chapter 7
chapter 7 – king’s food
It’s been few week that I escort the king and queen of Badulina in their formal visit to
I mean of course we went to millions of barbeques and snack bars but not one official restaurant. Not because the royal couple doesn’t care for food, on the contrary: I never met people who eat good as they do. In grace moments the king is telling me about nights around Asado’s fire with Brazilian cowboys and her royalty remember the tropical fruit-salad that she got in
On day we were sitting in the neighborhood snack bar, the table as usual covered with salads and the queen float with a Pita slice above the plates, biting her one bite there her pace reflect a rare mix of concentration and pleasure, the king wiped a humus plate professionally putting into it a measured quantity of “Schoog” (similar to Tabasco).
“your royalty” I said after I ordered another beer for us “Once again I admire your ability to adjust to new situations. You are a natural born Humus wiper don’t you miss the cutlery?” The queen fished with her finger a slice of roasted pepper, carried it up and dumped it to her mouth with a laud sucking voice.
“In Badulina’s restaurant there are no cutlery” said the king. Meanwhile the lamb ribs that he ordered arrived.
“Are you against cutlery?”
“Eating with cutlery is like making love through a blanket. Food is a multi-sensual experience and exactly as it’s important to sea the dish before you taste it, it’s important to feel the food with your palms. Until it’s arriving your mouth, the lips are getting already sensual information: how warm is the food, how soft, how silky. Then you smell and then you taste.”
His royalty gathered the ribs plate node seriously grabbed one bone and started chewing.
“OK.” I said “And what if you get a steak with no bones?”
“A boneless steak?” wondered the king is face fading behind the rib “why to take the handle away?”
He ate silently for a few seconds, thinking. He sucked the last fibers around the first rib “Imagine that. To get artichokes with no heart just the leafs.”
“OK” I said “What about hygiene?”
”In Badulina’s restaurants the first thing that arrives the table is a hot water bowl with lemon that is replaced after every dish. If it seem important to you our hands are clean. What you can’t always know about the cutlery you get in a restaurant.”
“And you wash hands between the dishes? Great, Ok, then I guesses eating with your hands can fit a nation with a high hygiene conscious like yours.”
The queen and king made a wired eye contact.
“Don’t tell me. There is no word as hygiene in Badulina.”
The king nodded and the rib node with him. The queens returned separating her fish spine with a magician move and tear another peace of the white flesh for her.
“Hygiene conscious” said the king “Is a victim character, not kings. Victim is the one who lives in the world and says: oh dear, I’m surrounded by evil germs, they just wait for the moment I’ll be a bad boy and forget to wash my hands with soap.”
“So why does kings wash their hands before eating?”
“Because we want to rejoice every moment of life. Every small touch of a spice, every drop of Lemon. When I taste my first bite I don’t want to feel the taste of the car that brought me here on my fingers and I don’t want the taste of the first dish hide the taste of the second one. Kings washes their hands from the same reason a French restaurant is giving sorbet as an encore- to clean the palate.”
“And soup?”
“You drink; of course, we have deep bowls with mouthpiece as in clay pots. The mouthpiece is enabling the soup to mix with oxygen ad get cool on the way to your mouth with no industrial metal in the middle of that process.”
“And what do you do in order no to sound like pigs?”
“We oink. Why? Is there hygienic problem with that as well?
“Defiantly. A public hygiene.”
“In Badulina, like any other healthy society in the universe, the sound of having pleasure with food is not an insult to anybody. On the contrary, it enriches the adventure of eating. Kings never hide the measure of their pleasure.
Suffering is embarrassing business, not fun. When you make love what do you prefer from your partner? That she lay with no movement and voice or to show some pleasure signs?”
I piped quickly at the queen, she took out a piece that was running away and watched me curiously. I am a very minor conservative but next to her I am shy like a child. To my relief the king didn’t wait for my reply.
“The man in the table behind us” He said “dose he keeps reasonable public hygiene for you?”
“I suppose so, since until you bring him up I was not aware of his existence . He doesn’t bother me in any way.”
“OK, close your eyes.”
“Are we still on the same subject?”
“Yes. Close you eyes. Good. Now pay attention. I take a piece of food from the table and hold it 2 centimeter away from your nose. Can you smell and tell me what is it that I’m holding?”
I sniffed and inhaled and couldn’t in no way identify one smell closer then the rest.
“Ok” said the king, “Now open your eyes.” He was holding under my nose a big juicy olive. “Now tell me what you think, does the man behind us wears aftershave?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t need to sniff in order to answer me right? The olive was only tongue away from you and you couldn’t smell it. It’s not your fault. How can you smell anything when this man is entering the restaurant with that chemical bomb? You see? This poor man was mistaken to think that this is a great public behavior to chock you olive oil with Pacco–Rabban. In victim’s society, public hygiene means to drown you personal pleasure for the general public. As if your pleasure will make someone else suffer. Victims don’t touch food with their hands, don’t shout when they make love, don’t burp, don’t sing out loud unless they are singers, and don’t talk with stuffed mouth. Victims hide their body’s essence with chemicals as if physical body is a sorrow accident that needs hiding.”
