Eating Out Antidotes

Here a collection of food related stories from my time in London in the late 60s, early 70s. Before I started working in London my culinary exploits growing up were limited to ‘Hausmannskost’, which is a lovely word in German for home cooking, school dinners which was in the category of ‘Schulmannskost’, a word I just made up in the tradition of German word building on the fly. There was of course pub food, that again I could ‘mannskost’ it, but I won't.
And rarely I would go as a child with my mother to the Pie and Eel shop in Barking for pie and mash.
‘Foreign’ food was just not on my radar apart from our local Greek owned fish and chips shop, but I don't think that counts.
Thinking about it, possibly the acquired taste of the green parsley liquor that came with the pie and mash was a little exotic.

When I started to work in the heart of London I had within a short walking distance a variety of different cuisines to pick from. At least once a week, instead of the cafeteria food, we would collectively decide on which country's kitchen we would like to take in.
It was either Italian, Turkish, Greek, Indian, Chinese or Thai.
Here some anecdotes from four different cultures.

Turkish
Once at a Turkish restaurant, after I was finished with my meal, I decided to have a coffee. I was asked if I would like it with or without sugar. I was a little perplexed at this question as there was sugar on the table. I said 'with' and away went the waiter.
I got my coffee and sipped it. Not as sweet as I wanted and before the others could stop me I added sugar and started to stir. As I was stirring I asked what was up as they were collectively smiling at me.
Nothing, they said and either changed the subject or returned to finish their meals. I stopped stirring and this time took a mouth full of the coffee and immediately regretted it!
My mouth felt like it was full of sand! Too friendly laughter from around the table, I tried to wash down the grits with table water. On the way back to the lab I was informed how Turkish coffee is prepared. I kept to sweet Turkish tea after that, at least you can see through the glass if anything is lurking around in it.



Italian
One lunch time in a small Italian restaurant as we were waiting for our orders, I watched the cook prepare pizzas just behind me. On the counter between us was a bowl of chilli peppers.
As I eyed them the cook saw me took the bowl and came round and asked in front of my colleagues, so that they all could hear, if I would like to try one.
Not sure why he did this, maybe I was looking hungry or he heard my stomach rumbling.
Now I knew the hot-ness of chillies could vary from mild to hot and there were lots of different types of chillies and this made me somewhat hesitant to accept one.
But as I was being edged on from the rest of the table I took the plunge and took one. How hot could it be I thought. I was used to hot curries and so I took a big bite.
To begin I thought everything was going well until the hot-ness started to creep in and my mouth was on fire. I emptied the bottle of table water but to no effect. Again I was the entertainment act until our meals arrived.

Nigerian
In our lab one of my colleagues came from Nigeria. One day P asked me if I would like to come to a party at his home. I can't remember if it was a birthday or not but I accepted with thanks and he gave me his address.
It was at the weekend and in the days leading up to it, P said in passing that there would be some traditional Nigerian food and music. I didn't think much about it and although I hadn't had any Nigerian food before, I knew that it would be hot and spicy which was ok as I liked Indian food.
The address was in the middle of an estate in south London where all the houses looked the same. It was getting dark and the street lighting was not very good. I was a little apprehensive that in the dim street lights I would not be able to read the house number. As I turned into P’s street I realised there wouldn’t be any difficulty finding the place.
Halfway down the dimly lit street there was a house with strings of coloured lights hanging around the front door and down the front path. Also as an acoustic help there was a heavy Afrobeat emulating from the lit up house.
I entered the front garden, walked up the path and entered the open door.
There was no point ringing the doorbell because a) I couldn’t find it in the dim light coming from the hallway and b) nobody would have heard it above the loud music anyway.
I went in the direction of music and the smell of spicy food. On entering the front room and as my eyes adjusted slowly to the low light, I realised what was common in the people moving to the rhythm of the music. They were all very dark skinned.
The second thing I realised after going through the house looking for P was that I was the only caucasian invited. I eventually found P, that is he found me. It was in the low light difficult to recognise anyone due to their black faces.
Everyone was very friendly and after I was given something to drink P lead me to the buffet and started to introduce me to typical Nigerian food.
Unfortunately I couldn’t understand much of what he said because of the loud music. What I did understand was that everything was spicy and he indicated what level of ‘spicy-hot-ness’ each dish had.
On P leaving me to it, I promptly forgot what was hot and what was not so hot. I just took a little of everything on to my plate and hoped for the best.
As I was selecting from the various dishes I got the idea that all the eyes in the room were slowly turning in my direction. I also suspected that there were non verbal bets being taken on how long I would last before giving up in emptying the plate’s content.
Well I started and it didn’t take long before the sweating started. I had eaten hot curries in my time, but this was another league and way up the Scoville scale. I kept going as best I could but I had the feeling it was a losing battle. I slowly became the centre of attention as I battled with the heat.
I knew they were looking in my direction because in the dim light I could make out the white of their eyes and rows of excellent white teeth smiling and in some cases, I think good natured laughing at my predicament. Thankfully someone brought me an iced lemonade, which helped dampen the fires, and also a towel to mop up the sweat.
I was glad I hadn’t put too much on my plate. I slowly cleared it to a moderate round of applause as if I had successfully passed some sort of initiation ceremony. I kept to liquids for the rest of the evening, taking a cold glass of milk before heading for my train home.

