‘What a stupid question’ says you! ‘I know what my food tastes like!’
Do you, really?
As you may have read in my Socks and Sandals blog, I have spent the last 3 months hiking and camping with my labrador Hari, and when you’re carrying everything with you, you have to cut down the weight of your pack to the very minimum.
It was only yesterday, that I realised that the one thing I haven’t been adding to my food is salt and pepper as I didn’t have any with me,and 3 months later I realied that I havent missed it.
I haven’t started any meals fting onions and garlic, or adding spices, to add depth of flavour, and i haven’t used any plant based butter, or plant based cream either!
Normally I would be using all of it. In fact I have been eating very very basic foods, some pre-prepared so they are easy and quick to cook, n a simple camping stove, but most of the time, rice with beans.
I realised it’s what you get used to, and it doesn’t take long to change a habit, for ‘flavourings’ are all about habit, not taste.
I know lots of people who have come on board Ariana, and I have cooked them a fabulous meal, only for them to pour buckets of salt, pepper and even chilli /soy sauce, ketchup and mustard, just to add more ‘flavour’.
For those meat and fish eaters out there, how many of you have tried raw chicken, beef, pork, cod, prawns, or crab? Even if the raw meat and fish didn’t poison you as it porbably would, what would it taste like?
It certainly wouldn’t tast like grilled prawns in a garlic sauce, or deep fried chicken with barbecue sauce would it? Top chefs would quickly go out of business serving up raw prawns!
The same goes for vegans. If a top chef was just seving up raw vegetables what would they taste like? Do you know?
When I was volunteering at the monastery on holy isle, I started serving salads with no dressings, so people could really meditate on the tastes of cucumber, rocket, and cherry tomatoes, but they were outraged, and demanded dressing!
I then started making soup without salt in it, and they were incenced!
It just doesn’t have any taste, said the head monk, you have to make it tasty!
So I added half a kilo of salt to the pan, and guess what, suddenly my soup was delicious!
Everything we eat has to be fried, grilled, or baked, tossed in oil or butter, salted, delicately spiced, and served with a sauce!
We are obsessed with flavour! Even though it only lasts from the lips until we swallow it! That’s about an inch and half!
All that work, the growing of vegetables , the feeding of animals, the netting of fish, the killing, the chopping, the distributing, the chilling, the freezing, the gas, the electricity, the money, just so we can say…Mmmmmm that tastes delicious!
What a waste!
Of course, 99 percent of people disagree with everything that I say, but that’s ok, you and I are smart!
It’s time to examine what things actually taste like in their natural state, and if you start to eat a more basic meal every day, especially without salt, you will soon find out that not everything in the world is salty! Except maybe the sea!
Try it.
Oh just in case anyione thinks about suing me for suggesting they eat raw meat and fish and then getting poisoned, just a quick thought, it’s your own fault! Stick to carrots!
