Incompatibilities

I like to think of myself as an adventurous eater but there are times when my Western bias shows loud and clear. I am a very large anti-fan of surprises in my food and the night that I bought potato chips in a can in Beijing and found out their flavor was blueberry was the lowest gustatory point in my life until tonight.

I am off my feed, as they say--not sick but feeling distinctly unenthusiastic about eating anything. After picking my way through some green curry and some pork slices with little success or fervor, I decided yogurt was what I needed and grabbed some quickly at our Tesco-Lotus Express.

When I opened it at home, the fragrance of corn unmistakably wafted from the container and I almost retched. Corn and yogurt are not foods that belong together in my opinion--but I decided that was Western bias on my part and forged ahead, miserably swallowing the kernels and trying to pretend they weren't there. As I finally got to the bottom of things, I saw a large, plump, red object that resembled part of a strawberry so I happily spooned it up--wrong! It turned out to be a big relative of a kidney bean, accompanied by a generous dose of tapioca. I may never eat again...