.
My Alabama birth had kept me from most foreigners until I started traveling. My native state didn’t really accept native people of color until about 1975, so actually knowing anyone from somewhere else was unlikely. Language barriers and fear distributing teachers helped to maintain my isolation from the actual world. I escaped that unfortunate circumstance every chance I got. Kaz was another chance to explore the common human condition from outside my own small minded birthplace. Through him I learned how important food is to any relationship.
We dine with those we love, the ones we know, and the ones we want to know and love. Life may put you in proximity to those you do not like. It may sometimes force you into actual contact with others that make you angry, uncomfortable, or anxious. But, it doesn’t require you to break bread with them. This is why state dinners and first dates are of such importance. The sharing of food unites souls through sustenance.
This valuable lesson began, like so many, with a simple question. Kaz, my tutor, asked, “Do you like Middle Eastern food?”
At that time, my limited knowledge of any food from that region extended as far as the lesser James Bond movie, “Octopussy”. Though the scene I remember actually occurs in India, my complete ignorance of most other cultures blended all countries into a single faraway place. The rest of my response was the pure testosterone of wanting to be accepted. “Sure, love it. I’ve even had sheep’s eyes” was my response to what I thought was a general question meant for lying. I didn’t realize it would turn into a dinner invitation.
It was about three weeks later and a string of recent visitors from my hometown had kept me in the tourist traps of the French Quarter for the last few weekends. Though the quarter is great to visit, the better restaurants eluded most tourists by lying outside the quarter. Locals know this. They may work on Bourbon Street bars or restaurants, they may even own one. But, they eat elsewhere. I had learned this by sheer laziness.
By not wanting to park or drive, I had been made aware of all the better restaurants in my part of town. None of them had good parking and were within walking distance. Daily increases in good local Cajun food had exposed the Quarter’s offerings to taste like the thin, sad imitation that only a tourist could tolerate.
So, I was up for it when Kaz asked me to lunch on a Sunday afternoon. He and many other folks from his native region would eat at a friends restaurant when it was closed on Sundays. It was their way of cooking their food, their way, with their people. I was honored to accept. Southern people will not turn down free food. We particularly like the foreign food because it gives us a story to tell and judgment to render.
It didn’t occur to me that I may have already decided the menu. My boasted details eluded me in the glow of the invitation. Though the board of fare was an unknown, my words would be part of my meal.
We arrived at the restaurant with three anticipatory appetites. Kaz had told us to skip breakfast to make room for the impending feast. I had done as instructed hoping the extra hunger would propel my appetite through any unknown menu selections.
Thys had tried this before and looked forward to the dessert. His training as a pastry chef kept him enthralled with the anticipation of an exotic dessert. Several years of cruise ship duty and dozens of cabin mates from all points of the globe had expanded Thys’s palette well beyond my own humble affections for cornbread and fried chicken. So, when he said the food was good, it was a stamp of approval unlike any other.
The dining was already underway. Kaz and Thys were welcomed with big hugs along with loud introductions to their latest guest. Dark skinned men shook my hand and muttered “hellos” and “welcomes” intertwined with strange accents and words that still escape my mono lingual ears.
Smells had already started awakening my young nostrils, numbed by a steady diet of southern fried savory. Tangy pangs tweaked my olfactory sense during my introduction. Foreign hellos freshly spiced with the delights I was about to indulge introduced me to my first real foreign meal. My belly rumbled with anticipation.
Kaz handed me plate and led me to the a large table loaded with exotic dishes. The lamb stew immediately drew my attention. Slugs of meat floated in a rich brown rue flecked with rice beckoned my nose’s closer inspection. An elderly woman recognized my longing for this dish and produced a bowl. She grabbed my plate and started loading up sheets of some flat bread that looked burnt in places. A couple ladles of stew gushed into my new bowl. The sweet woman then guided us to a table for us to dine.
No chairs. No chairs? No chairs! That was the thought screaming in my brain whilst my film
history buff interrupted. “No chairs, of course. Indiana Jones didn’t get a chair in the Temple of Doom, he sat on pillows.” Once again, movies filled in where my public school social studies classes left off. We sat upon pillows at low tables. A stream of different women continually brought cups of hot tea and refilled cold water in our glasses.
