The day I no longer enjoy food I will admit myself to a mental facility before I kill myself. Dramatic? Maybe, but I also know there will be something seriously wrong with me the day I can no longer taste food.
The first and only time I lost this ability was Baghdad, August 1991. I had experienced my first air raid and was trembling all night begging for it to stop. The next morning my grandmother – in an effort to pretend like nothing was wrong – made scrambled eggs with minced lamb cooked in allspice, salt and pepper and sprinkled with some parsley. Grandmother served it with piping-hot flat bread. She called me into the kitchen and I followed enthusiastically, as I always do. But as soon as I held up my fork and looked down at my food I realized that I could not eat. It’s not like I wasn’t hungry. I felt no desire to taste it. I couldn’t even smell it. It were as if someone was feeding me a piece of cardboard. This realization amazed me, that I could have such a reaction to food. I remember thinking then that something was seriously wrong with me. I was 12.
The war continued but I went back to my normal appetite a few weeks later once the airstrikes stopped making me shake. In 2004 I sat on the rooftop of my parents’ house in Baghdad sipping on a mug of cardamom spiced tea and eating kulecha, Iraqi bite-sized sweets made of a baked crust stuffed with crushed walnuts and sugar or chewy dark dates and black seeds. The US Blackhawks flew at low altitudes making a lot of noise, machine-guns bulging on both sides. There were two mushrooms of smoke in the horizon from either car or suicide bombs. I could also hear gunshots nearby. My mother called from the garden 3 stores down demanding that I stop my madness and come inside. But nothing beat watching the sunset with tea and sweets. The experience soothed and warmed me deep in my guts and bones.
A couple of months ago I had an ugly encounter with immigration officers at Heathrow Airport. I will not dwell on it. All I can say is after they finally let me go I felt seriously broken and angry. So I did two things, I ran until I hurt and when I did I punished myself by forcing more pain. “Do those shins hurt? Is your ankle throbbing with pain? Fuck you! Run!” The other thing I did was cook angry curry. It was disgusting. I threw an overdose of curry, cumin, coriander, too much garlic, so much tamarin that the sauce tasted sour. So I tried to fix it with coconut cream. Then I threw lentils in which didn’t agree with the coconut cream. Then for god-knows-what-reason I threw handfuls of spinach leaves into the mix on top of whatever vegetables I could find. I made rice and I burned it. I still scraped what wasn’t stuck to the bottom of the pot and threw a dollop of vomit-looking curry on top. It was sour and the lentils were undercooked. “Is your gut hurting? Are you feeling bloats and cramps? Fuck you! Eat!”
Tonight I was walking down some food aisle when something in me clicked. I put back the canned and microwave food and picked up fresh raspberries, blueberries, plums, brown sugar, walnuts, cream, butter and some pastry rolls. I went home, switched the radio to a music station and I dove right in. I had butter on my shirt. Flour on my forehead and my fingers were sticky with brown sugar and it was fun. I rolled out the dough, dipped my fingers into the butter and wiped the pan then placed the dough and threw in the berries and sliced plum. Then I crushed the walnuts with my fingers and scattered them on, then I added a sprinkle of brown sugar and I opened the oven door and shoved the pan in – with a little Elvis spin of the knee. The fruits oozed purple and pink syrup and the dough puffed and crisped. I took a slice and dolloped some cream on top. I brew me a pot of tea and sat in my pajamas and wool socks watching trains pass through the thickly wooded area behind my house in south London and .. drumrolls .. I took my first bite. The sensation was like .. like being wrapped in the softest fluffiest blanket on a cold day with your beloved pet snuggling in your lap and some soft jazz playing in the background. It’s hard to describe.
All I can say is that the day I divorce food is a day I stop living.
Iraqi musings London 