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| Thread: The Taste of Fear | |
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted May 12, 2009 04:55 AM |
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Edited by Corribus at 05:00, 12 May 2009.
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The Taste of Fear
So, I was recently going through some of my old posts at the Round Table (I have a selection of them saved on my hard drive), and I came across one that I particularly liked. This is a true story that details a near death experience I had a few years ago. It was a tragic event in my life, and in the interest of sharing some of my most intimate details with you all, I wanted to share it with you as well. This version is newly enhanced with all new embellishm- er, additional important facts.
So, without further ado, I present
The Taste of Fear: A Memoir
By Corribus
I purchased some tomato sauce the other day to use with some spaghetti I was planning on making for supper. I usually am in the habit of checking the labels of such things to avoid the type of unpleasant event that fate was planning for me that evening, but I was in a rush and so neglected this vital pre-purchase grocery ritual that has become a staple of my increasingly neurotic lifestyle. So, without pausing to ascertain what exactly I was buying, I headed to the checkout counter with my prize. $2 and some odd cents later I was the proud owner of one jar of Wegmans Italian Classics Puttanesca Sauce, "a savory sauce with kalamata olives, portabello mushrooms, artichoke hearts and capers."
Had I known this ingredient list prior to shelling out my hard-earned two bucks, that jar would have gone back on the shelf faster than you can say “inedible”. The reason being: I am afraid of Mushrooms.
When I tell people this, they think I'm sort of kidding, that maybe I just don't care for the taste or the texture of mushrooms, but really it goes well beyond that for me. This isn't some casual food dislike. I dislike asparagus. I fear mushrooms.
At this point, of course, I hadn’t crossed the Rubicon and my evening could have still been salvaged if I had only remembered my safety checklist. Sadly, I was also in a rush when I was preparing dinner and I again neglected to scan the label for offending ingredients. This is the final failsafe, and must be remembered at all costs, and yet there it went, unremembered. So, while the pasta cooked in gently boiling water, I twisted open the top of the sauce jar, breaking its vacuum with a reverberating POP, smelling the slightly acidic, unmistakable aroma of tomato and olive oil. The pleasing odor caused a rapid release of endorphins into my bloodstream and a rushing of saliva into my mouth, further diminishing any chance that the smarter, less hungry part of my brain would come to my rescue and protect my vital organs and my soul from impending doom. Without thinking (obviously), I finished off the preparatory process, and then there I was: a steaming bowl of spaghetti on my table, topped with freshly grated parmesan, chopped basil and (unbeknownst to me) a rich, luscious tomato sauce that was just swimming in fungus and mold spores.
It is a good thing I chanced to look down at my meal before I took my first bite. Eating a mushroom without realizing it is a recipe for multiple organ failure secondary to complete and utter shock. Nevertheless, can you imagine how aghast I was to learn, when I chanced to glance at my supper, that there were huge hunks of fungus floating in my bowl? I considered just tossing the whole damn thing in the garbage (because that's where mushrooms belong), but I was also hungry and all those survival shows are right: if you are hungry enough, you’ll eat anything, no matter how deadly. I was not about to abandon all sense and dig right into that morass of fungalrific evil, of course. No, I fell into the trap that has tripped up food-snoops since the dawn of time: The Pick-Around.
The theory behind The Pick-Around is that with sufficient manual dexterity and enough patience, you can effectively separate offending morsels in a given food dish from the edible portions, thereby rendering the meal innocuous to someone, for instance, who has a grave intolerance to all species of an entire biological Kingdom. This theory is predicated on the assumption that no toxins have been excreted by the culinary interlopers into the nominally harmless portions of the meal. Accomplished professionals in the Pick-Around technique will tell you that there's a definite size cut-off (and I have this down to a science, I swear) that determines at which point mushroom pieces are too small to be reliably separated from the nontoxic fraction of the meal. It is precisely 3/8 of an inch. Anything smaller, and the Picker seriously risks Esophageal Fungus Contamination (EFC), a most serious condition that may in some cases require prompt medical care. This is not a technique for sissies and should be practiced for long hours on properly calibrated test meals prior to applying it to any dish you actually plan on eating. In this particular instance, the pieces of fungus in my spaghetti were closing in on that sacred 3/8” protective metric, and some mushroom chunks I saw immediately fell in the RZ (red zone) but I was brash and arrogant that day – and perhaps hunger was interfering with my normally impeccable judgment when it comes to this sort of thing – and I thought I could succeed in removing every last mushroom molecule from the rest of my food despite the glut of smaller-than-should-be-legal fungus particles.
