It’s been a week… no idea where it went. Finally found the time to arrive here, and give you another piece of writing, from a few months ago. Having shivered through the past few days, it’s comforting to revisit the heady days of a short break in Corfu.
It is a truth universally acknowledged – at least, by my family, finally! – that tomatoes are unwelcome on my plate.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m fine when they’re the base of numerous sauces that serve pasta, rice dishes, curries, etc, it’s just when they are in their raw state, naked as God intended them, that my palate rebels. It was ever thus, and I cannot explain why. My childhood was a soundscape of, “Don’t be silly!” “How can you not like tomatoes?” “Of course, you like tomatoes.” “Why don’t you like tomatoes?” Even at such a tender age, it was pretty clear to me that such interrogation by adults was going nowhere.
One teatime, one of my grandmothers presented me with a quarter of a tomato, bald, naked, unwelcome but covered in sugar. What is any self-respecting young girl to do? Of course, I scraped off the sugar and ate that. Result, a quarter of a tomato alone on the plate and one hyper-active four-year old.
My taste buds have evolved, but not to the extent that those bare tomatoes make an appearance. Like most healthy adults – I hope – I have come across other foods that I do not relish, but these days I enjoy a wide variety of cuisines and decline very little.
Some fifty years after the sugared tomato event, I find myself on holiday in Corfu with Himself. A small, rural village with limited good eateries and even more limited menu choices, but we develop a routine and most lunchtimes find us in Gianni’s, receiving what passes as a warm welcome, even if Gianni’s staccato command of the English language feels more like Gestapo instructions. It’s hot, so I am in the mood for nothing more than a salad, a tuna salad, but without the offending fruits of the vine.
On this particular lunchtime, I need to take advantage of the facilities so I ask Himself to order for me.
“The usual,” I remind him.
“Yes,” he responds, head buried in his phone, scrolling through emails, I imagine.
At this point, I need to ask myself: how have I raised two boys in the digital age, yet still forget the golden rule: anything mentioned or agreed by one party, when either party is reading a screen, is void?
I return from visiting the smallest room, and before long, Gianni’s rather silent, yet smiling, son arrives with our order.
What’s this? A slab of Feta cheese resting on the top of my salad? That’s new. But it’s okay, Feta is most welcome on my plate. No tomatoes, thankfully, but on closer inspection, I find slices of raw green pepper. Hmmm. Again, unusual, not a favourite. Where, I wonder, has Gianni hidden the tuna?
Himself has obviously noticed that I am rummaging through the items on my plate.
“That’s right, isn’t it?” he asks. “Greek salad, no tomatoes?”
“Tuna salad, darling, tuna…”
“Oh, of course…”
Himself is contrite, but I curse myself for not dragging his eyes away from the screen, and further, for not specifying my order of a TUNA salad (no tomatoes).
And then they are revealed. Olives. Reasons why a Greek salad is a wasted order for me: the offending tomatoes and, well, olives, and without those two ingredients, there’s not much point in ordering a Greek salad, is there? Many years ago, when I was youthfully carving a hazardous career in the capital, I’d regularly meet a friend after work, who declared that as olives were an acquired taste, she was determined to acquire it by ordering olives every time she was out. I tried, and couldn’t get down with this idea, but decided that as I was now a grown-up, I didn’t need to acquire anything other than a designer handbag (I’m still waiting…)
Hence, I find myself relocating the olives to Himself’s plate.
Lady Valetta Writes 