Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"If I'm going to eat some weird new dish o' doom, I'm going to have invented it myself." -- howardtayler, author of the comic strip Schlock Mercenary, 2005-05-23 (after his 7-year-old son created a butter, jam, and Cheerios sandwich)

I recently had the pleasure of watching a sensualist enthusiastically discover that she likes hummus. This evening I found myself contemplating how little there really is to hummus. That is, your basic hummus is just a lot of chickpeas -- not the most boring bean, for sure, but not all that complex a flavour, either -- and a little other stuff. The amount of Yum! you wind up with is a little surprising for how little goes into it. Okay, the things that there are a little of are interesting -- olive oil, lemon juice, sesame, and garlic -- but I'm not talking about anything even as complicated as baba ganouj; at heart, it's just a creamy chickpea paste. By all rights it ought to taste okay, rather than hey-gimme-more-o'-that or the ever popular whoops-I-just-filled-up-on-what-was-supposed-to-be-the-appetiser. There's something about That Particular Combination of flavours and just the right mouth-feel. Anyhow, it was fun to watch the reactions of someone who had somehow mysteriously failed to encounter hummus before, on discovering that it's on her yummy-foods list.

Then again, when I conjure a taste-memory of a just perfect baked potato -- you know, the one you almost don't want to adulterate with butter or sour cream because it's so there already -- I am reminded that there are even simpler recipes than that for hummus. (Can you get any simpler than "heat this up" and still call it a recipe?) But I think that potatoes are more complex -- from a flavour standpoint -- than chickpeas, as much as I like chickpeas. (Look at how differently a potato can taste depending on which way you cook it: there's got to be some fun chemistry in there.)

And then there's the Instant Salad: dump a can of chickpeas, a can of corn, and a little chopped garlic into a plastic tub with a little oil and vinegar and whatever herbs strike your fancy, put the lid on, and shake vigorously. That works pretty well, but it relies on the sweetness of the corn and the influence of the herbs.

Whether the fact that I was thinking of this while nibbling halvah is appropriate or ironic, I leave to the judgement of my readers.