The Tragedy of the Soup: Part II

Recap: I hate vegetables and mushrooms.

The smell, the taste, the texture, the sound they make against my teeth when I accidentally bite into one... There is nothing about mushrooms that I don't despise with every fiber of my mediocre English major being. If there was a food product that embodied all the vagaries of despair, it would be the mushroom.

But that is only the origin story to our the tale. The climactic plot point in the Tragedy of the Soup was a moment when I realized the lack of fulfillment and ambition in my life. When I realized that there was no possible way $3.80 was going to feed me for six days.

So, taking into consideration my hatred for vegetables, my exceptional hatred of mushrooms, and my status as an extremely poor college student facing the end of a term and a dwindling meal plan, I got my hands on some strategically placed pity and gained possession of some canned soup.

Now, for me I have been spoiled for any soup that is not made by my mother, or other members of my family that I trust in the kitchen (which is almost all of them, as cooking is kinda of a huge deal in my family—all except my sister, she of the thrice-burnt rice). We make soup like champs, with none of this canned nonsense. But when one gets down to the state of near-starvation that awaits any student foolish enough not to budget his or her meal plan, canned soup is just dandy. Delicious, even.

Wandering back into my room after an evening of studying and friends, feeling the hungry again, I perused my food shelf and lighted upon the cans of soup. The cans looked good, or at least the labels appealed to my sense of aesthetic if not to my taste buds. One of them looked especially enticing, called “Steak & Potato.” Seriously, what is more delicious to finely chopped, beef and potatoes, smothered in a gravy-like broth? I like steak. I like potatoes. I like gravy. I had high hopes for it. But I suppose a loss of hope and the destruction of dreams is what growing up is all about.

So, after a long and arduous journey to the dining hall, I acquired a spoon and dumped my soup into a leftovers contained to eat. For those of you are of a literary inclination, this is what might be referred to as the exposition and rising action. For after I acquired my spoon and opened the can, I noticed that the soup was.... not the color I expected it to be. And it didn't smell right either.

But I was foolish, and let my stomach dictate my choices. I began to eat. It didn't taste great. In fact, it tasted kinda like crap. The potatoes were rubbery and the steak felt grainy. I thought to myself, This is disappointing, but I am hungry, and I won't let the goodwill and hard work of getting this can of soup be in vain. I took a few more bites and soon wished I hadn't.

On my fifth bite, I bit into the potato I had scooped up in my spoon and swallowed down the odd-tasting gravy-broth, when something unexpected appeared amidst the bite of soup. After a shocked pause, I delicately probed at the mysterious object in my mouth with my tongue, thinking that it was perhaps a congealed chunk of grease or something. It felt slick, slimy, with a vaguely familiar unpleasant something about it that tickled at my memory. The object slipped over the side of my tongue and the moment it settled in the bottom of my mouth against my teeth, I recognized the texture of the unexpected object.

There was a mushroom in my mouth.

I won't lie. I do this thing when I accidentally eat things I don't like. I sort of screw my face up and.... Well, no. I don't suppose it really could be qualified as a “thing.” It can't even be qualified as simply “spitting it out.” I just open my mouth and rely on gravity to remove the offending substance.

This has a rather checkered history of success for me. For example, when I was small and some cruel relation of mine would trick me into drinking coffee, I ended up walking around with a large brown splotch on my shirt and in bad need of a face wash. When I forget that there are pickles or onions or tomato on a burger, I end up getting yelled at or laughed at (depending on the depth of our personal bond) by whoever I am eating with. However, what this practice lacks in grace it makes up for in speed. It is the fastest way to get rid of something—one doesn't need to waste time performing a spitting motion.

When I discovered the espionage mushroom that had tricked it's way into my mouth, this is the technique I resorted to to get rid of it.

I ended up with reddish-brown soup broth dripping down my chin like some maddened, blood-drinking, axe-murdering psychopath as I gazed down, aghast, at the spit-bathed mushroom floating sloppily in the bowl of soup.

All the suspicious elements I had previously noted were explained—the color, the smell, the not-delicious taste.

It was no longer a bowl of soup.

It was a bowl of despair.   

