Hospital food.
To be specific, it was my first meal after waking up from an operation in the afternoon. I was put on a liquid diet as my attending surgeon found it necessary for me to avoid solids for my first meal.
A knock on the door. I woke up. The attendant came in with a large tray. It was then when I realised it was dinner time. “What am I having?” That thought sent me recollecting the events in the afternoon. One of the nurses passed me an Ipad to select my food choices. I remembered selecting three items: soy milk, pumpkin soup, barley drink. By then, the tray was laid out in front of me. The attendant greeted me and went out. On hindsight, I think my appetite went out with her as well.
I tried to make sense of what was in front of me: a bowl, a cup, and a foam cup. I channelled my inner Jarvis to associate the three items with “soy milk”, “pumpkin soup” and “barley drink”. The yellowish hue in the bowl gave the pumpkin soup away. I did not want to reach out for the foam cup as stretching would make me ache badly. My attention turned to the cup, which was nearer to me. The liquid in it was grey and had milky consistency. “Was it the barley drink or soy milk?” The cup was wrapped in cling film so professionally that it was as if the cling film was purposefully employed to add another layer to the mystery. How suspenseful can a hospital meal get?
Barley and Me
I took the cup in my hands and started figuring out how to remove the cling film properly without spilling my mystery drink. I could not understand how one could use a piece of cling film so masterfully and efficiently. I was successful. I wanted to be rewarded for my effort. I took a whiff of the escaping steam and recognized it as the barley drink. I sipped as though it was nectar from the gods. It tasted like blasphemy. If there were hints of barley notes in the liquid, then my palette failed to solve this unnecessary riddle. How could one fuck up a barley drink?
I was okay with the sweetness. I don’t like overly sweet drinks. I was well aware that this is hospital food which emphasizes on healthier meal preparations. But mind you, my breakfast and lunch meals in the hospital were much better experiences. So out with the negative stereotypes associated with hospital food, for now.
It was as though the person preparing the drink had three choices that evening in the kitchen. Option A: I’ll make a barley drink that tastes like how it should taste.Option B: I’ll use this bottle of barley cordial and add the right amount of water to balance out the sweetness.Option C: Barley-flavoured water or Aspirational Water. No prize for guessing which option he/she chose. Fucking Option C. I guess I drank water that aspired to be barley. Maybe, the kitchen should give the water they use some career guidance to become better tasting barley.
Existential Crisis of a Pumpkin Soup
Up next, pumpkin soup wrapped in cling film. I freed the bowl from its plastic colonial master. I took a whiff. I felt like a seer looking for signs. There were two possibilities after my ordeal with Aspirational Water. One was a redeeming bowl of warm comforting pumpkin soup. The other was Liquid Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Aspirational Water. You know where this story is headed to. Go to your kitchen now. Take that cup of hot water you left on your kitchen top for the past forty-five minutes. You wanted to use it to steep your teabag in. It is just under lukewarm temperature. Your tea dreams are now dashed. Now blend the cup of water with a boiled piece of pumpkin that is the size of your thumb. You realised you have failed in two things – making a decent cup of tea and a decent cup of pumpkin soup. The consistency of the soup was troubling as it was comparable to the barley-flavoured water. It tasted as though someone took leftovers of pumpkin soup from some hotel’s Mother’s Days Lunch Buffet held over the weekend and dilute it to the consistency of tap water. It was as though the pumpkin soup could not decide if it was pumpkin blended into soup or pumpkin-flavoured water. Granted, it tasted like what pumpkin soup should. I tasted its existential crisis as well.
Last liquid to consume was the soy milk in the foam cup. It was from a 3-in-1 packet. What could go wrong? Nothing. Really. It was a respite. It felt like its sole purpose was to comfort me from my disappointment.
Appetite for Writing
This hospital meal is the catalyst for the birth of this food blog. There has always been a desire to write about food. I am not a connoisseur or a trained chef. I have always been fascinated by food preparation since young. The transition from youth to adulthood meant that my increasing purchasing power exposes me to a greater diversity of food. Now that I’m older, I am now more selective about the food I am eating. Is the meal I am paying for worth it? Is it the real deal or is it just gimmicks? Am I better off cooking an omelette myself or should I pay one of those trendy cafes $22 for an omelette just because they added pathetic shards of chorizo and two drops truffle oil to it (ok, maybe just one drop was intended and the extra drop was a mistake by the kitchen)?
This is a platform to give vocabularies to my food experiences. To commemorate the good and to vilify the bad. If the food is impeccable, you will read about it. If it is atrocious, you will read about it.
I just want good food.