It was a long time ago, I had just started dating my partner.
Of course we used every moment to spend time together, if possible separated from the world, however, we could not completely ignore the social life.
And since in those years most of the society, either our friends or our friends, were starting family lives, it was normal for us to visit each other as couples.
And so the previous moments of home visits, when we had parties and got drunk with good music, were replaced by new, much calmer gatherings, with very little drink but plenty of food.
We went to each other's houses and prepared food for each other.
It's already becoming clear to you which topic from this week's #weekend-engagement series is my choice 🙂
What's the worst meal you've ever had and why?
My partner's best friend met a slightly older man (older than us then, I would call him a young man now 😀) whom she said was good in the kitchen (she said he was also good in bed, but luckily I didn't have to check that 🤣).
But the way he is in the kitchen, I am.
The two of them arranged for us to visit them and one afternoon, bottle of red wine in hand, we headed to their apartment.
There are two dishes in the repertoire:
Chicken with gnocchi and Chicken with curry spice in a slightly spicy sauce.
My dough-loving partner didn't think twice and decided on the gnocchi, and I, as I like a bit more spicy food, chose the curry.
"Do you like it spicy", he asked me, older than me for sure by more than 10 years.
"Moderately," I replied.
"OK, then I won't overdo it," he said and began to prepare the sauce.
When the chicken was served, I have to admit, it was excellent. Grilled just enough to be nicely cooked, not dried out and juicy enough.
However, when the "master chef" poured seasoning and sauce over it, he made it too spicy.
Tasty, but too spicy.
While the girls were enjoying the mild flavors of the gnocchi, he was eating his spicy dish with pleasure (Smrad matiori, he must like very spicy food), and on my forehead, drops of sweat were collecting from the great spiciness...
And, what was I supposed to do then?
Should I give up eating and thus give that uncultured man room to gloat that I can't eat angry like all real men?
Oh, no!
It won't be possible, even at the cost of completely burning my lips and tongue 🥵
I kept quiet and stuffed the food into my mouth, chewing as fast as I could and trying to make the agony of eating this meal as short as possible.
So the question is not "What was the worst dish I ate" but "Why did I eat it"?
I did then, because I was young, I didn't want someone to declare me as a kid who can't eat spicy food, but from this perspective, I know, I wouldn't do it that way.
I wouldn't do the same now.
Either I would pour the sauce and curry spice on my own portion or, if he seasoned it himself, I would give it back to him.
Fuck it, a person positions himself a little differently at 20, 25 and differently at 45 and 50 years old.
Refusal of tasteless, overly salty or spicy food has become a common occurrence in restaurants.
Just last weekend, I returned a side dish at a restaurant, overly salty French fries.
But since that incident with curry spice and hot sauce (honestly zaiberen), I know that I avoided the presence of curry in dishes for years. I can eat a little more spicy food and I like it, but the smell of curry spices from my deep memory, pulls out of my memory this unpleasant event, in which I did not give in and eat something that I did not like, and I did not like it either.
Since those days, I do not add curry spice to the dishes I prepare.
We have it, the proof is the photo of the bottle next to the one with pepper, but we don't use it to a large extent in the preparation of dishes.
Maybe sometimes we put a pinch, just to smell it - the way spices should be used.
Do any of you have a good curry chicken recipe to give the spice another chance in my version?
If I make a mistake in the preparation, and the dish is not edible and tasty, it goes in the bin.
This time, the tasteless and inedible food will not bring tears to my eyes.
