Goblin Vomit

My gut talks to me. It often makes loud noises before or after eating a meal. Expressing dissatisfaction or gratitude it’s impossible to tell. I've never been what you might call a 'body botherer' but  I decided, at last, it was payback time for years of devoted service. 

I’m talking about gut bacteria, the key to mental health, heart health, the key to everything good from weight loss to spiritual plenitude. You can even get this good bacteria in pill form—essentially dehydrated poo from more enlightened eaters.

I’m grateful for the sterling job my stomach does but not that grateful. I decided to go for Kimchi and Sauerkraut, little plastic containers of the stuff found in my local Waitrose.

The problem is how to eat it? I dug a spoon into the Sauerkraut, held my nose and swallowed. Horrible. Horrible. The Kimchi was even worse. I’m all for fermented stuff. I like fermented stuff. Never had any trouble with beer. But this?

Goblin Vomit

 

So how to eat it? Maybe a spoonful a day, like cod-liver oil, but there’s no spoon small enough for this. Eat it with something then; what might smother a repugnant taste? Now, Sauerkraut goes well in the Polish dish, Bigos, but the recipe calls for kilos of sundry meats, and mounds of white cabbage, in which the Sauerkraut is heavily outnumbered.

 Far too complicated. 

It apparently goes well with the classic American hotdog sausage sold over here in jars, but one reading of the jar put me off. Enough nitrates there to sink a ship, the Sauerkraut a Trojan horse for everything bad, a sugar-coated cyanide pill.

Every day I wander duty-bound to the fridge, stare at the Kimchi and Sauerkraut and shut the fridge door again. Subconsciously I’m waiting for their expiry dates to come and go and then bin them with a clear conscience. Replace them with a four-pack of Guinness. My gut bacteria, I think, would approve.