A Mysterious Meal

                Where do I start?  Where does anyone start when talking about something completely insane?  As much as I have no idea what is happening to me, I know what happened to bring me to this point.  I suppose it was my hobby that got me in this situation; how could something I enjoy so much leave me in such a desperate state?

               Food is my number one interest and has been for a large part of my life.  The combination of flavours and textures are endless; just when you think you’ve tried everything, something new starts to trend and your world is opened up even further.  One bite can take you on an exotic journey filled with unfamiliar spices and aromas, while another can send you back in time to a comforting moment from your childhood.

I love to cook and experiment with flavour, I have ever since I took a cooking class at my old high school.  All those years ago I thought that having basic cooking skills would simply be a useful skill to have, plus, the course seemed like a bird class and it seemed like it would be a breeze.  Little did I know, I was about to have my entire world opened up; it was like I had been living in black and white for all these years, and for the first time, I saw the entire prismatic spectrum of colours.

This sparked the flames of a life-long passion grew as it mutated into different forms of appreciation.  At first it was reading the cooking textbooks front-to-back and trying to arrange any extra time in the Cooking Lab to practice.  Once I graduated, I began cooking any change I could get.  I also started to watch cooking shows at this time, and it wasn’t too long before these became the only TV that I watched.

I know, I know, it was more than just a hobby or passion; I was obsessed, and that obsession led me to my current predicament.

There’s probably many different ways you can figure out if an interest of yours is a passion or an obsession, but in my opinion, there’s only one that matters; a passion no longer is a passion once it becomes insatiable, and oh boy was I insatiable.

After a decade and a half of cooking three times a day, perfecting an impossible amount of recipes and cramming my head with every celebrity chef on the Food Channel.  I fused cultural flavours to create exquisite dishes, but no matter what I created and no matter what dinner quests would tell me, it was never enough.  Their praise was sung to deaf ears as I wanted to experience more; this was my first of many mistakes that took me down the dark path that lead me to locking myself in my bathroom with my laptop.

After finding myself unable to satiate my hunger, I began to look elsewhere.  There are foods that most of the population have not tasted; hell, most people don’t even know about these foods.  But if you have the right connections and enough money, you can acquire anything.  One of the people I knew from my cooking days in high school, Aaron Graham, turned out to be one of these people who could find me these forbidden dishes, and I have utilized his connections numerous times in the last couple of years.  You could say, that Mr. Graham was the doorman to my demise.

Thanks to him, I have sipped on shark fin soup, partook in a hooded ortolan ritual, eaten turtle soup topped with beluga caviar by the spoonful, nibbled on foie gras, and have even had fugu and lived to talk about it.  I’ve even tasted horse meat, but that’s not one I brag about.  Aaron was the one who set me up with all of these meals, so when he approached me about an exclusive, deluxe opportunity, I couldn’t say no.

“There’s an old building near the corner of East Main and Niagara, one of those spots that are cursed to never hold a successful restaurant.  You know those buildings, the ones that you’ve seen a dozen different names on top of a fresh coat of paint in the last twenty years.  Well I know of this new up-and-comer who is creating dishes that you wouldn’t dream of.  He is holding a one-night event that will be unlike any other.  Not only is he claiming to have extremely rare ingredients, but he is catering to a dark dining experience.  The way he describes it, this will be a completely different sensory experience unlike anything you’ve had.  No sight or sound, only taste and smell.  What do you say?”

What could I say to that, except for him to name the date and time.  Of course, that led me to tonight at 9:00 PM.

               I arrived at 8:30 PM, wearing my best suit; I decided on a slate gray, slim fit, paired with an obsidian button-up and a crisp white tie.  It was a point of pride of mine to wear white to a meal like this; what a better way to display your status and ability than exiting a meal with white as pure and unblemished as when you arrived?  This was something that I cared about so deeply for so long, and now it seems so shallow, arrogant and trivial.

               The building was in disrepair, with paint peeling off the sun-bleached walls and half of the lights either not working, or flickering like rave strobes.  A couple years ago, this would have sent the hairs on the back of my neck standing at full attention.  But after attending exclusive events like this, I learned that these buildings had a purpose, and their appearance hid that from the world.  You see, restaurant turnover happens so frequently and suddenly in North America that some buildings remain vacant for anywhere from months to years.  Some of these buildings, but not all, own their equipment.