The amazing service was only a shadow in the light of that lamb stew. It’s magnificent scent only hinted at the heady flavor it delivered. This rich broth and it’s succulent nuggets of spring lamb brought new taste buds online for the first time in my life.
Tearing and gnashing chewy pita became my mouth’s new hobby. My tongue invented new ways of pushing food around to all my flavor receptors to assure no exotic element was missed. Breathing habits altered letting my nose be the main source of life giving air and soul arousing smells while letting my throat convey confections without delay. Unburdened by respiration, my body inhaled the food. I occasionally halted only to breathe.
It was on the occasion of attempting to exhale off a particularly spicy bite that I noticed the silver serving dish at the head of the buffet. It’s chrome dome had not been removed since we arrived.
“Kaz, what’s the dish under that lid?”
“Ah, you can’t wait, can’t you?” Kaz purred seductively
Without waiting for reply, Kaz called out to the rest of the assembled diners in a tongue that still evades my translation. The remark was unintelligible only to me as the crowd cried out in agreement. Everyone had finished dining and was ready for a show. Kaz motioned for me to stand and another round of cheers rose up with me.
Across the dining room, an old man stood with me and walked over to domed dish of what to be my next course in humility. A gap toothed grin parted his lips as he motioned me over to join him. My curiosity overwhelmed the tension of the moment. As I moved past the other seated diners, their attention and cheers slapped me back into reality.
Groups of men will happily make asses of strangers, no matter the culture. It may be a test of manhood or a primitive ploy to out an outsider. Either way, the unknowing subject of the groups entertainment is usually the only one not cheering the moment. I had gotten all silent during my walk across the dining hall as this multicultural phenomenon hit home.
From about five feet away, I knew what lay under that lid before the old man’s hand lifted it. The head of the lamb we just consumed lay on a bed of lettuce. Obviously roasted to perfection, the flesh hung off the cheeks in stringy flaps and released an intoxicatingly delicious aroma when the lid was raised. I couldn’t gasp without feeling disgust and hunger at once.
The eyes stared lidless into space. I tired not to match the gaze on that I was about to graze. I looked back at Kaz for assurance.
Kaz yelled out, “It’s time for dessert!” and then translated to the rest of the crowd.
They didn’t wait for the translation. I didn’t need one. Whatever the Farsi phrase is for “Ew! He’s gonna eat an eyeball” was shared repeatedly among the assembled diners turned audience. I heard it enough bouncing around my own head that it found echoes in different languages.
The old diner dove in first by plucking an eye from its socket and holding it up for me. To turn down offers of food as a guest is rude. My grandmother taught me that but she wasn’t about mow down on a sheep’s peepers either. Still, I was inclined to indulge because all the exoticness offered thus far had been divine. So, I reached out and grabbed the greasy orb which is the only way to retrieve one.
The cooked eye and it’s attached muscle was larger than I thought. This wasn’t a teaspoon of regret. I was about to get a mouthful of my own words. This thought replaced the earlier chorus as I opened up for a fresh roasted dessert of my boast.
The old man took the remaining visual treat and held it up for the crowds approval leaving the skull now completely blind to my shame. The diners all raised their glasses, their voices, and their spirits as we both began our last course. I watched the old man for clues about how to go about it. He simply popped it into his mouth and started chewing.
I mimicked instead of waiting or thinking. For the first and only time in my life an eyeball entered my mouth. Biting down at once to overcome the gag reflex, I felt the sphere burst into a salty wetness across those newly formed taste buds. The rest turned into a meaty egg that I began to choke down. Though exotic, it’s flavor wasn’t completely unknown or unpleasant. It’s tender texture belied its horrible source. I understood the delicacy of this honor and took some pleasure in it.
The crowd went mad with a chant started by Kaz. “Finish it! Finish it!” Hoping I would gag, choke, and embarrass myself, Kaz had this final moment to torment me. The crowd only reminded me that I was dining well and they should be so lucky.
