2003-02 – 甘栗 – Amaguri
Boiled Sweet Chestnuts
Translation by mike_s_6
I have issues with boiled sweet chestnuts.
Though I avoid it, I don’t hate it. I think it’s delicious, and I even think that the procedure of picking it to eat it is altogether elegant. And yet, it just does not seem to agree with my body. My stomach churns, I clamp on it and I get the feeling that my feces will stink.
However, in my life, though it is not amusing that there are delicious food which don’t agree with my body, I try to make them agree by force. Every time there is a chance for me to eat boiled chestnuts, I diligently eat them. If someone is selling boiled sweet chestnuts in front of the station, I’ll certainly buy some. I buy fresh chestnuts for rice with chestnuts, and I cook it expressly with the rice. I like short cake and cheese cake but I instinctively order Montblanc (chestnuts and cream). Which reminds me, I had even picked up chestnuts that have just fallen from the tree in my neighborhood and returned home. It is like putting the body in pain even though no one is asking you to do it. And then you regret it in the end.
Aside from that, my body also doesn’t quite agree with onions. I previously tried to make my body agree with it, so I continuously consumed onion soup.
But, on the night of the second day, I went to the opera, and the tears I cried stank of onions. There is a component in onions that can’t be absorbed well by my body, and I understood that the onion soup went through my blood stream unchanged! So I gave it up.
The reason I didn’t give up boiled sweet chestnuts was only because I can’t find the definite reason my body does not agree with it, just like “Boiled chestnuts circulate unchanged in your body!”
If everyone says that something is delicious and eats it, but that is something I don’t get to experience well, I find that awfully regrettable. If only I could not experience that pleasure, I feel like I have lost my life.
Even the goat cheese that the French people love, the moldy blue cheese. It is one of the things whose taste I can’t understand, but when I see my colleagues’ eyes light up upon seeing it, I can’t not challenge myself to try it. And I regret it every time. I wish I’d stop, it doesn’t smell good, it has a harsh taste, and has a weird flavor.
When I was a kid, I wanted to someday enjoy the adults’ taste with the bitter, insanely unpleasant espresso coffee. I now can’t go without it. Even though something is part of your nature, it is possible for your body not to follow it. I still haven’t abandoned my potential in appreciating the things that I have issues with, even though I will still approach them with wobbling feet.