The Tragedy of the Soup Part I: Vegetables

I hate vegetables.

I hate them so much. If I had to be a vegetarian I would die of starvation because there would be nothing I would eat. I would be so skinny, it would only be attractive for the few weeks it takes before my body to run through my stores of fat and start ingesting my own internal tissues for sustenance. Then I wouldn't be attractive, I would just be sad and kinda gross to look at, starving to death and all. Anyways, I hate them.

As a child, I refused to eat them. My poor mother gave up a long time ago. I remember she only ever punished me once for not eating them by making me sit at the dinner table alone until I ate them, and I just sat at there staring in sullen, silent, noble martyrdom at whatever travesty she had demanded I eat, until she got so frustrated that she just let me leave instead of trying to bargain with me into being healthy. I only remember this happening once. Now, at the age of twenty, my body just doesn't know how to process them. If I eat a veggie that is inadequately camouflaged, my body seems to go into the process of breakdown.

It goes like this:

1. What is this? This texture is unfamiliar to us.

2. Do we like this? Should we try it? Is it bad, or is it so bad it's good?
3. No. We do not like this. This is not good.
4. Stop. Now.
5. Stop chewing, dammit!
6. If you don't spit this out right now....
7. STOP IT!
8. No. You aren't swallowing it. You are not.
9. She is. She's doing it.
10. REJECT! Abort action, trigger gag reflex.
    
    
    Below is a graphic representation of how this process feels made with Microsoft Paint. In explanation, it feels so bad that my hair curls and I start bleeding from my ears, eyes, and mouth, while also crying.

And then I end up doing this awful, choking-gag thing and any further attempt to ingest vegetables is immediately met with the discovery that I am actually physically incapable of swallowing them. 

Given my hatred of vegetables and resulting inability to eat them, it figures that I don't eat them when given a choice. Unfortunately, I don't always have a choice. Polite niceties and all that. Maybe I'm at a dinner (I leave my room?) and someone gives me some salad. It would be rude to not touch it. Or maybe someone made dinner for me, and put vegetables in it, not fully understanding the depth of my disdain. Maybe my mom just didn't feel like catering to my perverse anti-vegetable wants. Whatever. That's okay. I have developed a coping mechanism for when I absolutely have to eat vegetables.

It goes like this:

1. Check to see if anyone if watching.
2. If they are play, and move around vegetables until it looks like not as much if left.
3. Slowly cut up veggies into pieces small enough to swallow without chewing, and that are too small to maintain disgusting vegetable texture.
4. Involve self in dinner conversation so I have an excuse to eat slowly.
5. Eat a small bite every three to four minutes, chewing as little as possible, and pray that different food or a socially acceptable excuse not to eat arrives soon.*
6. Continue until body realizes your deceptions and begins the above process of breakdown.

This method works about 80% of the time I am in a situation where I have to employ it. When it doesn't I usually just put on an expression of noble sacrifice and try not to ruin everyone else good time with my choking.

I used to refuse to touch them, but after maturing to adulthood I have come to terms with the fact that I have to eat vegetables sometimes. I mean, they're likes 40% of what we should eat or whatever, right? They are everywhere. It would be impossible to avoid ever eating them, no matter how revolting and unnatural they are to me, even if I end up eating them only to be nice.

Now, I've trained myself over the past two years to begin to include small dosages of vegetables in foods that I eat frequently, because I had a very scary doctors visit once. Essentially, the doctor made me believe that I would die slowly and miserably from, like, vitamin deficiencies if I continued to ignore vegetables. With muscle spasms and mouth foaming and internal bleeding and stuff. So, to avoid such a graphic and undignified demise, I started putting lettuce on my burgers. I eat a celery stick or two, maybe even a baby carrot if it happened to be in front of me.

Granted there are exceptions to every rule, and even I like green beans. There are a few foods I like, including the vegetables in them. Soup, for example, or lasagna. I can usually eat whatever vegetables come in these food, if they are cook adequately.

However, there is one vegetable-type food that I cannot stomach, no matter the disguise, no matter what it is included in: Mushrooms.

*Perhaps pretend to receive an emergency phone call from a friend that a beloved relative is in the hospital with mad cow disease or swine flu?