Taste
By Callie S. Blackstone
Red
for tomatoes, the first vegetable love. After your mother remarries a carbon copy of your father barring humor and good taste—a man that only wears gray sweatsuits, that pays you to read and recite from a conservative newspaper—white bread of a man—his sister takes the extended family on a trip to Philadelphia—the cracked bell, and all that. You don’t remember much of that trip—the cobbled streets and a sandwich shop and the sandwich itself. The bread and other fillings have been lost to time. All that remains is that thick sliver of tomato, vibrantly colored, the tartness slowly mellowing into sweet. This is what you take away from the city that used to be America’s capital, the trip that was planned so you could interact with people who have never known a child of divorce—people who sat for large, offensive oil portraits as children under loving parental eyes—a tomato. The person who made the sandwich informed you all of their produce was grown fresh on the roof. You can taste the sun in it.
Orange
for oranges, first savored at twenty-one. Your mother kicked you out and changed the locks within twenty-four hours, her husband unsatisfied with your attempts at independence, which he interpreted as disloyalty to his family. No parents, no family: all you had was a man and not even a good one. All you had were unwashed sheets that reeked of Axe body spray, of musk, of weed. There was a trail of used sex toys and condoms around his bed. Your life was crawling into a series of retail shirts, collared button-up polo blue red. A customer recognized you at the local organic store, acted as if you were the living dead, you, not ringing up his white-out and tape. HEY, YOU WORK AT—
And that’s when you picked it up. The fruit’s skin was soft and porous against yours. The pedicel was rough but welcome. The way it felt in your hands was one way of staying grounded in your unhoused body. The color was brilliant under all the glowing fluorescent lights and against the white teeth of the customer who was standing in the fruit aisle, still staring at you. The smell was bitter against your face but made your mouth water and later, later, crawling into the bed of the man you had to stay under to stay alive,
the brightness in your mouth woke you up, kept you alive, shocking wonderful glorious cold
freezing cold against the dark.
Yellow
for corn, popped and sold for an exorbitant price to another boy who took you on countless movie dates. Before the start of Rob Zombie film out on limited release he returned to your seats, noting that the man behind the counter was an artist that layered popcorn // real melted butter // popcorn // real melted butter. The popcorn was hot and dewy, not drenched with the fat. Your movie buddy was right, the popcorn at the theater was made with expertise. Once the end credits rolled your date got loud and started spouting his hatred for Rob Zombie. A goth girl turned and glared at both of you. You wish you could say this was when you stopped dating him, but years later you speed out of another arthouse movie theater parking lot after he fails to keep his basic promise of keeping you safe and an extra large popcorn falls over in the passenger seat and your car fills and fills with kernels. You’re too angry to eat any of the stuff and it stays there for weeks, drifting out into the common parking lot of your condominium. You find it under the seats and in small compartments over a year later and release the neon yellow stuff to the wind.
Green
for mint, chocolate-flavored-mint. The farm share didn’t offer any pedestrian mint plants, only exotic flavors like mint like orange like mojito. You have embraced the identity of fat girl that the movie buddy crowned you with, so you select the flavor most reminiscent of cookies kept crisp in the freezer. One year you watched him eat an entire box before he blamed you for the way his body was expanding. Despite the fact he did the grocery shopping and placed food in the cart and in his mouth, it was your fault that he hated his body. The first year he moved in—the first year you really settled in your condo after treating his old place like a hotel room, like a hostel—you finally decided to garden. The second year you purchased a “raised planter box” and sprinkled in wild New England seeds to attract pollinators. The seeds needed to be planted earlier than others, thrust into cold soil that reminded them of their origins. You waited too long to plant and frantically assembled the planter in one afternoon. It came together poorly, in part due to mass production, in part due to your lack of attention and hand-eye coordination. He became enraged with you and your body was alive with fear but the planter came together. The plants grew. He was gone by the time they started to sprout. You placed the chocolate mint on the porch, angled it appropriately for sunlight, neglected it. It blew around your porch in the individual planter. It just blew all over your deck and you barely paid it any mind. Yet it sprouted and grew and grew. Mint is like that. Invasive. You eventually transferred it to a pot, then a twenty-five-gallon planter. By the end of the season the soil was riddled with roots. You didn’t consume any of it, or the tomatoes that you grew—they rotted off the vine and fell, staining your deck. When the earth religion you followed in secret because he derided it indicated it was time to harvest, you did, using your thumb to separate each leaf from the stem. When you dried it in your oven the smell permeated your small condo. It was bright with a subtle, earthy undertone of cocoa. You never consumed any of it: the tea was offered in a ritual to the goddess you worship, who had given you the strength to flee the relationship. As you write this, you have no idea where the remainder of the leaves are now.
Where did all the mint go?
