On Saturday August 9th I was at the Taste of the Danforth (Greek Festival)। I was excited by all the smells and flavours of meals pedaled by vendors wickedly teasing my taste buds with their tantalizing flavours however because I lack an adventurous palette and was unable surpass my own squeamishness I bypassed the calamari and escargots etc., and just went for the familiar. Like the Spanakopita (spinach pie), Tiropita (cheese pie), chicken gyros and fruit salads. Eating a chicken gyros and precariously balancing my camera, I walked the long crowed over casted streets snapping pictures of the festivities enjoying the Greek dancers as they danced while the crowd cheered.
Having taken all the pictures I could of the dancers I left in search of some more sites, sounds and great pictures, that is until I spotted a couple of booths selling roast corn. Roast corn was one of my childhood’s favourites. My grandfather would harvest the corn, we would sit and clean it and sort out the ones for roasting and the ones for boiling. Once done my grandfather would roast the corn. I loved mines completely black then I would sit back and enjoy shocking it a bit at a time pretending each individual roasted kernel were the teeth of some poor soul who lost them due to careless care (the imagination of children). It was fabulously scrumptious. It is with this picture in mind that I hurried to the vendors and purchased my roast corn only to bite into it and feel sadly disappointed. It was soft and mushy, not firm and delightful chewable. The corn wasn't the same, the texture was different, the taste was different, in fact it resembled the day weather wise.
*Sigh…the corn it was, It was....well, *sigh, it just was.....It is then I realized that not all corn were the same. I had naively operated on the assumption that all corn were the same, as they say in my native land “corn is corn" hence all corn tasted the same with the same texture, boy was I WRONG!, lesson learnt. Mind you it wasn’t all bad, it was ok, not half bad but nowhere near my palettes memory taste of yesteryear. It did leave me nostalgic for Trini-home (Trinidad, the land of humming bird, the land of my birth। ) style roast corn.
hIYA,
ReplyDeletetHAT wAS A pHABULOUS oNE, eXCEPT tHAT wHAT wOULD hAVE mADE tHE dAY wORTH iTS wHILE aND sEE yOU sMILING tO bED aFTER a tIRING dAY wAS lACKING.
oNE fACT tHAT cAN bE aTTRIBUTED tO tHE sOFT cORNS sHOULD bE tHE cHEMICAL-iNDUCED wAYS oF gROWING tHEM aS wELL aS tHE fERTILIZERS tHAT wERE uSED tO sUPPORT tHEIR gROWTH.
oVER hERE iN nIGERIA, iTS tHE cORN sEASON aND rOASTED cORNS aRE tHINGS oF cOMMON sIGHT; yOU cAN sEE pEOPLE cHEWING wHILE wALKING, sITTING tOGETHER oR eVEN wHILE dRIVING.
mAY i sUGGEST yOU lOOK aT tHE pOSSIBILITY OF tAKING a vACATION tO hOME, sWEET hOME - tRINIDAD, wHERE yOU cAN hAVE yOUR fILL aND rEMINISCE oN tHE gOOD yESTERYEARS....