when ordered the fresh fish sandwhich from the little hole in the wall i couldn’t mask my excitement. i could have had a burger…but why? instead i had fish from the neighboring waters on a toasted bun. what i wasn’t prepared for was the beetroot that soaked my bread and fish read.
it still was a pretty good sandwhich but i often wonder how great it would have been had it not been assaulted by that fiendish root that new zealanders seem to love so much.
fast foward some months and i found myself at a rotary function talking with a woman from sydney.
“what do you call those ghastly things you put on sandwhiches?” she inquired. i looked at her blankly. “you know, green and round, mcdonlad’s puts them on their burgers.”
she meant pickles and i answered as much. she shrieked, “yes, yes, that’s it.” i laughed and told her that that is exactly how i feel about beetroot. and she laughed and agreed that it was the very same thing…only different.
pickle or beetroot…it is all normal somewhere.
and so it goes with everything new. in talking to more rotarians over the last few months, they seem astonished that people live in a place where hurricanes happen. all the while i marvel that they live in both earthquake and volcanoe central.
and today’s dinner at a friend’s house, her english mother marveled that even 26 years removed from a “white christmas” she still finds it odd tht a kiwi christmas includes bbq and sun.
my sweetie peels his banana from the bottom (the flower end instead of the stalk) and thinks i open mine funny, and at a party the other day full of zimbabweans we discussed how nervouse westerners get to see them balance their kids on their backs before securing them with a towel.
one woman’s pickle is another’s beetroot.
Tags: food