Indian
Most Fridays after work I would meet up with friends and we would go on a so called ‘pub crawl’. The rules may vary but in our case it meant one pint of Newcastle beer per pub and rounded off at the end of the evening with a curry before trying to not miss the last train/bus home.
Our haunting ground was roughly the area between St. Giles, The Theatre District and Soho. One Friday evening after a rather long crawl, we ended up at one of the numerous Indian restaurants in the area. I ordered my standard dish, a vindaloo and a pint of lager as most of the restaurants then had a limited selection of beers.
During the meal we were getting a little loud with our chatter which could have annoyed the owner somewhat and lead to what came next.
With the combination of too much alcohol and just finishing my meal I heard myself above the rest remark in jest that my curry wasn’t very hot. One should note that at the time vindaloo was rated as the hottest dish on the menu. The others took this in the humour it was intended, but the owner got wind of my remark and disappeared into the kitchen.
Almost immediately he returned with the cook.
Luckily it didn’t turn into one of those film scenes where an angry cook appears with a cleaver threatening the person who criticised his cooking.
In my case after the owner had nodded in my direction, the cook came over to me and bent down over my shoulder and asked in a somewhat forced friendly manner if I was the one that had said his vindaloo wasn’t very hot. I was a little intimidated by his direct proximity and the way he had asked.
I suspect due to this and my inebriated state, 'I must have lost my presence of mind' to quote an injured bricklayer because, instead of trying to play it down and apologise in some way, I answered yes, I was the one that had said his vindaloo curry wasn’t that hot.

The cook smiled. He then, loud enough so that all could hear, said he would make me a new curry ‘on the house’, and if I finished it I wouldn’t have to pay for the ‘not hot’ one.
And again my presence of mind was elsewhere and I heard maself agreeing to his offer. Of course the speculations of my friends around the table as to how I was going to fare went rampant. After I had realised what I had done I literally started to metaphorically as well as physically kick myself.
This sobered me up somewhat so while waiting for my ‘execution’ I ordered another lager with plenty of lime juice. A while later the cook personally brought out my ‘last meal’ and placed it demonstratively in front of me. I thanked him with a nod and he went back to the kitchen.
With all eyes on me I just sat there staring at it.

I must mention that the vindaloo I had just eaten wasn’t the hottest I had experienced. Hot yes, but not overwhelmingly hot. And it was quite possible that I had said this to someone with the necessary raised voice above the din of the acoustic melee that was going on at our table.
This I suspected was what had triggered the owner to talk to the cook. And as I was far too gone to correct the owner's interpretation of my remark via the cook standing over me, I was now sitting in front of a vindaloo that looked like it would scold me if I touched it.

While staring at it I was now, with hints and remarks, being edged on to try it.
And as I couldn’t now at this point back out, I did.
To begin, everything was going good and then following the typical delayed effect, it hit me. And how it hit me. The original taste was as before but now pushed drastically into the background and overlaid with a wall of fire. And as is typical for me the sweating started.
Fortunately the cook had not wanted a casualty on his hands and had given me a smaller portion than normal to fight with. Now this version of the cook's vindaloo was hot with avengeance. I wasn’t in pain as such, it was more of a numbness that came over me and I sort of moved off centre stage from myself and watched my progress.
When I was finished and the fire had died down a little, I realised I had also emptied my pint of lager, although I didn’t remember doing it.
I didn’t see the cook again and I didn’t have to pay for my ‘1st. course’. After that I made sure I only criticised food when I was a good distance from the source and never loudly.
I had survived. Well sort of, as the rest of my night wasn’t without incidents of the digestive kind which I won’t go on about here..