WHAT'S ALL THE FUSS ABOUT?
Meets someone for whom a menu is a list of things he’ll never eat, rather than a choice of things he might
In all the time that I have spent observing people, analysing their habits, hoping to get an honest glimpse into their interior monologue, never have I chanced upon one quite as fussy as K. The fact that he would have people refer to him by the sound of a letter — ‘K’ for some sodden Kafkaesque reason — rather than the elaborate name of on his passport is just evidence of how exacting he can be. But if it is proof of fastidiousness that you were looking for, there are more obvious places you can look. The man’s dinner plate, his bin liners, or better still, you could start where I had, with his grocery basket. Nothing, I assure you, can look so curiously meagre.
This is the story of how K and I first met. A common friend, who had legitimate aspirations of being a masterchef, had invited a bunch of us over for an experiment. We would all go to this upscale supermart and fill our baskets with ingredients that the host would then use to rustle up a meal of semi-gourmet standards. So as the rest of us busied ourselves with finding the right bunch of arugula, that perfect slice of pink salmon and an accompanying teriyaki sauce, K was the first in the checkout line. His basket had a chicken breast and a bottle of brownish sauce (that would eventually turn out to be oriental and utterly unusable.) I remember looking over his shoulder and asking, “That’s it?” And he said, “There was too much to choose from. I felt intimidated by the choice. Happens all the time.” The truth of the matter, I later learnt, is that K has been denied the possibility of choice for as long as he can remember.
As we waited for the budding cook to work her tentative wonders in the kitchen, K came to sit next to me and after exhausting his second cigarette, he confessed, “I lied earlier. It’s not like I am intimidated. It’s just that I hated everything else that was in there.” I paused before I chose to interrogate him a little further. “But what you had there was pretty much all that the good lord has on offer. So what you’re saying is that you hate food?” K smiled at this, in a manner that made you feel proud. Proud to have hit a nerve itching to be hit. “That’s not at all actually. I like eating. My girth is testimony to that. It’s just that I cannot eat fruits, vegetables, rice, fish with bones, anything sweet other than chocolate, cereal in the mornings or peanut butter at night. And when I say I cannot eat any of this. I mean it. I just can’t stand the sight or taste of any of it.”
K and I have met often since that day, a day when K was the least effusive in his praise for a chicken that he found too insipid for his glorified palate. Strangely our meetings usually take place in cafes and restaurants. He is a regular almost elsewhere and shares a familiarity with the staff I find daunting. You can bet your last dollar at most times that he will never veer from his usual order — a pasta, sandwich or a slab of some meat. One would imagine boredom to set in, but in his case, the more he eats the very same dish, the more he says he gets to know them. And the more he does, the more loyal he feels. “I need to feel that for something,” he jokingly affirms.
It is fairly unbelievable to think that K grew up in a vegetarian household. He was “saved”, he says, by an indulgent grandmother who subverted the norms of a liberal upbringing by disallowing other members to force-feed him apples and cauliflower. “He’ll come around,” she used to say, while topping up his milk with tea and getting him a little burger after school. K never did come around. He ate a chicken sandwich when he was 16 and as he describes it, “Started believing in very basic notions such as heaven and hell”. The trouble with K now, is that not very many people want to invite him home for a meal. “Specification is a bit of a dirty word and I can completely see why,” says K while sipping his morning cappuccino, “but you’d never get that response for vegetarians. They are saving the world. Me...I am only rejecting it.”
I can safely assure you that the obvious self-pity is an act. The outrage with which K guards his habits — how he pits choice against levels of nutrition, how he campaigns for conscious mortality against healthy living — is all a sign of how he may never change or at least not change for now. But that said, if you do invite him over, he’ll bring the chicken. I should know after all. I am K.
Meets someone for whom a menu is a list of things he’ll never eat, rather than a choice of things he might
In all the time that I have spent observing people, analysing their habits, hoping to get an honest glimpse into their interior monologue, never have I chanced upon one quite as fussy as K. The fact that he would have people refer to him by the sound of a letter — ‘K’ for some sodden Kafkaesque reason — rather than the elaborate name of on his passport is just evidence of how exacting he can be. But if it is proof of fastidiousness that you were looking for, there are more obvious places you can look. The man’s dinner plate, his bin liners, or better still, you could start where I had, with his grocery basket. Nothing, I assure you, can look so curiously meagre.
This is the story of how K and I first met. A common friend, who had legitimate aspirations of being a masterchef, had invited a bunch of us over for an experiment. We would all go to this upscale supermart and fill our baskets with ingredients that the host would then use to rustle up a meal of semi-gourmet standards. So as the rest of us busied ourselves with finding the right bunch of arugula, that perfect slice of pink salmon and an accompanying teriyaki sauce, K was the first in the checkout line. His basket had a chicken breast and a bottle of brownish sauce (that would eventually turn out to be oriental and utterly unusable.) I remember looking over his shoulder and asking, “That’s it?” And he said, “There was too much to choose from. I felt intimidated by the choice. Happens all the time.” The truth of the matter, I later learnt, is that K has been denied the possibility of choice for as long as he can remember.
As we waited for the budding cook to work her tentative wonders in the kitchen, K came to sit next to me and after exhausting his second cigarette, he confessed, “I lied earlier. It’s not like I am intimidated. It’s just that I hated everything else that was in there.” I paused before I chose to interrogate him a little further. “But what you had there was pretty much all that the good lord has on offer. So what you’re saying is that you hate food?” K smiled at this, in a manner that made you feel proud. Proud to have hit a nerve itching to be hit. “That’s not at all actually. I like eating. My girth is testimony to that. It’s just that I cannot eat fruits, vegetables, rice, fish with bones, anything sweet other than chocolate, cereal in the mornings or peanut butter at night. And when I say I cannot eat any of this. I mean it. I just can’t stand the sight or taste of any of it.”
K and I have met often since that day, a day when K was the least effusive in his praise for a chicken that he found too insipid for his glorified palate. Strangely our meetings usually take place in cafes and restaurants. He is a regular almost elsewhere and shares a familiarity with the staff I find daunting. You can bet your last dollar at most times that he will never veer from his usual order — a pasta, sandwich or a slab of some meat. One would imagine boredom to set in, but in his case, the more he eats the very same dish, the more he says he gets to know them. And the more he does, the more loyal he feels. “I need to feel that for something,” he jokingly affirms.
It is fairly unbelievable to think that K grew up in a vegetarian household. He was “saved”, he says, by an indulgent grandmother who subverted the norms of a liberal upbringing by disallowing other members to force-feed him apples and cauliflower. “He’ll come around,” she used to say, while topping up his milk with tea and getting him a little burger after school. K never did come around. He ate a chicken sandwich when he was 16 and as he describes it, “Started believing in very basic notions such as heaven and hell”. The trouble with K now, is that not very many people want to invite him home for a meal. “Specification is a bit of a dirty word and I can completely see why,” says K while sipping his morning cappuccino, “but you’d never get that response for vegetarians. They are saving the world. Me...I am only rejecting it.”
I can safely assure you that the obvious self-pity is an act. The outrage with which K guards his habits — how he pits choice against levels of nutrition, how he campaigns for conscious mortality against healthy living — is all a sign of how he may never change or at least not change for now. But that said, if you do invite him over, he’ll bring the chicken. I should know after all. I am K.
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