Sometimes the act of preparing food is physically painful!
In my CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) share last summer, I got some wicked hot peppers. I don’t even know the name of them. Not a habanero or jalapeno but something HOT. I wear surgical gloves when I handle hot peppers but even using the gloves, I managed to get some on a finger and then brushed my finger by my eye. Make the pain stop now! I decided when those peppers were available again, I would pass them by. I don’t need spice in my life that much!
Two weeks ago we got stinging nettle in our share. Yes, the newsletter that the Garden gives us told us the proper way to store the nettles (plastic bag, in the refrigerator), told us not to touch them and told us to cook them (or boil them) before eating. They didn’t tell me what I should do if I accidentally brushed my hand by the nettle while I was getting something else out of the refrigerator drawer! OUCH! My hand hurt, was very stung, and got a rash.
I decided I did not like food that bit me back. I will stick to food that does not retaliate to my food preparation.
Pretty sad that a vegan gets bit by her food!! Funny though.
I’ve only heard of stinging nettles in fiction and never as food, only as an impediment to otherwise bucolic strolls in the countryside. I wonder if in 100 years people will look back on what we eat and go “ewwwww!!” the way we do when we look at what the Victorians or earlier generations ate and how they prepared their victuals.
Forget the Victorians, how about how our parents or grandparents brought food to the table? I still remember my godfather, who was a butcher, decapitating and dressing very fresh chickens in his garage. How barbaric that seems, just 40 or so years later.
And yes, for the record, chickens with their heads cut off can and do run. The stuff of nightmares. And possibly why I am now a vegetarian!