Veggie Woes, Veggie Wont's!

One day, many years ago, I picked up a serving of a dish that had "Vegetarian Lasagna" labeled on it. (Those were still the days when I didn't know where to find a good veggie lasagna, and I was trying to sample as much of new cuisine as possible. Of course, in those days, I was also naive enough to think that "Vegetarian" meant no meat, no fish, nothing that walked or flew or swam! Now, countless disgusting interesting experiments and a few close calls later, I know better.) As soon as I opened the foil wrapper, I was hit by a curious and rather strong scent. I decided not to think about it (if you're a poor student who's just spent a whopper of $7.00 on a small package of food, you don't want to dump it into the trash can in a hurry) and sampled a morsel. It tasted alright, nothing great, but edible. Mentally deciding that "one time's no harm" (a motto I used a few times in my life before I realized that a stomach upset was the inevitable result) I took a few more bites. By the time I'd eaten a quarter of it, the smell was really getting to me, and I wasn't very happy about the way my tummy felt either. Chalking up $7.00 to the price of experience, I threw my lunch away. I wondered what they'd used to make the smell so strong; like all Indians, I blamed the oil first. ("Mumble-mumble-mumble ... making me eat animal fat ... how they can call this veggie beats me ... mumble-mumble ..." etc.) But I never really found out as I never tried the dish again.

Late yesterday evening, I was working on some data all alone in the lab when My Advisor walked in. He put a covered dish on the table, and asked me where my colleagues were. I told him they'd gone home. He said, 'Well, you may not be able to eat all of this since you're vegetarian, but you can try the bruschetta. I got leftovers back from the faculty meeting.'

I wasn't yet very hungry but I was curious to know what sumptuous fare faculty dined on at their meetings, so I uncovered the dish. A strong smell filled the room, the same scent that had made me throw away the lasagna five years ago. I knew I had eaten something that had moved at some point in its career, so I was excited rather than disgusted at the smell. Ah, finally I'm going to find out what I ate that day! And then I saw the non-bruschetta part of the meal.

Calamari. Fried squid.


I knew there was a really good reason why I switched to taking a dabba from home for lunch! And, in case you're wondering, the bruschetta went into the bin too!