Bruce Cameron

Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2008.

My ancestors come from Scotland, a place known for cold, wet weather, men wearing plaid dresses and a musical instrument that makes the sound you’d get if you sat on a bag of cats.

Scotland is blamed for the creation of one of the most addictive substances known to humankind: golf. It’s also known for producing food so bad that even the people in England make fun of it. In fact, my father has always insisted that my ancestors were initially driven from their native land not because food was scarce, but because there was too much of it.

Once my particular branch of the Cameron Clan settled in the Midwest, our diets improved: We ate beef and mashed potatoes, beef and baked potatoes, and, if someone was getting married, beef and scalloped potatoes. It was bland fare, but certainly better than the Scottish dish “haggis,” which is made from taking the inedible parts of a sheep, stuffing them into the stomach of the animal, and then holding your nose and boiling the whole mess for three hours. (Tip: It’s best to use a dead sheep.) You’ll know the haggis is ready to eat when your family suddenly emigrates to America.

Having been raised a beef-and-potatoes boy, I had no interest in any of what I referred to as the “foods” - I didn’t like Italian food, Chinese food or Mexican food. I trusted restaurants that advertised “eat” or “hamburger,” and that was it. Even as an adult, I was so suspicious of things like “spice” and “flavor” that I refused to try a Big Mac because of the special sauce.

But in the 1980s, I bought a house in Michigan whose previous owner was a renowned gardener. The day I took possession of the place, I stood in the backyard, scratching my head over a tract of black soil carefully furrowed in rows and cordoned off with taut strings like some sort of huge dirt guitar.

“Maybe we’ll get some vegetables out of this,” I suggested dubiously to my dog, who sniffed at the garden with distaste.

That spring, the garden was suddenly filled with plants, thin branches clinging to the strings like babies learning to stand up in their cribs.

The front rows were all peppers, most of them pointy as shark’s teeth - Mexican peppers that were a complete mystery to a boy descended of pasty-faced haggis-eating dress-wearing Scotsmen. Tomatoes sagged toward the ground like heavy Christmas-tree ornaments; zucchini swelled like Popeye’s forearms.

Now, I’m a carnivore - I only eat food that eats food. But a true, penny-pinching Scotsman never turns down a free meal, and food doesn’t come much more free than when it climbs out of the soil in your yard and starts inching toward your back door. I made a hamburger-and-garden-vegetable casserole that wasn’t too bad except for the garden-vegetable part. And heck, I had all these peppers that the dog wouldn’t eat - surely there was some way I could prevent them from going to waste.

I’d grown fond of nachos, which to a man whose ancestors celebrated good times by boiling sheep stomachs meant nothing more exotic than corn chips with melted cheese on top. The few times I’d ordered nachos in restaurants, I’d carefully picked off the peppers, but they must have been on there for a reason. I chopped up some jalapenos, serranos and, most ignorantly, habaneros, tossed them on a pile of chips and cheese, and took a bite.

It was like chewing on a road flare. I tried to scream, but the pain was traveling faster than the speed of sound, so that all I could manage was a strangled peeping noise. My dog, napping at my feet, jerked awake, stared at me, concluded I was dying and went back to sleep. Weeping, my vision growing dark, I staggered to the kitchen and ran cold water on my tongue, which still couldn’t believe this was happening. My endorphins, rushing to the scene, took one look and ran away.

I’ve long since recovered, but this is one Scotsman who will always be careful about eating vegetables, even if they are free: Some of them bite back.

(Bruce Cameron is an author and columnist with a website at http://www.wbrucecameron.com.)

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