Friday, February 11, 2011

I dreamed of a series of industrial freezers, the size of shipping containers, in which there were racks of seafood, scallops, prawns, crayfish and salmon.  I was free to select from an assortment of these treats for the barbeque.

I had started to cook the scallops, fast over a high hot flame when I realised that others might prefer a whole fish – a whole fish, which I might bake on top of the hot plate one side at a time.

My mother had died not long before I had started cooking and someone came to me and offered a piece of her for the BBQ.  I was revolted by the thought, but no, this person insisted, it is not unconventional to prepare a part of the dead person for consumption.  She arrived soon after with what looked like a trussed fish but was actually my mother’s arm.

I wince even now as I remember the sensation and the thought of not only cooking but eating my mother.  I could not do it.

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