He reaped a piece of meat. I took one rib from his plate without asking permission and I did the same. He smiled at me satisfied. “Really” he said “A steak with no handle…”
At the coffee and deserts stage I decided to consult the king about proper dinner. I staged him with all the options; Italian or French restaurants, A Barbeque net from
“You honor” I waved a paper napkin “I think you will be amazed of few of this restaurants.”
“Imagine yourself” said the king “That I ask you to show me Israeli art and you say: we have great posters of Picasso looks exactly like the original.”
“So what are you saying? That you want an Israeli food? Because if that is what you are saying we are in deep problem. Every year the food columns are gathering to discuss the question weather there is a thing like that and no one found convincing reply so far.”
“Of course there is an Israeli food we just completed another meal in an original Israeli restaurant.”
“no. your royalty. You are wrong. This is an Arabic food; Treats, Humus, Kebab and dark coffee with meant, that’s also a reproduction. Lebanese, Egyptian, Palestinian food.”
The king took from me the napkin and drafted something with a pen. Her royalty, in the meantime, was busy folding origami with her napkin. The king drafted circles around empty space. In each circle he wrote a name;
“Of course there are differences. The Egyptian Falafel is made from Beans. The Syrian olives are bitter. The Lebanese puts meant in their salad. But these are geographic differences not principals.”
“Good” he said. In the center of all the circles he painted another one and wrote;
Lots of great vegetables thanks to the sun, lamb meat that fit the grill because of the fat, Lemon, Meant, Garlic, Hot Pepper because of the hit, Olive oil - the finest in the world an non formal service. Eating with hands, that feet your temper as well since as much fillet minion you will eat – fork and knife is still not your style-You appear as punished children-but in smoothing you are great. Every child here knows how to wave for the waiter to bring him Humus and when the waiter suggest covering the table with salads he does that generous round movement with his hands cover the area with imaginary honey and milk. You have an Israeli food and its great, its fantastic. “
“Great? Your royalty? After dining all over the world?”
“Sure that’s a real king’s food that meant to be eaten with hands in circles and not straight lives with burps and sucking voices, shameless food, full of spices and colors and contracts, wonderful plenty and entire table covered with colors and shapes and smells. Concentrate on your food be proud and enjoy it and you will be half way to royalty.” His hawk landed and covered
I am proud to say that a week later I managed to surprise the Badulina’s king. “I want to take you and her royalty to see a great Picasso’s Poster.” We drove to “Erez breads” In Herzeliya. I know Erez for years and I had a vague feeling that it’s a possible match. We sat beside the bar since the king wanted to observe the place and the queen wanted to observe the deserts. Erez was busy in the kitchen and took care to send us constant supply of plates. Already when the bread’s basket arrived with green salad and goat cheese, the king demanded Erez head, “This salad” said the king while Erez is hugged with him shoulder to shoulder “Just a custody right? But what makes it kings food? The fact that this idiot is taking from every lettuce 3 leafs straight from the heart and the rest he send to the cows – is he shameless or what?”
At the middle of nibbling a mountain of crabs Erez was called upon the king once more “I just wish to bless you for what is missing from this plate: the little silly forks that suppose to separate the meat from the clamps. You leave no choice to the public but to suck with their hands and teeth.” Erez, dressed white rope and bowl head, covered baking flour, smiled to the king
“If people are uncomfortable to fart in my restaurant – that makes me the main fart” he explained. Her royalty and me used the moment the king was distracted to fight every clamp covered ginger and lemon sauce up to our necks. When the black mussel arrived later we all burst in tears due to the little chilly peppers that where hiding in like red pearls. Later we dove into a huge plate of Pig Fillet with grenade and red cabbage. As far as the queen all these were merely the appetizers for desert.
At desert time, Erez knew what to serve her by himself – Round cap of frozen Marquez chocolate in a small cup of boiling Espresso, no spoon. The queen smile at him lovingly, waved her forefingers at him in a way that would make American drivers fight among themselves, deep it into the chocolate and once the finger covered with the cream she deep it into the Espresso soup and started licking slowly with her eyes closed. The barmen dropped a glass that shattered silently.
“Her royalty” said Erez respectfully “I never had the honor to host here a better deserved diner then you. I am dust to your feet.” He brought us a bottle of Italian Grappa and negotiated with the king that offered him to be the royal chef in Badulina, The conditions were simple: as much money as Erez wants he will cook only what he feels like “Because if you raise a happy chicken and you will get good eggs” explained the king.
“I am your royal chef already” said Erez and bowed deep without spilling a drop from his third glass “I don’t want money just the right to server her royalty with deserts. I am cooking what I feel like whenever I feel like and you are always welcome to dine at my place.”
He went to say goodbye to several other guest and give them 2 loaf of bread as a gift. “Well, Well” I said smudgy “Your royalty loved the posters? How much “Erez-bread” you think are existing in
“No theory” said the king sucking a bean of coffee from her royalty plate “should be so solid that she cant be flushed three times a day with exclusive Grappa or green olive oil.”
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home