Anchovies

I know it is a bit weird to start my first blog with anchovies...but it seemed to make sense, as that was the most exciting thing I had today (the day I created this blog). My research lab work was getting very tedious so I decided to stop working (quite early in the morning) and go off to rent a movie for a while. My lab-mate (being a notoriously bad influence) said we should order pizza and get popcorn as well. I don't think I have ever done this; get pizza delivered while watching a movie. It is so quintessentially American...yet it dawned on me today that I lacked this experience. Thus, I agreed. I was concerned about calories and all but I decided to order a personal pan pizza. When I saw the toppings list and the options of putting it on the left, right, or entire pizza, I quickly broke into a sweat. So many choices and a simple click of the button to order! I have a hard time making decisions. My roommate refuses to go grocery shopping with me because I can't decide what brand and quantity to buy all the time! I had a hard enough time picking the crust (whole grain, thin, stuffed, etc), let alone the toppings! A quick scroll down the page and I saw the topping I knew I needed: anchovies.

I associate anchovies with things that are foul and cause fear. When I was in elementary school, we often laughed about strange pizza toppings, anchovies being number 1. I thought it was too strange that people wanted to put tiny fish on their pizzas so naturally it must have been an urban myth. Even now I still can't believe it. But to see it on the list of regular toppings, I was flabbergasted. I felt adventurous (after all I was MIA in lab, catching a movie and ordering pizza...I was already on a downward slope)...but not too adventurous. I just ordered for half of my personal pizza to be topped with anchovies, the other half with crumbled Italian sausage (I was torn between pepperoni and ham as well). I also got black olives sprinkled on the whole thing. It took almost an hour for the pizza to arrive. I was quite eager to try the pizza and had been munching on popcorn (movie theater butter flavored no less).

I found the anchovies to be just as their reputation suggested, foul. The smell was very...peculiar. The texture...odd and the taste...revolting. Well maybe revolting is too strong of a word. I just remember the salt that nearly killed my taste buds and the lingering smell. Thank goodness for the Italian sausage on the other side! I think the salt was so overpowering I had a hard time enjoying my pizza. I scraped off all the anchovies and ate the crust. My parents may like this, being used to very strongly favored Vietnamese cuisine (eg. nouc mam aka fish sauce).

Although I did not like the flavor so much (and I know many of you share my sentiments), it was rather enjoyable to try something new and have new experiences. This is what I want to blog about, my experiences with food and life in general. After all food is my life.