When I was six, garbanzo
beans felt like grainy
mud-pebbles to my mouth.
They tasted like a menacing
nothing. When I picked
them out of a salad
and marched them to the edge
of the plate, a parent's
order became inevitable:
"Finish them." Finishing them,
I gagged. They became
soft bullets of
esophageal assassination.
Now I love the little
bastards. I bathe them
in olive oil, bequeath
unto them garlic and pepper.
I now know their nom de
guerre: chick peas.
People may not
change, but their taste-
buds do, and I would pay
good money to go to
see a garbanzo opera.
hans ostrom 2013
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