TRYING ABOMINABLE FOOD CONCOCTIONS SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO

By: Lina Ahmed

Dated: February 1, 2020

In memory of my taste buds: RIP

Now, you may be wondering what exactly the point of this article is, and to that I say I myself am unsure. You see when I was first tasked with reviewing something for the school magazine, a number of options ran through my head: a newly opened attraction in Riyadh, a movie or maybe even a technological device. But no, these would not do. My brain required something of a little more spazazz - oomph if you must- so I settled on the one category that would stir up the most controversy: food.

However, the realm of food in and of itself is vast, so I had to figure out what kind of food I would be reviewing in the first place, and that was when I stumbled upon an article listing weird food combinations that supposedly taste “amazing”. Frankly, words cannot describe the sheer horror I experienced whilst going through that article. In fact, I can gladly say that I will have PTSD for life from it, but one thing was for sure, I had to give some of these concoctions a shot, and therein began my journey:

January 31, 2020, 3 P.M.:

My taste buds were prepared for battle. The first item on my list: pickles and ice cream. (It is important to note though that I had to carry out this entire experiment in the kitchen where family members originally planning on grabbing a light snack turned back instantly to avoid witnessing the crimes I was committing). To make matters worse, I was already someone who was far from being a pickle lover, so as I opened the pickle jar, my body uncontrollably began to shudder with agony and my mother, unable to protect her child from her own doing, grimaced in the distance. Here goes nothing, I said to myself as I consumed the mixture. Oh, how misguided I was. The saltiness of the pickle combined with the sweetness of the ice cream, as well as the difference in their relative consistencies and textures did not make for a good pairing, to say the least. Yet nothing, absolutely nothing, could compare to the aftertaste. To illustrate to you what exactly I went through, I will draw on all of your collective memories.

Most of you reading this article will probably have deep rooted memories of taking medicine as a child and the desperate attempts that ensued to wash down the taste. You know what I am talking about, specifically the white powdery antibiotic you were forced to take through a syringe. Fortunately for me, I got to relive that episode, and per usual the ice cream failed in masking the aftertaste of the pickle which kept coming back up incessantly and refusing to submerge.

8 P.M.: I decided to: a) give my stomach some well deserved rest before I continued

b) allow myself the chance to re- evaluate my priorities and

c) ensure my lunch was well digested before proceeding. It was now time for the second and final item on this list: pineapple on pizza. Now there was no way I was going to complete a food review without testing this seemingly innocent enough food option that somehow managed to cause a whirlwind of controversy on the Internet. So I ran along downstairs to my kitchen and prepared my final meal of day. However, unlike the pickles and ice cream, I wasn’t prepared for the way my taste buds would react to this mixture, mainly because I had never tried pineapple before. Therefore, as soon as I had taken a bite – a big bite might I add- I immediately realised my mistake. There was no going back now, however, and the only force compelling me to finish what I started is the fact that food is a blessing from Allah. That was what I recited to myself continuously until I had somehow managed to complete eating the slice of pizza. Luckily, there was no grotesque aftertaste like the one from the first mixture, and my taste buds survived with minimal damage. In conclusion, for your own safety, please don’t try this at home. I can honestly say that my experience with a mild allergic reaction was less nauseating than this, but if for some reason you do / have already tried an “abominable food concoction”, be sure to comment down below what it was and whether or not you recommend it.