Basically, this means that these are the perfect spots for private dinner events.

               I walked into this rundown box in the middle of the street, to find a strikingly different interior.  The room was smaller than anticipated, but it was in immaculate condition.  The tile on the floor shone from the fresh wax, the walls and ceiling were stainless steel which reflected the dim fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling.  At the back of the room, there was a single door with a table in front of it.  At this table were two chairs, with two men standing behind them; Aaron Graham and the mysterious chef who was catering this private event.

               Aaron stood up to greet me, telling me that this would be a culinary event unlike anything I had ever experienced before.  He introduced me to our host of the evening, Chef Boyd West.  Chef West was a stoic man of few words.  I introduced myself to him and expressed my excitement on trying his dishes.  He thanked me for my kind words, inviting me to sit, saying the event will begin shortly.  Now, I was doubtful about the whole “dining in the dark” experience; I had heard that it was an expensive gimmick that barely accentuated the flavours and textures of the food.  But Chef West didn’t seem like the type who messed around, especially when it came to his food.

               Aaron and I sat opposite of each other as Chef West exited through the door.  We exchanged small talk for a brief couple moments until Chef West came through the door wearing his full chef’s uniform.  He spoke briefly, words that have been echoing though my head in the hours that followed everything.

“Thank you both for dining with me this evening.  Tonight I will be attempting something that has never been done before.  You not only will be experiencing flavours in a sensory-enhanced experience, but these flavours themselves are something very few people have ever tasted.  I pray you enjoy the meal as much as I have enjoyed preparing it.”

               When he spoke his piece, he retreated through the door; as it shut, the lights were snuffed with a loud click.  A small chuckle escaped my mouth at the theatrics, while Aaron clapped several times.  The room was darker than anything I had ever experienced; it felt like I was an abstract consciousness floating in an empty void.  I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, and the more I focused on that, I began to realize there was a static playing in my ears that made hearing my own breath impossible.

               A panic began to set in my head, one that I had never experienced before.  It was existential and paranoid, but there was something else.  This felt wrong, but a deep wrong that I couldn’t sort out.  I chocked it up to how new this experience was, and shifted my attention to my meal.  I slowly began to move my hands around the table, wanting to get an idea where my plate was.

               To my most pleasant surprise, there was a filled plate in front of me.  Gently, I felt the items on the plate; the cool, leafy texture combined with slimy cubes told me this was a salad.  As eloquently as I could, I found my fork, stabbed the contents of my plate and guided it to my mouth.  The flavours exploded in my mouth, notes of berries and citrus, with the mellow flavours of a melody of vegetables.  But the biggest draw for me was the crunch; the salad’s fresh textures broke under my teeth over and over.  I couldn’t tell if this was due to the ingredients or the darkness, but whatever the cause, this is what I was looking for.

               The salad was exquisite, but there was one aspect that I didn’t care for.  There were these spheres mixed in with the greens that had a pungent taste, almost like garlic mixed with jackfruit; I didn’t care for them, but I could see what they accentuated in the dish.

               Time was an abstract concept at this point; it seemed like it was dragging by between meals, but it seemed like the second course started.  There was a soothingly warm bowl in front of me.  Now, it was a little unusual to start with salad, since normally it would be used as a palate cleanser, but I was here to experience Chef West’s style, and I was enjoying it so far.

               I quickly found my spoon and did not hesitate to dip it into the mystery broth inside.  There was a rich, delicious seafood and umami flavour profile, one that I absolutely loved.  I sipped on it quicker than I would have ever done in the light, but it was addictively good that I couldn’t help myself.  There were a few pieces of seafood in the soup that were simmered to perfection; lobster, crab, shrimp, scallops and the like.  There was one piece that I couldn’t identify for the life of me.  It seemed charred with how crunchy it was, and there seemed to be too many angles in it.  Regardless it was delicious, and before I knew it, not only was I done my soup, but the next course was in front of me.

I only took two bites, and they are the reason why I’m as terrified as I am.

               The dish seemed like a standard main course; meat, a starch and vegetables.  I grabbed my knife and blindly cut several pieces off the meat.  Impaling the first piece on my fork, and placed it into my mouth.  Everything about it sent impulses into my brain that this was wrong.

