Hummus Is Yummus

Some foods just don’t sound good. We ignore the clear evidence that millions/billions of fellow earthlings like these foods, and say, “No, thank you. Please get that stuff out of my face.”

This frustrates the tar out of people who want to share these foods. I know this frustration. My offers of wonderful food are frequently rejected by my own family (and I can’t question their intelligence because we are related).

I confess to suffering a bias against some foods myself. I once thought I didn’t especially like ribs…imagine that! I also thought I didn’t like hummus, which is a little silly, since I and the dogs like the main ingredient, which is garbanzo beans. Maybe it was the name, hummus, which sounded to me like a foreign word for blahhh. The appearance didn’t help. It looks like a pale, pasty pile of duck squat.

Think I could write for the Food Channel?

Anyway, Alex enthused about his home-made hummus so much that I took a stab at it. It was good. Michele and I dabbled with various ingredients and made it even better. Turns out we both like it. Also turns out it is good for you with fiber and so on.

The fiber aspect allows me to re-route this little narrative to a subsequent conversation I had with an acquaintance. I asked her how her husband, Fred, was. Good, she told me, but suffering the same old constant ‘bound-up’ problem. Too much meat and potatos, and too few vegetables. Fred doesn’t like veggies.

“Oh,” says I, “You should see if he likes hummus. It has lots of fiber.”

“Humus?” she asked. She pronounced it, ‘hugh-muss’.

“Yes. It’s really good. I just discovered I like it, myself. Easy to make. You just use a can of garbanzo…..”

“Humus comes in a can?”

“No. The garbanzo beans, you know, chick peas, come in a can.”

“I don’t think he’d like that,” she said, warily. Too warily.

It was time for a light bulb to go on over my head. Sometimes my light bulbs act more like fluorescent tubes, meaning they are slow to fire up.

Finally, I got it.

“Ohh!” I said, “You think I’m talking about that stuff you get at the garden center!”

“Uh, huh,” she said, still wary.

“No, no, not at all. Hummus, not humus! No wonder you weren’t taking to the idea. You couldn’t imagine offering Fred compost to loosen him up!”

We both laughed from our bellys.

That’s when I switched to suggesting beer and tomato juice as a loosener-upper.

That, she might try.