October 2018 issue B

41
A Food Misadventure
by Sylvia Grant
For the first two years of our marriage, my husband and I
lived in different countries. I was in Canada upgrading my
undergraduate degree and teaching. He was in the United
States, going to school in Cleveland, Ohio. During his fourth
and final year, I got a job teaching at Fenelon Falls Secondary
School. Since he had a car and I didn’t, on long weekends
and holidays, he would drive up to visit me.
On one such weekend, we got invited to the art teacher’s
place for dinner. Her husband was doing his PHD at the University
of Waterloo and they too lived apart and got together
on weekends, so we had similar living arrangements. However,
what really excited me about the dinner invitation was
that I was not much of a cook and I’d heard that she was
quite good.
On Saturday evening, my husband and I drove out to her
apartment, which was on the second floor of an old farmhouse.
A cloth-covered card table, elegantly set no doubt
with wedding presents, occupied the middle of the living
room. We started out with a plate each of artichokes which
we peeled section by section and dipped into liquid butter
and then ate. This was exotic for me. Artichokes were things
I’d only read about, but not eaten.
After this appetizer, we moved on to the main course. I
wondered what the art teacher would serve. From the tiny
kitchen, she brought out steaming plates of something else I
had never made and never eaten. It was Beef Stroganoff. It
looked delicious and we all picked up our forks and began to
eat. It tasted as good as it looked: slices of beef, simmered
with mushrooms, onions, tomatoes and sour cream. This was
served over a bed of noodles.
“Is this difficult to make?” I asked the art teacher.
“Oh no. It’s actually quite easy,” and she went on to give a
brief description of the process. It sounded like something I
could manage.
After we finished the Beef Stroganoff, we had lemon pie,
which I had made. Pastry was something I could do because,
for some reason, as a child, I had watched with fascination as
my mother mixed shortening, flour and water, formed it into
balls, then rolled it out and carefully fitted it into pie plates.
Her pastry was always light, delicate and delicious. We ate
my pie and everyone complimented me. The art teacher
served coffee and we prepared for an evening of visiting and
chatting. Since neither couple had children, and we didn’t
have to hurry home to relieve babysitters, I was surprised
when my husband excused himself for the washroom and
then, after rejoining us, announced that he was quite tired
and wanted to go home. I thought he was leaving the dinner
party awfully early, but he had driven from Cleveland the
night before, so I didn’t try to push him to stay longer.
When we got into the car, he told me that he wasn’t tired,
he was actually feeling quite ill.
“I must have come down with stomach flu or something. I
felt fine at the beginning of the evening but after we finished
dessert, I started to feel nauseous and I’ve got pains in my
stomach.”
I felt fine so we figured it couldn’t be food poisoning.
We drove through the countryside, back into Fenelon Falls,
parked his car on the main street and hurried up to my second
floor apartment. My husband spent the next couple of
hours in and out of the bathroom. Finally, his stomach settled
down and we were left wondering
what kind of a virus he had picked up.
Like many stomach flus, it was short
lived and by the next day he was feeling
fine. Monday morning he drove back to
Cleveland.
A month went by and as another holiday weekend
approached, my husband made plans to come for another
visit. This time I thought I would impress him with my cooking.
We had both enjoyed the Beef Stroganoff that the art
teacher had made, so I decided to make it myself. I got out
my Five Roses Flour cookbook, which my mother had given
me as a shower gift, and found the recipe. I went to the grocery
store and bought all the required ingredients and, when
my husband arrived, dinner was ready. It was the most complicated
dish I had ever made and I was quite proud of my
achievement.
My Beef Stroganoff was a success. The beef was tender
and the sauce was rich and flavourful. We finished the meal
and I sat back.
“How was it?” I asked and waited for what I thought
would be the inevitable compliment. Instead, my husband
jumped up, excused himself and rushed off to the bathroom.
When he emerged after about ten minutes, he was clutching
his stomach.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I’ve got the same thing I had after the meal with the art
teacher.” With that he rushed back into the bathroom. Just
like the previous meal, he was in and out of the bathroom for
the next couple of hours. I was fine so we knew it wasn’t bad
food.
When the pain in his stomach finally subsided and his trips
to the bathroom diminished, we tried to figure out what had
caused his problem. We ruled out stomach flu - too coincidental
that he would get it twice in a row while visiting me.
It had to be something in the Beef Stroganoff, we decided,
but what? Most things in the dish were foods he was used to
eating; beef, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes. The only unusual
ingredient was the sour cream.
We decided that the sour cream was the offending substance
and our theory was reinforced when on several occasions
in the future, he unknowingly consumed sour cream,
and got the same results. We have since learned that a bacteria
is added to sour cream that is not added to other dairy
products, so it is probably the bacteria that my husband’s
digestive system objects to. Like other people with food allergies
or intolerances, he now reads labels on creamy salad
dressing bottles and asks in restaurants, “Does it contain sour
cream?”
Any dishes that are accompanied with sour cream, he asks
for it on the side and I eat his and mine. He has managed
quite well. Sour cream is an easy food to avoid and plain
yogurt can be substituted in any recipes calling for sour
cream. Since those early days of our marriage, my cooking
repertoire has increased. I still make pie, but I have never
again made Beef Stroganoff.
T S - O 2018