Day of reckoning with the Garlic Mafia

Today Uli and I went hiking while Jasi looked after Max. As I realized on the way up it was my first longish hike since before Max was born that means in a really long time. About 2600 feet of altitude gain is nothing to sneeze about especially when the route actually is fairly short and therefore steep with a capital S. If I do say so myself: I did better than anticipated, even had a little sprint at the end – where the cabin plus restaurant awaited us and on the way down heard the magic words from Uli: “Would you please slow down.” Yippee! Now, I could bore you with a detailed descriptions of the mountains, trees, plants and animals we saw, with geological or geographical details and such like but instead I am going to tell you about the big complot I realized is happening worldwide, but especially in Europe. Let me preface the story by saying that it is a well-known fact that work-outs bring out aggressions and also tend to have unpleasant and long forgotten bad feelings, experiences and prejudices boil up. The good thing is that work-outs are a good way of dealing with all that unpleasantness in a non-self-destructive way and, normally, once one gets off the treadmill or mountain that episode from 15 years back with the a…. of a boss is no longer a mind-consuming incident.
So after hiking up steep inclines for the better part of 2.5 hours and a quick early lunch in the restaurant and a quick descend half ways downs the mountain I realized that the garlic mafia is trying to vilify non-garlic eaters like myself in a major fashion. I do not eat raw garlic, it makes me feel hung-over without being even close to a class of booze, it leaves this disgusting feeling in my mouth and generally makes me feel slightly sick. So, years ago, I forsake the doubtful pleasure of eating raw or half-raw or almost cooked or more-or-less cooked garlic. I have, in addition, a hard time dealing with people who smell of garlic. It just really doesn’t smell that good, right. Sounds like a big deal to you? Not to me, at least not initially, but I have learned that it is a big deal; “big” in the sense of major. If somebody tells you casually over dinner that he/she doesn’t like sage or basil or fried chicken feet is that a big deal? No, nobody would think less of you for not liking sage or chicken feet and nobody would assume that something is fundamentally wrong with you – physically and psychologically, or both – if you told them that cumin just doesn’t sit well with you. Try this with garlic, I dare you, especially in the “alternative/ecologically-minded” circles in Europe and the effect couldn’t be more devastating if you had just announced to everybody that you slept with the hostess’ husband, despise puppies and kittens, and regularly eat endangered animals. You get this “oh my God she is such a wuss”-look, this “spoiled city-brad who despises the way of the real people”, this “does she think she is something better than us” look. Nobody ever believes you that your stomach just wasn’t meant to deal with raw stinky stuff, that your mouth feels rotten after eating it and that – strangely enough – you enjoy neither feeling. However, everybody assumes that you are faking it, that in reality you just feel superior to the common man, that you can’t take the raw and untamed power of garlic and that somehow that it is all in your mind and if you just gave up your evil or stupid ways and embraced the more enlightened path of the common garlic eater everything would be just dandy. You think I am overdoing it? Just another of Tina’s hyperboles! Hell, no. Have you ever heard of people who smuggle peanuts into the food of their peanut-allergic friends? Well, there were cases described on CSI and such like but generally the word used for people displaying such behavior isn’t “friend”, but more like “enemy”. I can’t count the number of times where people – with a smirk in their face like they just accomplished something real clever - said something like “I heard you do not like (nobody ever says “that you have a bad reaction to”) garlic but I smuggled one in the salad dressing/pasta sauce/dip anyway. Do I always realize it on the first whiff? No - ask your peanut-allergic friend whether he/she always notices milligrams of peanuts in every food and I guarantee you the answer is “no”, else CSI wouldn’t have a storyline. But I sure do notice when I wake up at night, feel like I had about a dozen shots of cheap tequila and my mouth tastes like something big and furry died in there – a while ago.
I hope you are not looking at me for an explanation. I am puzzled, I don’t get when, why and how eating garlic ever became the hallmark of a good, decent, grounded person. Why garlic, why not coriander, curry, chilly? Does its stinkiness have something to do with it? Is it the ultimate test of love and commitment? Is it sort of like the wedding vows but instead of “in good and in bad days, in health and in sickness” ”it is “after champagne or five gloves of garlic, wearing Chanel or ‘Eau de Garlic’”? I, for one, am sick of it: sick for justifying that I do not eat that stuff (raw) when it is okay that everybody else doesn’t eat pork or fish or horse radish or butter or anything red or gummi bears, pears, soy sauce, snow peas, …. Henceforth I will just simple say: “I hate the stuff. It tastes like s… and it stinks. Now take that!” The effect will be the same but at least I will feel good about it.
So, that was going through my mind as I descended from the mountains amidst trees and flowers, gurgling creeks and waterfalls, surrounded by butterflies and alpine mammals the rugged grayness of the Austrian Alps rising another 3000 foot around me. I guess I should work out more often to reach such profound, life-changing decisions.
P.S. The farmer has Internet access but unfortunately does the router not work with it and also are they holding a close second position to Greislye when it comes to virus infection. Uli found on a first sweep almost 200 viruses and spyware – no wonder it takes about 10 minutes to open Explorer.