United Nations In My Belly

6 May, 2014

Now it's no secret to those who know me that I love to eat. It is with great joy that I thank God above for endowing me with an unreasonably high metabolism, enabling me to burn off more than I consume. This allows me to eat at will. In addition, my palette is incredibly wide. I will eat anything. Spicy, gross, hot, cold. I even recycled a piece of chewing gum off a roller coaster. It was mint flavored.

You can only imagine my sentiments when we visited the Camden Lock Market and other sites around London. Each location was awash with culinary treats from around the globe. It was a meeting to make the United Nations jealous.

India made the first presentation, a fiery fusillade of flavors that promised to overpower other, weaker nations. Brazil provided some modicum of peace, proclaiming a meat and potatoes message to appeal to the "Everyman". Thailand created a bridge between the hot words of India and the sweet language of diplomacy emanating from the Italian gelato. Germany preferred to stay rather neutral with its fare, but promised to come back tomorrow with more excitement. The Turks soothed with their creamy words of consolation, without sacrificing the flavor of their offerings.

Everything moved along apace, until the countries met in narrow confines, without borders, deep in the bowels of diplomacy. The Indian contingent set fire to the whole structure, which caused a mass exodus of blazing chaos. Not to worry, however, as this only cleared the way for fresh negotiations with other countries. Vietnam and Peru kept asking for a conference, while China insisted on a private meeting in its own section of London.

After four days of intense negotiations, we arrived at an accord.

• All agreed that London was the perfect place to hold a conference of nations, since the English have nothing to offer as far as food is concerned. This allowed each nation to have an equal voice, without competing for attention with the host country. 
• India is only allowed one meeting per visit, due to heightened fire safety concerns.
• Smaller countries should receive the first meetings, to ensure they have a voice.
• As a matter of practice, we must have more negotiations and more often. 

Perhaps my calling is as a diplomat, a gustatory ambassador of goodwill. Move over Dennis Rodman. Korea is calling my name.