October 27th, 2010
Since childhood, I have not been a fan of seafood. Actually, I lie. I have been revolted and disgusted by it, and from a very young age, I guess I was building a strong gag reflex mechanism.
I never understood why it offended me so much. Was it the taste, the texture, the smell, the image of cod-worm or rat lung-worm somehow surviving the cooking process, and ending up burrowing through my flesh in a feeding frenzy?
I read somewhere, I don’t recall where, possibly in a book by Jared Diamond or Tim Flannery or the likes, that such a hatred for a particular food is possibly an evolutionary process to do with the body knowing that it is not able to tolerate whatever you are trying to force into it.
I don’t know what it is, but I always feel guilty (and haram) for enjoying pork and chicken so much, while constantly avoiding seafood. I won’t tell you what a friend, Vince once said I should be doing here in Tenerife – a party island, and I don’t eat seafood, take drugs, fornicate wantonly or party hard.
Anyhow, as I digress, as usual, I’m wandering.
I went to La Terraza Canaria in Torviscas this afternoon for lunch, and decided to have the entullo de atun, like a tuna stew, really. I thought that I would be doing my body wonders by sneaking all of that wonderful protein and omega 3 oil into the system. I had always resisted tinned tuna a lot less than other types of seafood, even having the (very) odd tuna salad when working nights.
By the time I was half way through the stew, I had a tingling feeling in my mouth and tongue, which I put down to the chilli oil in the stew. My mouth felt a bit dry by the time I had finished it, and on the way back to the car, I could feel my body seriously overheating.
Off to work, preparing one apartment for an arrival, and taking photos of a freshly refurbished one. I was bustling about my duties, ignoring the feeling of extra heat, and the tingling tongue – a 2l of water had helped my dry mouth to feel less so as well.
Suddenly, half an hour in, it hit me – this immense pain in my bowels. I sprinted for the bathroom, barely making it, and unleashed a torrent of diarrhoea that had the texture and appearance (but not the smell) of liquid caramel.
Once that had passed, I looked in the mirror. I had been starting to feel slightly strange all over, slightly itchy everywhere, nearly like my every layer of flesh was swelling, and I had the sensation of choking, even though I was breathing normally. I was sweating and shivering in the same moment. My reflection was a red eyed, red faced monster. My lips looked swollen, my skin looked like I had been badly sun-burnt it was so red, and my eyes looked like those of a 12-pint-a-night drinker the next morning.
After applying lots of cold water, the reddish hue of my skin started to subside, just a little, and I got back to work. The symptoms gradually faded over the next few hours, bit by bit, to the point where I looked tired, and felt a bit windy, but didn’t look like a hungover, strangulated Smurf any more.
At this stage, half eight at night, all symptoms seem to have abated, except for the headache, which is thumping away in the background – however, a little happy hardcore is drowning the throbbing.
I have now being searching for “tuna fish allergies” on-line, and it looks like I have one of those, or a general seafood allergy, or an allergy to one of the many parasites that fish carry. It appears that despite the freezing and cooking killing the parasites, their tiny corpses and residues can still cause a reaction in allergy sufferers.
Apparently, the reaction can trigger anxiety attacks in some people, which, when combined with the allergic reaction, can be highly dangerous. Thank Heavens I wasn’t panicked.
Let this be a warning to you – take heed of your taste buds and what foods you genuinely avoid – specially if it is subconsciously done!