Until I felt that tooth rattling crunch. When eating an eyeball, you wouldn’t expect bones, but the hard portion that just exploded in my mouth informed me otherwise. I had bitten down on bone before and this was the only analog that sufficed. I kept crunching this mess down into smaller portions and swallowing it easily. It was a bit of showmanship to lick my lips and open my mouth as evidence for the room. It was a bit late to learn what it was I actually ate. In lieu of knowledge, I ate up the applause.
The crowd died down as I looked over for the old man’s approval. He raised an eyebrow and winked. Then he spit into his clenched fist like one would graciously dispose of a grape seed or olive pit. He opened his palm and showed me a little glass lens that he had expertly tongued out of his meal.
Again, the toothless grin found its way to me. He pocketed the sliver like a coin as I contemplated all the cutaway drawings of eyes my eyes ever saw. The little elliptical part of the eye focusing light had brought some illumination to me so that I wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
Kaz and Thys brought the crowd with them as we convened and hugged it out. “I can’t believe you ate a fucking eyeball, man! That’s insane!” Kaz yelled over the murmur of the same statement echoed in ten other languages.
Thys, ever the chef, was envious. “How was it?” he genuinely inquired.
“You should try it for yourself” was the only response I could offer.
We all stumbled into the parking lot for smoke after my triumphant meal. Cigars were lit and I reached for my pack of Marlboros. Kaz pushed my hand back and shook his head. Then he produced an unwrapped cigar with a flair that told me that this wasn’t a simple Cohiba.
“I can’t smoke this mutha fucka without you, man. I’ll pass the fuck out!” Kaz said in a hushed tone as not to advertise our intent.
I knew that hand rolled beauty was part of my reward. He lit up without biting the end off, a tell tale sign of a spliff. Whatever we were about to smoke was the biggest damn joint I’d ever seen. My world knowledge of drugs and culture was about to get another chapter because I’d never even heard of hash at this point.
His first exhale disappeared into the cloud of other less potent tobaccos. Kaz grinned and passed. My first hit was stronger than expected. I toked like I was trying to suck start the space shuttle. It worked too. The impending blast off was not planned, but welcomed.
Exhaled lava would have felt better than the heat bursting through my windpipe. After choking on eyeball, I now coughed mine out as every drop of moisture left my body.
Kaz explained, “This ain’t ditch weed. This is hashish from Afghanistan.”
“No shit!” I choked out between coughs.
“Correct, not shit. Good stuff?” Thys mused while reaching for the roach. Kaz obliged with a warning first, “Don’t hit it like this idiot. You’ll end up coughing up your hit.” Thys tempered his hits with quick pulses of air by opening his mouth and valving the freshness
in with the lethal heat. He still coughed up half a lung. Kaz showed us how to hit hash then slung it to me for a fresh toke. Inhaling lightly, I let the smoke in slowly and out even slower. Thys followed my successful lesson without strangulation.
Our three to one partaking was never captured by the rest of the smoldering crowd. Others smoked while we got smoked out in broad daylight. With three on a spliff and no one the wiser, we finished before everyone else.
Kaz knew we’d be worthless as used kitty litter in T minus fifteen minutes. So, he urged our departure. We all said our goodbyes and thanks. I escaped into the restaurant to find the old man for a handshake. He leaned in for a great hug as soon as I entered the door. He yelled something foreign, but clearly funny because Kaz overheard and couldn’t stop laughing. I begged for a translation.
Kaz provided it, “He said you’re welcome here anytime and he will keep an eye out for you!”
Whether I was high or relieved, it was just as funny to me now as it was then. It stuck with me through the hash hazes, the crunchy surprises, and thick rich stews of my memory. That meal, those people, hash, and that fucking eyeball stayed with me even through so many memorable meals since. That little knowledge nosh fed me for years.
Respect for other cultures is as simple as my grandmother’s etiquette lessons. Be polite, eat what your host offers, and always say thank you. And, don’t run your mouth or it will run you. That day left a funny taste in my mouth and it’s a flavor I treasure. No other meal let me dine on my own words so exquisitely. Appetizing as it didn’t sound, the appreciation for the delicacy stayed.
