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Tales from Exit 22 by Al Batt

I was eating one of the few things Joey Chestnut hadn’t yet devoured.

I ate a pickled egg while accompanied by the “Ewwww” sounds made by those assembled to eat other things. I’m as young as I’ll ever be, so please don’t yuck my yum.

I’d been walking early that morning. I was wearing closed-toe sandals and a tiny pebble found its way inside a sandal and with each step, it felt as if it were a boulder pushed there by Sisyphus. I grumbled to myself as I released the minuscule stone back into the wild. It was a little thing, not worthy of a single grump, but little things bug us. Like parsley. Our meals came. A friend grumped about the sprig of parsley on his plate. The green grassy garnish used to be placed on every plate in every restaurant. “I hate parsley!” he said. He didn’t have to eat it and he didn’t. It was a little thing that irritated him. Why garnishes? Was a parsley sprig there because of the lobbying by the powerful parsley farmers organization? No, it was there to fill empty spaces on a plate, to add color to dull food and make it look more appetizing, as a mini-salad, as a breath freshener or as a digestive aid. It was something to nibble on after finishing your entree.

I don’t hate any food. What’s the point? Food is an important plank in the ship of life. That said, there are foods of which I’m unable to muster peckish thoughts. If you’re going to ask yourself what food you like the least, ask yourself, “Why am I talking to myself?” A fellow told me that when he was a boy, he chopped wood for breakfast. I don’t think wood would slip down easily for breakfast or any other meal. Slivers don’t appeal to me.

No matter how many essential vitamins and minerals, protein, fiber, carbs and Omega-3 fatty acids a food might contain, someone won’t care for it.

School was where a student heard the dreaded words, “I dare you to eat this.” School lunch often included cooked spinach—likely more frequently in my memory than in reality. It came in a color of green not found anywhere else. The school made up for the discolored spinach by providing the occasional lunch of whistleberries and hounds (beanie weenies). Kids made a concerted effort to dislike asparagus, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, green beans and spinach. They had learned they could hate foods without trying them. Then one day, in a moment of weakness, we try something we know we won’t like. Voila! The is isn’t and the isn’t is. By the time kids have destroyed most of their taste buds, one way in which they become adults, they enjoy those kinds of foods. Sadly, most of the school’s spinach went directly from tray to garbage bin.

Our school lunch program provided food more than good enough for the likes of me. I might have called it awesome, but we didn’t call everything awesome in those days. There are people who don’t like squishy or slimy foods. I’m not sure what squishy food is other than marshmallows, but I must confess that when presented with slimy celery on chow mein, I did protest loudly, “I’m not Rasputin! Stop trying to poison me!”

In my time on Earth, some foods I’ve heard to be inedible most often include: Scotch eggs, lychees, beets — sometimes they taste like dirt tracked into a house and sometimes like soil things are planted in — anchovies, circus peanuts — packing material and not food — crunchy peanut butter makes a peanut sandwich, candy corn, blood sausage, kimchi, lutefisk is this way or Norway — a friend has a love-hate relationship with lutefisk and loves people who hate lutefisk — okra is a deep-fried treat, escargot tastes like snails, caviar tastes like fish eggs, oysters taste like oysters, sardines taste like fish eyes, hot dog water, eggplant is delicious, olives, liver, Limburger cheese and sushi.

Like the kids who learned they didn’t have to try foods to dislike them, adults have learned to deep fry any food they dislike.

Remember, there are no food villains, even those that smell like feet.

Al Batt’s columns appear in the Tribune every Wednesday.