The Disastrous Love Lives of the Delaney Family

3.2 Erwin Blumenfeld

Everything in life is an arithmetic test that I haven't studied for. Communication is one of those tests, but one of the stranger ones that people can't quite understand is eating. 

It should be simple, as easy as breathing; you get the food, you cook the food, you eat the food, and your body does the rest. Only for me, it's harder than that. Choosing food is difficult, mainly because of food disgust. Merely the thought of some foods is enough to make me want to vomit.

Grapes are disgusting tart eyeballs covered by a thin layer of slimy skin. Coconuts are bitter pencil shavings with too many tastes to count but I'll try to list them: tropical, nutty, slightly sweet, woody, and vanilla-y, to name only a few. I can't eat something that doesn't know what it is trying to be.

Eating mushrooms is like hosting a party for slugs in my mouth or eating squeaky human ears. Pears have a sandy feel like they've been let loose to roll around on a beach. Popcorn is like polystyrene with tiny razors scattered on certain edges and comes in too many varieties, and god forbid someone adds chocolate to the mix. Oranges make me gag, it's like the smell is stabbing all my olfactory senses before I can get it close to my mouth. And they get my hands wet, and the smell lingers for days. It's disgustingly sticky. Crisps are like thin layers of flavoured rust. Watermelon is like wet, mushy foam. 

If you think about it, it's a combination of how food looks, how it feels, how it smells, and how it tastes. And if any one of those four elements is off, then it's an assault on all my senses. Foods are challenging for the brain and the tongue; different foods, combinations of foods, and methods of eating are extremely stress-inducing, and they can be unpredictable. Some foods, like blueberries, are supposed to be sweet but sometimes will be sharp and sour. How do I know if the next batch of blueberries I buy will be the same as the last? I can't take the risk.

I also can't eat the pâtisseries from my mother's shop. They all look nice, some more mouth-watering than others, but I can't get past the varieties available. I can't work out the obsession with the éclairs; the choux pastry is confusing, with its light and crispy outer shell, and soft and airy insides, and then there's the abhorrent texture of the cream (like pureed baby food), and the bitterness of the dark chocolate on top that doesn't seem to 'fit' with the rest of the elements.

This food aversion, for lack of a better word, makes family dinners fun, as you can imagine. It would help if I had a standard go-to meal that I can eat without fail, like McDonald's chicken nuggets, but I don't have a comfort food. It's trial and error, and a lot of gagging and discretely spitting things out into napkins. 

Tonight is no different. We're having the weekly (obligatory) family dinner, where all the siblings are in attendance. This includes Martha. And by extension, her husband, and their two children. Benjamin is almost sixteen and Olympia has just turned fourteen. I love them both. I also dislike them both. Benjamin is obnoxiously loud and doesn't know how or when to use his 'inside' voice. Everything is also a rush to him and he will zoom from one place to another like he's powered by an infinite battery pack plugged into his computer brain. He talks at breakneck speed and I understand nothing of what he says. Olympia is the opposite. She seems to think that time is a construct, and as such, isn't in any sort of rush. She's slow to do anything, including getting to the point in a conversation. I've lost count of how many times I've lost the will to sit there and listen to her; I get easily distracted and wander off, but I can come back in fifteen minutes and she will still be nattering on.