I was blinded by greed, misled by hunger, and egged on by pride. In short, I was a damned, reckless fool.
Let it be said as an aside that there is no maximum time limit for food contaminant removal. The Pick Around is an art that cannot be rushed. Would you demand that Beethoven compose a symphony in under 5 minutes? No, of course you wouldn’t. Whether in a TV dinner by myself or over lunch during a job interview, protecting my internal organs from exposure to anything in the Fungi Kingdom supersedes even the most cherished social mores and conventions. I have been known to spend upwards of thirty minutes checking and rechecking an entree even suspected of containing mushrooms, while my wife has sat mortified as I scrutinize every brown piece of matter no matter how outwardly innocent-looking. For make no mistake: these aren’t amateurish green peppers or orange carrots we are dealing with, here, easily discerned by their vibrant colors and removed from existence in the same expedient manner in which a hunter might quickly track down a purple moose or a fluorescent kangaroo. No! Mushrooms, always some unappetizing shade of tan, are sly, nefarious creatures, easily camouflaging themselves within their soupy lair. And only the most dastardly of foods (and I use the term loosely) would dare impersonate the most prized of male-loved culinary delectables: beef.
But I digress.
Tossing all common-sense aside, I went to work, extricating those fungal pieces from my spaghetti with the tenacity and same divine inspiration that Joan of Arc used to repel the English from France. But would I suffer the same tragic fate as that poor girl? Only time would tell! Parry, thrust, scoop and retreat – I engaged upon a furious bout of culinary fencing that would have made the Dread Pirate Roberts weep with jealousy. Using fungal extraction skills honed through years of methodical practice, I slowly but surely piled up the mushrooms on a poor paper towel that did not deserve the horrible fate I had dealt it. And finally, after twenty minutes of hard work, I sat down my fork, got a new one (the old one would have to be boiled in mineral acid and then dried in a kiln for 24 hours before reuse), and prepared to eat my luke-warm but now allegedly fungus-free dinner.
But, unfortunate for me, a single fungus ninja still lurked below the surface of my sauce, prepared to wage guerilla warfare against my mouth. Not knowing this, of course, I dug in, trying hard to ignore the obvious fact that there were probably still microscopic spores dispersed throughout my spaghetti. I was starving, and ate quickly, shoveling it in with a speed that would make Mario Andretti jealous.
And then, the fungus struck.
I was chewing and I felt it: a squishy, slippery, slimy thing on the side of my tongue, too soft to be a hunk of hamburger and too slippery to be a noodle. Those idiots known as mushroom lovers delight in describing the mushroom's flavor as "earthy", but "earthy", my friends, is not a flavor. Dirt is earthy. Food is not. And as my jaw proceeded in its reflexive bite even as the most primordial section of my brain screamed STOP!!! FOREIGN BODY DETECTED!!! CODE RED!!, I tasted that subtle but nasty earthy flavor as it spread to my horrified taste buds.
That's when my reflexes took over. The same reflexes that jerk your hands away from fire and protect you from every manner of danger faster than your conscious mind can react. The same reflexes which are hard-wired into our minds from birth as a result of eons of evolution, through life-and-death struggles with all types of threats to our well-being. These reflexes caused my entire plumbing system to go immediately into emergency DEFCON1 reverse-gear mode, and I spat (vomited might be a better word) my entire mouthful of spaghetti out, sending gobs of chewed up pasta, meat, sauce and one lonely vile mushroom flying across the room only to go SPLAT against my television.