Blue
is for blueberries, blue is for blackberries, blue is for blue cheese. The blueberries you spread on the cheese board are past their prime. Many have lost any of their signature tartness or sweetness. Some are mushy, others grainy. You still eat each one: the food is a brain food, a delicious food, a beautiful fruit and it will not go to waste. Nor will the exorbitant amount of money you paid for it now that you are an adult woman in your early thirties, responsible for paying for all of the groceries on your own. The blackberries are different: they are vibrant and sweet, each droplet bursting with juice against your tongue. You pair them with many things on the plate: toast / rice cracker / almonds / cheese / cheese / more cheese, and this fruit outshines it all, standing in the shadow only of the blue cheese when you combine it with a large smear. This type of blue cheese—buttermilk—is clean with a tanginess that mimics the acidity of lemons, a light vinegariness. You grew up in a house that didn’t use fresh produce, that considered a caprese salad a rare and exotic treat. You grew up allowing men to buy you dinners out of fear of being homeless again, out of fear that you could never financially support yourself, but ultimately, out of the fear that you were utterly worthless if a man was not present to witness and validate you. Here you are on another pagan holiday, celebrating it traditionally with an array of expensive cheese you bought yourself—cheese from England, cheese from Holland—cheese that costs over thirty dollars a pound. Cheese your parents couldn’t have dreamed of, cheese your last ex-boyfriend couldn’t pronounce the name of. Instead of eating it under his eyes who viewed you as fat, instead of under his mouth, who told you how cheese would ruin your thighs, you eat it alone. Instead of eating your emotions, you eat to honor the food and the day. You love a cheese plate, interactive food that encourages you to combine, explore, and savor. Almonds meet blue cheese meet blueberries—a few of the rare good ones, mild and so sweet singing against the tang of the cheese. You eat until you are full and then you eat some more and you enjoy every bite. You recognize that today is a holiday and you can savor; tomorrow is another day and you can feel the hungry bite in your thighs as you climb on top of your exercise bike. The nuttiness of whole wheat toast against the smokiness of the cheddar. The meatiness of a sun-dried tomato, packed with the flavor of oregano. Heaven, you think. This is heaven.
Indigo
for the unknown. You write spontaneously, you do not plan. You used the obvious contenders for indigo under the “blue” section: the internet’s suggestions did not generate any other indigo foods that resonated with you. You are nothing if not hardheaded, dedicated when you put your mind to something.
Indigo for the five senses grounding exercise that you can use when your PTSD is activated: five things you can see: a woman wearing black ankle socks and high-heeled-sandals, stripper shoes, tight jeans, toddling into the grocery store; the hand wipe station, littered with used wipes; rows of potato chips at easy reach for impulse buys; items continue to enter your vision but you are unable to find indigo. When learning the five senses grounding exercise, people who have difficulty with grounding—staying in the present, and the here and now—have two options. If they are so disassociated, so overwhelmed that they cannot engage in each step fully they are allowed to move to the next or to continue their search until they find enough items to meet each step, each defined by one of the senses. You would look until you found indigo: ice cream, ice cream, ice cream, and there it was, barking-blueberry-flavored-popsicles, that finicky color of blue-violet. You were excited, after talking for eight hours straight at your job—your voice had dulled, even after doing this for months and months: the color would soothe your throat. While visiting the soup bar for more soothing options, the juice jumped out at you singing with the color of blueberries and apples. Another indigo was coming home with you.
Four things you can touch: the sturdy juice container, the rough cap, the loose label, the slippery plastic wrap of the popsicle, the scratchy wood of the stick (there is no harm in listing more items than required while engaging in the grounding exercise, the goal is the result not the journey).
Three things you can smell: a vague smell of produce. Each time you return to the juice you think you smell something else—maybe a sweet top note, something earthy underneath. It’s overwhelming and it all gets jumbled so you can say you smell the earth. The popsicle emits a very mild sweet smell. It’s incredibly faint and you have to sit with it for several moments before you can detect it.
Two things you can hear: the sound of the cap unscrewing, the shiny sound of popsicle plastic wrapper.
One thing you can taste: the juice is murky, there are too many produce items to easily identify, but the more you roll the thick liquid over your tongue, the more banana jumps out at you. The sweetness of the popsicle is delicate. You are forced to be in the present because it is so mild that it is barely detectable. Were popsicles always this mild? You remember ones that were bright and aggressive from childhood, red // white // blue // patriotic. Internet research shows that these are some of the only “natural” popsicles produced by a mainstream popsicle producer. It’s not necessarily a bad flavor but when you purchased popsicles you suppose you expected to be assaulted by corn syrup. You are disappointed by the cold feels good against your throat.
One more thing that you see:
Where do geologists go for entertainment? Rock Concerts
Purple
is for justice. It has been eight years since you first went to New Orleans, a city you fell in love with before you learned how tourism and gentrification had drained it of its original soul. Your consumption of the culture changed over the years—from Marie Laveau’s Voodoo Shop to Sarah Broom’s Yellow House—yet you still valued the trips and the time you spent there. You love baking, one of the only things that you find grounds you, and you always told yourself you’d make a king cake. One year you made a beginner’s version which was pretty bad—something your boyfriend eagerly confirmed for you.
This year, after eight years of wanting, you realized Fat Tuesday was approaching. Fat Tuesday, the season of self-indulgence. You wanted to enjoy your three-day weekend but forced yourself to take on the project: one authentic king cake: fourteen hours: multiple lemons and oranges grated for the dough: two stages of proofing: dough so heavy you had trouble shaping it, pulling it from the oven: handmade frosting dripping off the bread and all other surfaces in your kitchen.
When you bake, you infuse each ingredient with the energy of the traditionally associated meaning. When you bless others with your food, you bless them with your magic. Each traditional color of Mardi Gras comes with a meaning: purple for justice: may all who partake in what you craft get what they deserve: the taste of justice is so achingly sweet one coworker says she’ll need her insulin for it.
Callie S. Blackstone writes both poetry and prose. Her debut chapbook sing eternal is available through Bottlecap Press. Her online home is calliesblackstone.com.