Escapades with processed frozen food

When I was a young lad, I managed to put myself off pizza totally for over 6 months. I’m not a food snob; I adore pizza now, along with most Junk food. In fact, I’d say a decent cheeseburger is probably my favourite meal. But I went off pizza for about 6 months after I had it for tea on a family holiday. That night, I was horrendously, violently ill, and was out of action for 3 days of a 5 day holiday. I had managed to associate one of my favourite foods with being ill. Disaster.

The reason I am writing about sickness and pizza is partly tied in with my failure to update the Cookbook Test Lab. I was aware that I had not updated for a long time, and decided that I would write about the food I was to serve for friends visiting for dinner on the Sunday before Christmas. I don’t know what came over me, but I had decided to buy some frozen party food from a small (in comparison to the big 3), but well-known supermarket that specialise in these sort of things, heat and serve. We have a habit of serving dinner late to these particular friends, whose 3-year old son tends to get a bit restless waiting. And it is Christmas afterall, everyone loves buffets.

I heated it up, all went down well. I tried some of everything. It was fine, if not spectacular. I’m sure I recognised some of the treats from work – I think the catering staff do their shopping there.

I started feeling a bit dizzy at about 8.00, but didn’t think anything of it.

By 10.00, my stomach was in overdrive.

I finally got some decent sleep at about 5.00, after being ill all night and absolutely torturing myself about giving our friends food poisoning. The one glimmer of hope was that the other half was not suffering. It was with some trepidation that I called them, and apologised… Thank the lord! They were OK! I slowly started recovering and finally last night ate my first proper meal. So had I given myself food poisoning, or caught some sort of bug? Who knows. I have to confess that I ate a prawn that I dropped on the floor, other than this I had nothing else that others did not try. I’m just so glad we did not have whisky after dinner!

The point to all this is – I have put myself off buffet food. I think I have also put myself off cooking for others. Hopefully, my appetite for cooking for the better half and myself will return along with my appetite for food generally, but I don’t like the idea of cooking for others anymore, a true simple pleasure.

I hope I lose the fear and can enjoy it again, like I enjoy pizza now.