Out the back, by the clothes line

On Sunday I ate a grape, and I liked it.

I don't often eat grapes and perhaps I know why this is: grapes are one of my sacred foods.

Grapes don't do much for me in terms of flavour.  I mostly eat the small dark ones. Not necessarily muscats, but perhaps preferably so.  Grapes appear to have a very particular impact on me, and it is this impact which I don't want to dilute. That is why I don't eat them often.

As I bit into the first grape, which was my first grape in months if not close to a year, memories burst into my mind with surprising freshness.  I grew up around grapes, not in a wine making scenario, but rather household vines which were planted by my grandparents and had grown to cover the entire backyard.  These vines not only provided decent shade for weekend BBQs but also an endless supply of grapes every autumn, before dropping them all over the floors and making a mess of the entire place.  There was around a dozen varieties of grapes in those vines, and each variety occupied a different section of the yard.

I think I was the family member who least enjoyed the grapes. The vines I loved, but grapes fell on the cusp of my food spectrum, and I failed to indulge in their abundance.  I did however have my favourites.  These were the sweet muscats which grew close to the clothes lines and had none of the tartness which the paler grapes had.

My palate has certainly changed over the years, and I've grown to enjoy a number of fruits and veggies, and yet grapes still fall in the blurry edges.  What's different now is the powerful memories they conjure, the general vibe of what it felt like to grow up surrounded by family under the shade of these vineyards.

There are a few dishes which conjure these type of gustatory-inflamed memories and I am trying to manage my consumption of them to ensure their impact doesn't dissipate through over use.  I fear that indulging in these memories will make them fade quicker and I won't have them to remind me of what's gone by.

I recently made a roast chicken on rock salt (pollo a la sal) which had a similar reaction.  Even though there is nothing particularly incredible about roasting a chicken on an inch-high layer of rock salt (other than its deliciously crispy skin!) it was the closest thing I had to tradition when I was growing up. It was almost a Saturday ritual to have pollo a la sal for lunch, before being let out to destroy the world, and now this dish probably comes the closest to helping me retrieve those moments.

For whatever reason, memories helped along by either smell or taste, appear to be incredibly intensified.  Perhaps due to my life as an immigrant, nostalgia has become a powerful force.  As such, grapes, along with various other foods, have taken on a greater role and I look forward to eating them (occasionally) forever.  At least until google can recreate our reactions to them through other means.

Buen provecho!

Sans salad

As much as food these days is somewhat of a social lubricant, or in my case, an opportunity for others to speak while the food interrupts me, it hasn't always been such an enhancer of my social life.


Argentinians are known to be a carnivorous bunch, having only recently relinquished a long held mantel of highest beef consumption per capita to Uruguay. But even in such good company, I stood out for my disdain towards fruit and vegetables, and in particular, the common salad. This side dish mostly made up of lettuce, tomato and onion, with a light dressing, has long tormented me and has impacted on my personality and quality of life far more than desirable.


As a young lad, I hesitated and desisted from going to my friends' houses for dinner and sleep-overs, as invariably "it" would be served at the table, and the shame I felt at having to ask for a dish with meat or pasta, but no salad, made the rest of the evening an exercise in self castigation. These became some of my earliest memories of anxiety, a feeling I still get every time I eat in public.


Unfortunately, my condition was not very well accepted by the community in the 80s, and there were certainly no support groups for it, so I suffered alone. The social isolation which ensued still lingers in my psyche. I can still smell the balsamic dressing in my nightmares. While the other children laughed and played, and happily rejoiced on the wonderful memory-making moments that slumber parties, school camps and outdoor picnics presented them, I was putting a down payment on my first box of Aropax.


As I grew older, I somewhat made peace with my eating disorder. I also vastly enlarged my range of consumables, but the social anxiety persists. Catered work lunches are a particular occasion when the cold sweats and enlarged pupils occur. No doubt in an attempt to justify the prices, caterers ensure that every sandwich on the table has at least three colours within the slices, and such artistry can only mean pain, suffering or starvation for the rest of my afternoon. Under such circumstances, which usually find one holding a sandwich with nothing but a napkin or a slight paper plate, not even Houdini could make the salad disappear without destroying the meal, or making a scene. Especially as one is usually simultaneously conversing, or 'networking', in close proximity with those who one is trying to impress, or in the very least, not disgust. And so, the torturous salad is once again consumed... bite by bite. Or more predictably, end up discarded untouched and hidden, amongst the rest of the over-catering, which no doubt occurred.


The backyard bbq provides the social equivalent to the work morning tea, with the added bonus that these events are not catered but rather a physical manifestation of your friends' effort, love and affection for each other. And so, as the makers of said salads mingle nearby, their leering so intense it could re-heat the fried onion, (which I certainly do partake in), the salad avoidance dance is taken to almost professional levels.


By my late twenties I had become a lot more adept at dealing with such situations, carefully avoiding the wrong queue at a buffet, purposely ensuring to be last serving oneself in order for the portions to have run out, or filling the plate with enough bread so the lack of salad doesn't raise much curios inquisition, but occasionally, when you least expect it, in a moment of distraction, someone selflessly hands you a plate with a whole side of it. And as I look down unto such a plate, almost with a balsamic-drowned resignation, I curse, "Oh salad, why hast thou forsaken me!"