Unhappy Food
So I’ve written about junk food and I’ve written about health food, but it’s time now to explore a different category that I’ve only lately realised exists; unhappy food, i.e., food that, when eaten, causes the eater to be unhappy.
For a food to be an unhappy food, it shouldn’t make you ill after eating — after all, junk food can do that quite easily, as can health food I suppose — but it should simply engender a general malaise after eating.
The first food I noticed that fit into this category was, quite specifically, Tesco-branded breaded scampi. Usually eaten alongside some rice and vegetables, I found that after eating I would end up just sat in my lounge or bedroom idly staring around wondering what do to with my time. DVDs, games, books, internet; nothing could break through this sudden glumness. Eventually I’d just have to eat some chocolate.
So I resolved to never eat Tesco-branded breaded scampi again as doing so made me unhappy, but I keep running into foods that have the same effect, such as Ginster’s entire product range, battered sweet-and-sour whatever from Chinese takeaways, or the roast half-chickens served at The Company’s canteen — half a chicken is just too much; after half an hour of eating chicken you find you still have a plate of chicken still to go and the depression kicks in.
Merde!
There was a European food market in Oxford this weekend. You know the sort; you get all excited by these interesting and strange cakes, meats, cheeses and sauces and then you buy a single, murderously-expensive flapjack before heading off to Sainsbury’s as usual. I went all crazy this time though and spent £9 on some sausage, of the dried, chewy variety that you’re supposed to hang in your buttery next to the strings of onions and portions of mouse droppings.
The stall had a range of sausages available, and I went with pork and walnut, duck, and stag. Dried stag sausage, it turns out, smelt like my dog, and I don’t mean that in a generic ‘smelt bad’ way, it specifically smelt like my deceased cocker spaniel, Jasper (the way he smelt when he was alive, that is).
I sliced them up and ate them with a glass of red wine and some fresh bread — I figured this would be a good meal, but these sausages just didn’t work out for me. They weren’t bad as such — though the lingering smell of fresh Jasper from the stag one, plus the feeling of guilt I was starting to get about eating a stag in the first place, just wasn’t helping matters — but after finishing my meal I was miserable and had to drink the whole bottle and watch six episodes of Black Books to balance me out again.
There’s no common theme here, which has meant I’ve found it impossible to pre-emptively avoid unhappy food. Another problem is that, by and large, unhappy food makes you think it’s going to be happy food by having, say, an appealing smell. It means that you end up eating it again even when you promised yourself that you wouldn’t. It’s an upsetting situation.
I am a poor student, so often find myself eating cheap things. £9 on sausage is inconceivable (unless I’m in Soho, but that is another story). It turns out that you don’t have to go to such lengths to find unhappy food, though – I recently found myself cooking a bag of Asda Smart Price basmati rice. I ask you – what would be the difference between name-brand rice and supermarket rice? You’d be mad to suggest any. And yet this rice had an odd earthy aroma to it that carried over to its taste. It wasn’t disgusting, it was just weird. It spoilt my bombay potato (of which it was acting as a bed).
But I am a poor student, so I’m going to struggle through the whole bag. And every time I come to cook with rice for the next month I will be filled with apprehension.
I find gluten free bread to be a main contender here. Imagine the delight at being able to eat bread products without being ill, only to find that the only likeness to your real life bread is that it tastes almost exactly as real bread does when it has been sitting in a cupboard for a few months.
I was reading this Sunday, not having a particularly great day as I had woken feeling grotty, thanks for cheering up my day!
I know exactly what you mean, food is something that affects me greatly. I can have just a sandwich and suddenly be put into a coma – I often become instantly tired after eating. But, there are some foods that seem to have a far greater effect, though I’ve never heard the label “unhappy foods” to describe them, but that’s exactly what they do to you.
A couple of other things I’ve found in my diet are changes in my handling of some sugary products, just specific ones mind you. I used to love fanta and kitkats but I cannot touch them now. Fanta makes me shut down and kitkats totally screw me up, it worries me only that this is a change that’s taken place and I wonder where it’s leading.
Now, the question is, what are the happy foods for us to find :)
I had a packet of wheat-free biscuits once upon a time, that I bought to impress a girl (long story). Sadly we never quite reached the biscuit-eating stage of the relationship and, one dark and stormy night later, I found myself starving hungry and they were all I had, so I braced myself and dug in, and it was then I discovered why the girl in question was unhappy so often…
Gluten free wheat products and soy milk are only there to make people who can digest gluten and lactose feel better about the poor sods who can’t. Carob chocolate doesn’t help anyone.
Wheat-free biscuits really are no replacement for digestives, a biscuit that was named to taunt those of us who cannot eat them.
How can anyone justify charging £1 for a pack of 12 “biscuits” that taste mildly of dust?
I feel this comment may be dangerously close to defending joyless food, but I recently tried soya milk with porridge and thought it was quite nice…?
I think that soya milk is acceptable due to its occasional likeness to vanilla milkshake.