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[side_show]

Hi all!

As you may, or may not know, I currently work on a project with Metis Elders and War Veterans.  Usually this means dealing with very sad, heavy issues, but here's a funny little story from a Korean War Veteran whose biography I'm working on today that I thought sounded pretty funny, and thought some of you might enjoy.

Excerpt from my unfinished article:

Guiboche playfully remembers himself and the other Canadian soldiers putting their leftover rations to good use when they reached Yokohama:  “They gave you more cigarettes than you could know what to do with, and everybody had packages of them, literally!  Cigarettes and cheese!  We used to get Limburger cheese, they called it I guess.  I’m sure you’ve smelled Limburger cheese.  It was all wrapped in tinfoil and stuff like that.  We had handfuls of that stuff, you know! I dunno’ for some reason, everybody just kind of kept it.  So when we were gettin’ down to port at Yokohama, we docked there…  We found out we weren’t gonna get off the boat ‘til next day…  So it was nice, and so most of us all went down in the side, you know, the side where the port was docked.  And of course the dock workers, stevedores you call them, they were unloading the ships.  These were all Japanese, and we had literally hundreds, you know, packages of cigarettes!  So everybody had these, anyhow, we threw them cigarettes, you know.  Give them cigarettes, you know, we didn’t need ‘em!  And the next thing you know, the American Military Police come along, and they start confiscating these cigarettes from these guys, you know!  And we call, ‘leave them alone!’  ‘No, no.’ We take our cheeses, and start pelting with them!  Boy they sure took off!”

Me:  You pelted the Americans with Limburger Cheese!?

Guiboche:  (sheepishly) Yeah.

On the recording you then hear Guiboche, his son and myself laughing really hard.

Me: Nice.

[TALKYdude]

That is extremely funny and human.

[side_show]

That is extremely funny and human.

Yeah.  I think what my job has really done for me is reaffirm in my mind the resilience of the human spirit.

[andalucia]

That's really rad, and definitely the kind of story I needed to hear today- I took a political walking tour of my neighbourhood this morning, which involved a lot of hearing about failed community efforts against gentrification.   So any small victories are just good to hear about.

[V-Adore]

That's a very happy-making story -- probably the most humane use of Limburger cheese I've ever heard of.

[side_show]

Really?  I've never actually had Limburger cheese before.  I have smelt it, which is why I've never eaten it.  Then again, the cheeses I like are often pungent, and really, if I took the time to really smell all the things I consume before eating them, I'd have a fairly limited amount of things I'd want to eat.  I mean, foi de gras, parmesan and onion rings (although very different foods) all share the same "likened to body odor" type of fetid smell category, and I find each tasty in its own way inspite of, or perhaps in part because of (?) the stinkitude factor.

[Va]

Odor is a big component of flavor.

[CortJstr]

I mean, foi de gras, parmesan and onion rings (although very different foods) all share the same "likened to body odor" type of fetid smell category, and I find each tasty in its own way inspite of, or perhaps in part because of (?) the stinkitude factor.

Kind of like how I often hear people use the term "cheesesteak" to refer to the smell of a man's groin area at the end of the day. I really can't think about that when I'm actually at Philadelphia Mike's for lunch.

[side_show]

I really can't think about that when I'm actually at Philadelphia Mike's for lunch.

But of course, now, the next time you are at Philadelphia Mike's you will think of this, wont you?  Wont you?

Bwah, ha, ha, ha!

[jough]

We used to always get this trappist cheese from my grandmother at christmas - it's a really stanky swiss - until my dad one year postulated that the cheese was especially good due to Brother Bartholemew's stanky feet stomping on the cheese, getting all of that foot bacteria in there.

Yum!

MERRY CHRISTMAS, AND GOD BLESS US, EVERYONE

[V-Adore]

I mean, foi de gras, parmesan and onion rings (although very different foods) all share the same "likened to body odor" type of fetid smell category, and I find each tasty in its own way inspite of, or perhaps in part because of (?) the stinkitude factor.

Kind of like how I often hear people use the term "cheesesteak" to refer to the smell of a man's groin area at the end of the day. I really can't think about that when I'm actually at Philadelphia Mike's for lunch.

I have never heard of this before, and I'm going to stop remembering I heard it as soon as conceivably possible.

On the subject of stinky foods, can anyone here testify to the actual durian experience? I know that it is a spiky southeast-Asian fruit that smells like curdled death warmed over a Bunsen burner, but I know people willingly eat it, and some people claim that it's tasty if you can get over the smell. (Others claim that it tastes like it smells, which seems more sensible to me, but I do know that a goodly number of people eat this without cattle prods being involved). Anyone willing to confirm or deny the tastiness of durian?

[Carlos del Vaca]

On the subject of stinky foods, can anyone here testify to the actual durian experience?

Some years ago, my friend Rob and I went to a big-ass Asian market in the area (the Eden Supermarket at Seven Corners, for those in the know).  I was buying noodles and sauces and what-not, and Rob suggested we buy some random item to eat right then.  We found an aisle that had cookies, and they had wafer cookies, like we have here in the States typically in flavors like chocolate, vanilla, peanut butter, etc.  But we wanted to do something different, so we spotted one flavor called "durian."  Neither of us knew what that was, just that there was some sort of green fruit-like thing on the label.

When we got out to the car, we cracked the cookies open and each ate one.  Well, I ate part of mine.  It tasted like cardboard and paste.  Totally disgusting.  I threw the other half of mine out the window.

Then, we stopped at another store, and when we got back to the car the durian wafers had stunk up the car so bad that we pulled into a gas station to throw them away.

[V-Adore]

vile durian-wafer experience

Yeah, I can buy this, as it matches the previous report I've read of a durian wafer experience. Ewww.