Quickly, I sat back and tried to catch my breath. My heart was racing. I was sweating. My pupils were dilated. I was breathing heavily. That's the same reaction my body might have to being chased by a hungry wolf or a swarm of pissed off hornets. I could not help but reflect in that moment of heightened awareness that no food should do this to a human. No food that is safe to eat, at any rate. After a few moments of heavy breathing and then feverish, uncontrollable shaking, I was able to collect myself. I thought about rinsing my mouth out with rubbing alcohol, but settled for Listerine. No doubt, I would have to scrub my tongue with industrial grade sand paper within the hour.
Yes, it was close, my friends. I almost wasn't here today to tell you this story. Mushrooms are a fear for me. An irrational fear, perhaps, but I'm deathly afraid of them nonetheless. I dream about being assassinated by my most merciless enemies using mushrooms as their weapon. They are the one food item I cannot and will not tolerate under any circumstances. I will not eat them even to be polite. I consider being served mushrooms a grave offense, as bad as being urinated on my face. If I was stranded on a desert island and all that stood between me and death was a handful of fresh mushrooms, I would probably starve, and I'm not even kidding. There are times when I am at restaurants and I see something like "Grilled Portobello Sandwich" on the menu. I don't know who in their right mind would think to base a sandwich off a mushroom, but I have never kidded myself into believing this world was a sane place. One time, a friend of mine ordered such a sandwich in front of me and I must have been wearing a horrified "What the bloody hell is wrong with you?" expression and then he asked me what was the matter. I think I just pointed at the menu, doing my best Apocalypse Now Marlon Brando impersonation of "The Horror, The Horror." And he said something absurd like, "You should try it. It tastes kind of like steak."
Uh: If I want something that tastes like steak, I'll order a damned steak. And I'm certainly not going to eat a mushroom the size of my face and try to convince myself it almost tastes like cow.
So what's the point of this story? As with most of my ramblings, there isn't much of one, except to warn you: always read your ingredient labels. And, of course, be ware of Fungi, the Nectar of Satan.
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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friendofgunnar
Honorable
Legendary Hero
able to speed up time
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posted May 12, 2009 05:07 AM |
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I like Enokis the best
haha, seriously though, nice story 
Have you ever tried psychoanalyzing yourself?
Like for example would you chop off your foot if you got athlete's foot? 
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted May 12, 2009 05:13 AM |
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted May 12, 2009 05:18 AM |
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Edited by Corribus at 05:18, 12 May 2009.
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Obviously I realize that fungi are unavoidable in certain aspects of cuisine or daily life. Beer, for example, is brewed with yeast, which is a fungus. Ditto for bread. And let's not even talk about cheese. Or penicillin. With these items I have a convenient suspension of disbelief.
But seriously, people do think I'm exaggerating, but to be honest I can't even touch the things. They really creep me out. I run by that section of the grocery store and make a concerted effort not to even look at them. The above story DID happen. I spent probably 25 minutes picking out the mushrooms and I ate the dish and I felt what I thought was a mushroom and I did reflexively spit the entire mouthful out with so much force that it sailed across the room and hit my TV screen.
Another funny story actually is that when my wife and I started dating, she invited me over to her apartment for dinner. I was sort of being slow to catch on to her interest and thought she just wanted to have dinner with me as a friend (yeah, I was pretty oblivious). So she cooked me dinner, with a nice table, decorations, candles, etc., but she didn't know of my fear of mushrooms, so she made pasta with mushroom sauce. I must have turned white as a sheet when she served it, and I refused to eat any of it. I hung around 20 minutes or so to be polite and then I got the hell out of there. It's a good thing she was persistent, because I probably would have never talked to her again after that. Now she knows better. I don't think she's had a mushroom since we've been together because I won't even kiss her after she's eaten one.
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted May 12, 2009 05:22 AM |
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Well, I'm not that averse to them - but they're still not passing my lips.
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Eccentric Opinion
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winterfate
Supreme Hero
Water-marked Champion!
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posted May 12, 2009 05:52 AM |
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@Corribus: Yes, very irrational indeed. 
And I'm allergic to penicillin; you don't see me running away from fungi.
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If you supposedly care about someone, then don't push them out of your life. Acting like you're not doing it doesn't exempt you from what I just said. - Winterfate
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Mytical
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
Chaos seeking Harmony
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posted May 12, 2009 06:45 AM |
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A tale of horror and idiocy, oh and mushrooms.
