Sunday 26 June 2011

The Tale Of The Strange Tasting Porridge



Hi

How's it goin?

It was Fathers Day last Sunday. That's when this post was actually meant to have been posted, but I forgot about it. So to celebrate Fathers Day, here's a story about my Dad.

This tale takes place many, many years ago. When I was just a boy. We were on a family holiday, to Florida. Florida in America. That's a big deal when you're a kid. It's AMERICA. As a child for some reason you automatically assume that everything American is ace. 

Sadly having lived there for 6 months I can assure you that this is not the case. But this is now and that was then. Then I was in awe of everything american. It was on this holiday that I got my beloved Cowboy hat. 

It was our first day on holiday. We were in America and we were damn well gonna do lots of American things. First and foremost was breakfast. It's the most important meal of the day after all. Since it was our first day, and we were all still knackered from traveling, we decided to have breakfast in the hotel restaurant. In retrospect it wasn't that good, but as an 11 year old kid it was amazing. It was humongous, a massive breakfast buffet. I had never seen anything like it before, I stood in awe of this truly epic breakfast. They had Pancakes! Pancakes for breakfast. My 11 year old self thought this was mental and proceeded to eat more pancakes than is medically advisable. My sister also ate a mammoth size breakfast, sadly this is a trend that would continue throughout her life, hence her size now.

My Parents were reasonably sensible, and did not stuff their faces with pancakes and maple syrup like their greedy children. My Mum had cereal followed by the usual cooked breakfast, and my Dad started off with some porridge. Some very strange tasting porridge. Being tired and in a new country he assumed that his taste buds were out of allignment, or perhaps this was some kind of strange American porridge, we were in America after all, and everything is better (or at least different) in America.
My Dad is not one to waste food, so he continued eating, but he attempted to sweeten it with sugar, but it still didn't taste quite right. He then added in some strawberry Jam, surely this would make the porridge more palatable. But alas it did not. My Dad continued to claim that the porridge tasted "Strange."

He ate it all anyway, like I said we don't waste food in our family.
The waitress appeared a short time later to clear our plates, and Dad made a comment about the porridge. The waitress looked confused, then he did his best American accent and said "The Oatmeal." This is something he does a lot when talking people of different nationalities. especially Americans. I realise that is a difficult thing to convey in a written blog rather than me telling you the story in person, but trust me he does it all the time.

The waitress then realised what he was talking about. Her confusion didn't stem from the fact he called oatmeal porridge, or from his attempt to explain the situation in an obviously fake american accent. Her confusion came from the fact that there was no porridge/oatmeal available on the buffet.

Her face struggled to hide her smirk, which turned into a chuckle. All the while myself and my family sat there confused as to her amusement. Well my Mum and Dad sat there confused, my sister and I were busy on our 13th helping of pancakes and maple syrup.
The waitress then told us why she was laughing.

"You're the first person to ever put strawberry jam in Sausage Gravy!"
Yes, sausage gravy.

He had been sitting at the table with a lovely steaming bowl of sausage gravy which he sweetened with Jam. 

In his defence, it did really look like porridge.



That's All For Now 

Until Next Time

Have A Nice

Andy G

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