evocation

When I got sick last month, the last thing of substance I had eaten was a smothered burrito. I tagged it as the source of what I believed was my food poisoning. The other day, coming in from a job, we stopped to get some late lunch and I ordered a Navajo taco. It's basically a taco, except instead of a taco shell, it's fry bread and it's all flat like a tostada. So to picture a Navajo taco, imagine some fry bread topped with green chili and meat of your choice and then some lettuce and cheese and some tomato. Fry bread is a simple round bread-like product that has been deep fried. When eaten plain, it's often eaten with honey as well. While quite tasty in that form, fry bread is not exactly the breakfast of champions, but that's not the point.

The point is that I was hungry. I had had a small breakfast and a lot to drink during the day since the heat and rare humidity were sucking everything out of me. Now it was mid-afternoon and we sat down and ordered and were snacking on the complimentary chips and salsa. When the food arrived, I immediately lost my appetite. The Navajo taco reminded me of my smothered burrito from a month ago. I could feel my insides turning and almost felt sick. I couldn't bring myself to eat more than a couple bites of my taco even though I easily ate some fry bread with honey on the side and the fries from the other guys' orders.

I shouldn't be too surprised by all this. The last time I threw up, which was many, many moons ago, I blamed it on some vegetarian lasagna. After that, I didn't eat vegetarian lasagna for several years. This time around, the taco, perhaps it was the green chili and chicken which was also common to my smothered burrito, was just too similar. But I'm surprised by just how strong the feeling was. Just looking at my plate made my stomach turn. I have a feeling I won't be eating anything with green chili or the combination of green chili and chicken anytime soon.