The Culture Clash of the Literal Mind: The Birth of a Food Terrorist

I have a literal mind.  I barely understand metaphor, symbol, signage, in my own culture.  Plop me down in someone else’s culture and I am lost.  So I read and study and do exactly as I am told.

Like the day I became known as the ‘Food Terrorist’.

Serving with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) in Iraq, I was attending a meal hosted by a friend’s sister.  Somehow around the tablecloth laid out on the ground, I got separated from the rest of the CPT group and ended up being tended by an Iraqi gentleman whose name I never knew.

The table is laden with food, every dish within arms’ reach of every guest.  Bowls of red soup, chicken so tender it pulled away from the carcass which rested on a steaming bed of rice.  Using the flat bread to grasp, emulating my Arabic dinner companions, foregoing the fork thoughtfully provided for we Westerners, and concealing my offending left-handedness as best I could, I commenced eating.

And eating . . . flavor upon flavor in my mouth . . . eating beyond satisfaction – eating for obligation (“Never, never, never, refuse any food that is offered to you”, I had been told) and eating for joy . . . the gentleman beside me filling my plate with accompanying smiles . . . again and again . . . and again . . .

I do not understand his words, but the gestures and the smile are universal . . . here – try this . . . and this . . . and this . . . and I do.

And it is bliss.

But then I notice . . . the quiet . . . mid-bite, I look around and see the stunned faces, Arabic and Western alike – none can believe how much I can eat.

It is at that moment that my new friend pronounces me a Food Terrorist.

Laughter fills the silence.

The meal has ended.