I’ve been flirting with olives.
To most of you, this will seem a fairly non-eventful utterance, but this is because you are probably into overly salty mediterranean food as a way of life, and therefore it does not require a complete personality transplant for you to find yourself enjoying the odd olive amongst a salad, or on a cheese platter.
Mine is a different story. I loathe olives. I loathe them. I generally lump them into the circuitous category of Foods I Will Never Enjoy Even Under Peril Of Death - currently in the merry company of blue cheese, beetroot and those suspicious little fishy things you sometimes find nestled atop pizza in your worst nightmares. (I believe they are called ‘anchovies’, but such is my disdain for them also that it has developed into a situation whereby anchovies are somewhat akin to the Voldemort of cuisine for me. Anchovies = he who must not be named). I digress. Olives, are what we’re here to talk about.
It all started with the terrifyingly 'trendy' little sandwich bar under my office. They have greek salads there so crisp, so evidently glowing with sprightly, edible foliage that it would clearly be more of a sin not to pay the monstrous $7.50 for categorically the smallest carton of salad you’ve ever seen. The problem with greek salads is they contain olives. The problem with me is I don’t. Contain olives. Ever. Except that recently I accidentally did for a week, when I ordered the Greek salad five days out of five and only on day four did realise that I had been incidentally inhaling the things like it was nobody’s business. I literally paused, fork mid air, spiked onto the next of its bulbous little pitted black victims and had the ghastly realisation that I was eagerly ingesting that which I had sworn to loathe for all time. Inconvenient. This then led to an inevitable crisis of identity: ‘Have I crossed over? Does this mean I am an olive-lover? A lover of olives? What’s next? The fishy things?? I don’t know what to feel!’
I went home and told my flatmate what had happened. ‘I like olives now Renée.’ I proclaimed defiantly. ‘WHAT? You.. You ate an olive? You ate multiple olives?? We can no longer cohabitate!’ (*Renée holds equally strongly to a passionate abhorrence for olives). ‘Look. People change. I’ve changed. People always say you acquire a taste for new things when you grow up. Maybe I’ve taken that step.’ Honestly, I think she felt rejected, as if my newfound penchant for waxing lyrical over the joys of Greek salad were a personal affront. But by this point I was unstoppable. Flying deftly in the face of resistance, I continued on my quest to retain my broadened palate.
Day Five: Secure in life On The Other Side, I sauntered down to aforementioned shiny salad outlet, ordered ‘the usual!’ in a decidedly smug tone to the faint bemusement of the sandwich man, and proudly toted my carton back to work. Opened the carton. Began to eat the salad. Got to an olive. Couldn’t do it. The minute fork met mouth I knew my flirtation was over. The rubbery, circular, salty morsel nearly undid me, and at that point I realised I had not made as much progress as first imagined.
I did the right thing: I went home and retracted my prior profession of mediterranean love to Renée. ‘I humbly concede that I was wrong. About the olives. It’s just not going to work out. Do you think I’d be able to sneak back into the club? The one comprised of those who hate the olives? Take me back, for the love of all things!!’ Being the saint that she is, after having avowed to never again tempt fate by developing a sudden taste for our mutual target of hatred, I was graciously reinstated. Back to my normal self. An avid detester of olives.
Perhaps where certain delicacies are concerned, some of us never grow up.
I’m pretty ok with that.
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