There is no love sincerer…

than the love of food ~ George Bernard Shaw


If there’s one thing I love about my job, is that it’s capable of throwing up stuff that’s totally unexpected. At times, I have to do things I never imagined I would be paid to do. The adventure, the uncertainty, the adrenaline rush – you simply can’t make it up.

Therefore, when the invite came:

“Can you join the food tasting next Monday?”

My answer was, “Of course!”

You see, we needed a panel of experts to, well, taste the food that was proposed to be served at an event. A table of 10, and I was roped in.

On said day, I was delayed to arrive and the appetizer and soup had been served and the food tasting panel was into the main course.

As I quickly sampled through the appetizer and soup, I didn’t pay attention to the conversation swirling around at that moment.

After I finished the main course of fish and chicken and having caught up with the rest course-wise, I was asked how it was.

“The fish was ok, the chicken was… how shall I say it… leathery.”

There was a stunned silence around the table.

“You probably meant the chicken was gamey?” offered a colleague.

Gamey? Is that a proper adjective for food?

“Yea, gamey…”

“And the fish was bad! All of us, all of us, thought so!”

I looked at the plates around the table. Everyone had fish leftover, a couple had it nearly untouched. I looked at my plate. It was wiped clean.

“Oh… yea, it tasted a bit funny I thought…”

I looked at the form we had to fill up. For each dish we had to comment on taste, texture, look, amongst others. This was more difficult than my corporate finance paper darn it!

Needless to say, I was sacked from the food-tasting committee soon thereafter, having represented my dorm house on the food committee in my college days notwithstanding :-(

*******

A number of months later, when a few people unavoidably dropped out of a food-tasting panel for another function, I was hesitantly roped in to make up the numbers.

The pressure to perform was immense.

Butterflies in my stomach did not help, but a good start always does: “The wantan’s too big; I think it would perhaps be more appropriate for it to be smaller in order for the diner to be able to put the whole piece into the mouth without having to bite a chunk of it and thereafter let the remainder fall into bowl or be engaged in the cutting of the wantan in the bowl of soup”.

Then came the moment of truth, the main course and they looked at me for comment.

“The vegetables look… tired.”

A brief moment of silence.

“Yes I agree! Chef, boiling them doesn’t work, sauté them perhaps,” chirps in a colleague.

In the annals of my comebacks, this ranks at the top of my list, baby!

I sincerely love food, George.

*******

I was told by a food connoisseur that when it comes to food, smell and colour come first before taste. Yes, even with food, love at first sight applies. The first two can and usually do determine your appetite. Good taste may not matter if the smell and colour let the dish down.

Wait, that applies to humans too!