Eddie’s food annoyances: when you yourself give off such an overpowering garlic stench
Adeline loves food, lots of it and often, both at home and out and about. Usually, that goes well, but sometimes it doesn’t. In the series Eddie’s food annoyances, she shares her culinary bewilderment. This time she isn’t annoyed with others for once, but with herself and that enormous garlic smell rising from all her pores.
It’s a weekday morning. My breakfast consisted of two large glasses of water and a cup of black coffee, but that wasn’t all. Thanks to last night’s green pesto, I’m giving off such an impressive garlic stench (we can’t call it a smell anymore) that it feels as though I already ate a whole bulb of garlic for breakfast. Raw. Straight from the clove. Disgustingly foul.
The odour of a kebab shop
Brushing my teeth and using mouthwash don’t even help anymore; one second later, the impressive smell simply bubbles back up from my lungs. While talking, I try to breathe in and especially not out, which is why the waiter at the coffee shop just stared at me for slightly too long and too intently. Before, of course, he made a run for it when the garlic nevertheless forced its way through the gaps and wafted into his fresh nose. Nobody is waiting for the odour of an entire kebab shop before their second coffee.
A little spicy at the end
By the way, I don’t mind a little garlic smell; it’s simply a sign that you’ve eaten something insanely delicious. A good melanzane or tasty tzatziki, for example. But you can also go too far. The annoying thing is that it’s all my own fault, because when I tasted the slightly sharp aftertaste at the counter of my favourite delicatessen, every garlic alarm in my body should have gone off. The only thing I said to the cheerful lady behind the counter was, ‘Oh, nice that it’s a little spicy at the end.’
Honestly? Then it’s simply all your own fault. A moment ago, I took another look at the pesto container, and when I saw it, I felt even more foolish. Among the green pesto were so many white flecks, it was as if the container itself were laughing at me.
Garlic burp
It all becomes even more dangerous when you combine those garlic bulbs with carbonation. Not long ago, I ate the culinary version of a shish kebab in Utrecht. I suspect the chef ground a clove of garlic into every bite. After this eating extravaganza, we stopped for one more drink at a dodgy pub where the dancing regulars had you hopping from left to right. This movement, combined with the shish kebab and the carbonated beer, proved deadly—especially for the bystanders. With every little jump, a garlic burp also wafted through the place. Thank goodness it was shared dining, so I was at least in good garlic company times three. Another advantage: nobody dared enter our aura filled with garlic stench.
I’m considering walking to the supermarket like this for a bunch of parsley and a multipack of Smint. Though I wonder whether I can still be saved, because I can still taste every clove of garlic on the tip of my tongue.
Read also:
- Eddie’s food annoyances: when you almost don’t dare order ‘ordinary’ yoghurt
- Eddie’s food annoyances: those restaurants where you get far too much food
- Why some people shouldn’t be allowed to use a self-checkout