I am not allergic to every type of mushroom, but I am alergic to a few. The problem is, I couldn't tell you which ones, or even tell them apart if they had a sign above them in 10' tall neon letters. So, to be on the safe side I do not eat mushrooms. I do like pizza however.
My brother, when he was alive, did not believe I was allergic to mushrooms. After all, he wasn't, and since we were related in his mind it was impossible for me to be. So he called up a pizza place and had them make up a very special order. Tiny mushrooms under pepperoni (spelling?). After I ate the meal and was fine, he was going to point out it was 'all in my mind'.
Sure enough the mushrooms were so small, I did not taste them going down. Which meant that I had 4 slices. Unfortunately by that time the fungi had fully entered my system. Now I am not deathly allergic, but my body will violently expell the offenders with prejudice. Ever want to know what it feels like to think your insides are going to exit your body? No..you don't. I know what it feels like. It was .. painful. I am just lucky I was not deathly allergic..the moral? When somebody says they are allergic to something, never test the theory...
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Message received.
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baklava
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Mostly harmless
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posted May 12, 2009 06:50 AM |
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I adore mushrooms. 'Specially champignons - roasted, with some kajmak, alongside some meat.
I do understand and respect your fear, though. More of them for me ^^
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"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted May 12, 2009 03:10 PM |
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@Mytical
Quote:
Now I am not deathly allergic, but my body will violently expell the offenders with prejudice.
Same with me, and I'm not allergic at all! 
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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khalbrae
Adventuring Hero
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posted June 29, 2011 12:40 AM |
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Edited by khalbrae at 01:28, 29 Jun 2011.
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Psychosomatic mushroom convulsions?
My poor man.
My wife won't believe I have the same problem with Strawberries, Cherries, most berres at all really.
Edit: Indeed, my own guts, that rot to the touch of berries have resurrected this thread.
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gnomes2169
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Duke of the Glade
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posted June 29, 2011 01:26 AM |
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NECROED!!!
Oh, and I see why you have so many QP's, Cor.
Edit: What do you mean, you don't have a QP for this?  Mytical...
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Yeah in the 18th century, two inventions suggested a method of measurement. One won and the other stayed in America.
-Ghost destroying Fred
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Fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted June 29, 2011 02:46 AM |
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I don't think mythical was a mod.
lmao
NDE? until the end, I thought you were allergic to mushrooms
well, it could be worse, usually, children have an irrational fear of most kind of foods that don't look like chocolate
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted June 29, 2011 03:37 AM |
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Quote:
Edit: What do you mean, you don't have a QP for this? Mytical...
Good point. Updated my profile accordingly.
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted June 29, 2011 10:39 AM |
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I love shrooms myself. So tasty!
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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Lexxan
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Unimpressed by your logic
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posted June 29, 2011 01:08 PM |
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Edited by Lexxan at 13:12, 29 Jun 2011.
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I personally LOVE eating mushrooms myself, but I have a similar revolting sensation when confronted with funghi and rotten food. I hate it and nearly gag at the sheer SIGHT of decaying stuff. So gross.
and I also hate tuna. Terrible stuff. and Ham -_-
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Coincidence? I think not!!!!
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Darkshadow
Legendary Hero
Cerise Princess
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posted June 29, 2011 01:11 PM |
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So long as it doesn't paralyze or kill me, ill eat it.
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted June 29, 2011 03:11 PM |
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Quote:
So long as it doesn't paralyze or kill me, ill eat it.
And yet many kinds of mushrooms will, my friend. THEY WILL.
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JoonasTo
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
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posted June 29, 2011 03:46 PM |
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DagothGares
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
No gods or kings
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posted June 29, 2011 03:50 PM |
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I like champignons a lot, due in mass produced pre-prepared foods (or spaghetti sauce) they're always ruined and spongey.
I don't care much for shiitake and have little knowledge of most others.
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If you have any more questions, go to Dagoth Cares.
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bLiZzArdbOY
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Nerf Herder
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posted June 29, 2011 04:04 PM |
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Quote:
And to think some of us actually eat and like Gyromitra Esculenta.
 Interesting.
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"Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us."
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