Oh hey, look at this thing. I wrote this Praxis years ago, and for whatever reason never actually submitted it. So here it is, long delayed!

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So, while in Singapore a few weeks ago, I came face to face with two terrifying foods, and consumed both!

As a bit of background, I have absolutely no tolerance for spicy foods. I just can't deal with them. This has always been the case--spice registers as pain to my tongue, and I don't have much of a pain tolerance. The one exception to my loathing of spicy foods is tandoori. I absolutely love tandoori. It is one of my favorite flavors in the world, and I will eat just about any meat from anywhere that has been tandoori'd.

I was in Singapore with my parents and some family friends, including a fellow named Paolo. Now, Paolo and I get on famously and have something of a friendly rivalry going on. He's an artist, adventurer, engineer, and all-around exciting fellow.

He also revels in my pain. This will become relevant shortly.

Our whole adventuring party went wandering in Little India, a district of Singapore that is for all intents and purposes a slice of anachronistic Bombay picked up and plopped down in the middle of hypermodern Singapura. It's crowded, hot, smelly, and utterly fascinating.

While wandering it, I happened to spot a restaurant that had foot-long skewers covered in mouth-watering tandoori chicken cooking in the window. Oh goodness me, it looked glorious. But ah! It was barely 10AM, and we were none of us hungry yet for lunch. So we carried on with our adventuring into the markets and alleyways.

Two hours later, we decided we were hungry, and went foraging. I suggested the restaurant I had seen earlier, so we went to go find it. However, despite the best efforts of google maps, after twenty minutes of wandering we hadn't remotely found the place. I shrugged and said it wasn't a big deal, and we could just as easily eat somewhere else.

Paolo, however, had caught the thrill of the chase. I wanted to eat at this place, he said, so we would eat there, by jove! What followed was a further forty minutes of near-aimless wandering through Little India before we finally found the damn tandoori restaurant. We collapsed inside, out of the sweltering heat, and plopped down in front of one of the giant fans, immediately sipping at the delicious lassis they brought us.



After a minute or two, they brought me my tandoori--most of a chicken. Two legs, two breasts. It looked beautiful, a perfect black-edged crimson, and I eagerly shoved a leg into my face.

In the moments that followed, I learned a few things.

1) Little India makes authentic tandoori.
2) America does not make authentic tandoori.
3) Authentic tandoori is extremely spicy.

In short: oh god.

Tears immediately began streaming down my rapidly reddening face, as my tongue spontaneously combusted. Oh god. Oh god. Oh god.

I didn't my tear-blurred vision to tell me that Paolo was laughing uproariously. After a minute or two, he calmed down and told me it was fine, it was hilarious, I could order something else, and he'd finish it for me.

Oh no. Oh no. Now my pride was on the line.

"Dammit," I said. "We walked for an hour so I could eat this chicken. I am going to eat this goddamn chicken.



And you know what?

I did.

Every bite.



My mouth tasted like tandoori for the next two days.

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... and two days later, Paolo decided he wasn't done.

Many of you have probably heard of Durian. It's a fruit that smells like rotting corpse--and powerfully so. If you leave a Durian in a room for a few hours, the room will smell like Durian for weeks. That's how you wind up with signs like this on the Singapore subway:



Now, I have been told by various people that if you can get past the smell, Durian actually tastes quite delicious. But that doesn't make a lick of sense to me, as smell and taste are inherently linked. If something smells bad, it is generally going to taste bad.

Unfortunately for me, Paolo is in the category of people who like Durian. So when we stopped for lunch in an international food court, and something caught his eye, he decided I had to try it.

Now what was it that he saw?



Yes, that's right. Durian porridge. Not the thing itself, but an even grosser porridge made from it. That smelled every bit as pungent as the original. From the picture, you might think that looks like a tasty dessert. The real thing was... somewhat less appetizing.



But I wasn't about to let Paolo beat me down. It smelled hideous, it looked revolting, but by jove, I was going to stick that damn thing in my mouth.



I tried to swallow. The porridge tried to come out of my mouth. I swallowed. It tried to come back up. I desperately grabbed my bottle of water. It gave a third valiant attempt at escape, and then was washed down by the blissful nontaste of the water.



And as always, Paolo was laughing.

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