               It was sour, much sour than any meat should be, and tender to the point of feeling like mushy fruit in my mouth.  Whatever that was, and however the chef cooked it, it shouldn’t have been something you serve to anyone.  Plus, it was ice cold.  Not wanting to insult the chef, I forced myself to swallow it down.  But as I did this, I felt something move down my oesophagus into my stomach.  I sat there completely still as something squirmed in my stomach.  I knew that some animal’s nervous system could be stimulated after death and could continue moving; I hoped to God this was the same thing.  I calmed myself, settling my raised heartbeat and telling myself that another bite would be delicious and the flips in my stomach would go away.

I was dead wrong.

               The second bite is caused me to react.  The squirming deep in my stomach is something I was trying to ignore, but that second mouthful was too much for me to handle.  The texture was just has confusing as the first bite, and it was just as cold.  But as I chewed, it began to heat up.  By the time I swallowed, the unknown substance in my mouth was warm; by the time it hit my stomach, it felt like freshly made soup.  My stomach was a cauldron on a roaring fire, and I did something that I had never done in any culinary setting; I vomited out my food, and what came out froze my blood.

               I was sitting in the dark, so I shouldn’t have been able to see what came out of my mouth.  But sitting on my plate, amidst a puddle of glowing green liquid, was a masticated piece of bioluminescent,  icy-blue… something, that had a slight purple glow deep inside that seemed to be pulsing the longer I looked at it.  I felt bolted to my seat, I could only look down at the glowing material seeping into my white tie.

               When I say this substance was glowing, I don’t mean slightly; this liquid was exuding enough light to illuminate the far corners of the room.  Once I took everything in, there were two striking details that I noticed.  First, the door to the kitchen was swinging slightly; I knew that Chef West was watching us eat and would have been able to see in order to fill our plates, but this told me he ran at my reaction to the food.  The second thing that was painfully apparent was that I was dining on my own; Aaron Graham had abandoned me.

               I was confused and scared beyond any rational thought, with a splash of disgust at whatever I had been eating.  My fight-or-flight response had kicked in, and flight was the winner.  I jumped out of my seat and bolted for the door.  Crashing through to the outside, the ambient sounds of the city rushed into my ears as I began to sprint up Niagara Street, running to my hotel room.  I ran faster than I ever had, not taking a single moment to stop on my journey.

               The only moment I faltered was when a headache abruptly settled in my head, but I never stopped.  I pushed through the searing pain; I pushed through my vision becoming blurry.  Well, blurry isn’t the right word.  My vision began to split, almost as if you were wearing those old-school red and blue 3-D glasses.  My sight split as the image in front of me was turning gray.  The warm colours split off from the cool colours.  This only happened for a minute or two, and it only fuelled my drive to keep running.

I finally slowed once I reached the entrance to the Best Western I am staying at, but I didn’t stop.  Without looking at another soul, I walked into the elevator and pressed 3 for my floor.  I stared straight ahead, and as soon as the doors opened wide enough for my slight frame, I walked briskly to my room.

I locked the door with every lock there was available, but not before putting up the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign.  I rushed to the bathroom and finally saw my reflection.  I was much paler than I had ever been before, my eyes were bloodshot and looked like I hadn’t slept in a week.  The most shocking sight was my mouth, it was stained blue from the… well from the main course I suppose.

The sight was sickening and after taking in the weary man staring back at me, I threw up everything that was in my stomach into the toilet.  Once I was done, I looked at the inky black mess in the toilet bowl.  There were green and blue glowing spots and some bubbles that seemed to be moving around by their own volition.  I closed the lid, but didn’t flush; who knows what was in there, and maybe I wanted to take a look once the panic wore off.

I returned to the mirror as Chef West’s words echoed in my head as I stared at the bright blue stain around my lips and the glowing lime green stains on my tie.

“…these flavours themselves are something very few people have ever tasted.  I pray you enjoy the meal as much I have enjoyed preparing it.”

               The longer I stared at my horrified reflection as my vision began to pulse and distort once again.  As this happened, my sclera darkened as my pupil lightened and a violet hue flashed through my iris.  My headache got worse as the wave of despair washed over me once again.  I’m terrified of what is happening to me, but there is a singular other thought bouncing through my head.

What the hell did I eat tonight?

- Cody S