The organic smell of success
I'm in trouble. I have smelt. That sentence immediately gives the wrong impression, doen't it? It suggests that I detected something, when in fact, other people detected me. I shall change it therefore to 'I have been smelt'. And I'm going to blame the organic food craze for it. At this point I am certain that all the female readers are thinking 'farting vegetarian male'. You're wrong.
My little petal has a cold. She's had one since Christmas, although it has mutated from one form to another, either a runny nose or a dry rasping cough. I, on the other hand, have been completely free from it. In fact, I don't think I have had a cold for nearly two years now. I believe that this is due to a few things; I take a lot of exercise, I prefer to live slightly colder than she does, and I try preventative medicine. In my case, garlic. Each autumn and winter, I eat a clove or two of raw garlic each day. Not straight from the cluster, that would be gross. I chop them with a knife, and then crush them with a fork, and mix them in with some salad, typically Watercress, Spinach and Rocket, all in a pitta bread. Afterwards, I eat an apple, because it kills the odour of the garlic. Nobody knows that I am a secret garlic-eater. Or, nobody knew.
I was in the supermarket getting my supplies, and had already got the garlic, salad, and pitta breads, when I saw a sign on the organic shelves. They had large bulbs of garlic at a tempting price. I put my little stocking of normal garlic back into the tray and plucked out three large firm organically-grown bulbs. Anything organic has got to be better for you than normal things, hasn't it?
I didn't immediately notice any change when I chopped and crushed the cloves that evening, apart from the fact that each clove was about as third larger than a non-organic clove. So I was going to eat a little bit more of it than I would normally, where was the harm in that? And it was organic, so I was getting even more goodness. I did notice that the crushed garlic tasted more bitter than I was used to, my eyes watered a little and there was a burning on my tongue, but I'm not a weakling, I manfully chewed the pitta bread and ate my apple.
The next morning I did notice a slight smell of garlic in the room when I woke, so I opened the window to let the room breathe a little. For the rest of the week I carried on eating my slightly larger than usual cloves, and went home on Friday feeling a better and healthier biplane.
My little petal noticed the difference straight away. "You stink", she said. I had a hot bath, but the next morning she declared that I wasn't going to share the same bed with her if I was going to carry on like this. I stopped my raw garlic intake. Later, on Sunday, we took a phone call from the hotel. Had I got something in one of my bags that had gone off? Could I check before going back up there next week, because they had spent all weekend trying to get the smell out of the bedroom, and there was still a hint of it there. I had to confess it wasn't anything in my bags, it was just me.
When I woke up at 3:00 on Moday morning to set off for another week away, I had a burning nose and throat, and as I sit typing this I am snuffling and snorting and bitterly regretting my excursion into the realm of organicly-farmed vegetables. What, I am wondering, did they fertilise the garlic with? Do I really want to know? Suppose they put on the wrapping the full details of their organic method, just as the normal food has to list all the E-numbers, what would we read? This product has been covered in variegated animal shit.
This week, I shall be mostly eating junk food as a detox-method.
My little petal has a cold. She's had one since Christmas, although it has mutated from one form to another, either a runny nose or a dry rasping cough. I, on the other hand, have been completely free from it. In fact, I don't think I have had a cold for nearly two years now. I believe that this is due to a few things; I take a lot of exercise, I prefer to live slightly colder than she does, and I try preventative medicine. In my case, garlic. Each autumn and winter, I eat a clove or two of raw garlic each day. Not straight from the cluster, that would be gross. I chop them with a knife, and then crush them with a fork, and mix them in with some salad, typically Watercress, Spinach and Rocket, all in a pitta bread. Afterwards, I eat an apple, because it kills the odour of the garlic. Nobody knows that I am a secret garlic-eater. Or, nobody knew.
I was in the supermarket getting my supplies, and had already got the garlic, salad, and pitta breads, when I saw a sign on the organic shelves. They had large bulbs of garlic at a tempting price. I put my little stocking of normal garlic back into the tray and plucked out three large firm organically-grown bulbs. Anything organic has got to be better for you than normal things, hasn't it?
I didn't immediately notice any change when I chopped and crushed the cloves that evening, apart from the fact that each clove was about as third larger than a non-organic clove. So I was going to eat a little bit more of it than I would normally, where was the harm in that? And it was organic, so I was getting even more goodness. I did notice that the crushed garlic tasted more bitter than I was used to, my eyes watered a little and there was a burning on my tongue, but I'm not a weakling, I manfully chewed the pitta bread and ate my apple.
The next morning I did notice a slight smell of garlic in the room when I woke, so I opened the window to let the room breathe a little. For the rest of the week I carried on eating my slightly larger than usual cloves, and went home on Friday feeling a better and healthier biplane.
My little petal noticed the difference straight away. "You stink", she said. I had a hot bath, but the next morning she declared that I wasn't going to share the same bed with her if I was going to carry on like this. I stopped my raw garlic intake. Later, on Sunday, we took a phone call from the hotel. Had I got something in one of my bags that had gone off? Could I check before going back up there next week, because they had spent all weekend trying to get the smell out of the bedroom, and there was still a hint of it there. I had to confess it wasn't anything in my bags, it was just me.
When I woke up at 3:00 on Moday morning to set off for another week away, I had a burning nose and throat, and as I sit typing this I am snuffling and snorting and bitterly regretting my excursion into the realm of organicly-farmed vegetables. What, I am wondering, did they fertilise the garlic with? Do I really want to know? Suppose they put on the wrapping the full details of their organic method, just as the normal food has to list all the E-numbers, what would we read? This product has been covered in variegated animal shit.
This week, I shall be mostly eating junk food as a detox-method.
posted by Sopwith-Camel | 9:41 am
3 Comments:
I'm pleased to report an opposite experience! I'm going to post any day now about the organic market I went to on Saturday (I got up at bloody 5am to go!) but the food is top A. I've been boring everyone but my dear readers about it. The eggs! I'm willing to have smelly farts for these eggs. But luckily (touch wood and all that bollocks) I've not had any adverse smells so far.
Good read, cheers!
Great post. And thanks for the recipe, I'll definitely try that stuffed pitta bread with an apple (but don't buy any organic garlic).
I found another Chinese recipe that suggests mixing in raw ginger as well. Perhaps it takes away the bitterness of the garlic. I'm wondering about going all the wayy and mashing up garlic, ginger and chillies together to generate a sort of internal nuclear reaction to forcibly boil off any lurking cold germs. We'll compare notes next winter.
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