On losing a favorite food
February 21, 2024 by DarcieGrowing up in a landlocked state in the middle of the continent (smack dab in the middle; the geographic center of North America is just north of my hometown), I did not encounter much seafood other than the occasional frozen shrimp. However, when I moved much closer to the coast following my college graduation, I quickly made up for the deficit in my formative years. I enjoyed everything from tiny mussels to large king crab legs, but my favorite were scallops. I adored their delicate texture and sweet, briny flavor.
However, my love affair with scallops and other shellfish encountered an obstacle not long after it began. It started with a bad reaction to linguini with clam sauce. I will spare you the gory details but suffice it to say it involved gastrointestinal discomfort. I shrugged it off as possible food poisoning. Unfortunately, I had the same issue the next time I ate seafood, this time my beloved scallops. I was beginning to suspect that food poisoning was not the problem. A dish of steamed mussels (one of the best meals I have ever eaten) resulted in the same issue. However, reluctant to give up one of my favorite foods, I tried scallops again, and you can guess what happened. This time I knew definitively that it was me and not the seafood because a dining companion ate the same dish without incident.
I don’t know why I developed this reaction or whether it extends beyond mollusks, but to be safe I have avoided shellfish in the years since. This became easier when I moved back to the heartland a few years ago, but when I see posts like the one on Gourmet Traveller titled “27 scallop recipes for shellfish lovers“, I am reminded of the loss. At this point, even writing about scallops makes me queasy. If I didn’t love food and cooking so much it might be a trifling annoyance, but I grieved when I realized an entire section of delicious food was off limits, especially since I had such a small window of time to enjoy it. (I realize this is a miniscule tragedy in a world filled with enormous ones.) Paradoxically, this experience made me even more eager to try unfamiliar foods, so the loss may have allowed me to taste more items than I would have otherwise. I suppose that is the silver lining to this cloud. It’s also a reminder to savor your favorite foods each and every time you eat them, because one day they could be only a faint taste memory.
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