Challenge #01669-D208: Favourite Flavour
Auto Condimenter. -- Knitnan
The habits of humans fascinated Zyrik. It was why she went into food services, so she could study them in an environment where she would be invisible. She made Time off her anthropology as well as bussing tables, but anthropology was her chief area of fascination.
This latest example was a freight trucker fresh off their rig, sitting down to a big plate of deep fried potato prisms. The plate was already loaded with the house gravy, but this human decided that ze needed more. First, they bombarded the plate with salt. Then pepper. Then a thick, red sauce. A thick, yellow sauce. And finally, sauce from a bottle that had so many warning labels on it that it had to be the legendary sriracha. All this without eating a single prism.
The human appeared to be using the fried potato prisms as a vehicle for devouring the condiments. The steak arrived -tube grown, of course, the kitchens couldn't afford natural beef- and the human performed the same ritual. Salt. Pepper. Red sauce. Yellow sauce. Sriracha.
Zyrik sidled up to Shayde, who was introducing her good friend Rael to a Terran dish called Poutine. "My pardons, Ambassador...?"
"Aye? Whazzup?"
"That human over there," Zyrik indicated where the human was. They were busily performing their ritual on a bowl of innocent vegetables. "What are they doing?"
Shayde looked. "Looks like autocondimentin' tae me."
"Auto... condimenting?"
"Aye. Automatically addin' condiments no matter what th' food tastes like. If it has a taste a' all. Betcher if he has dessert 'e adds sugar, cream, an' a compote." She considered the spectacle of the trucker. "Surprised he has'nae buried it in horseradish, me."
And then another server arrived at the trucker's table with a gigantic bowl of shredded horseradish. Which was split into even thirds for each plate.
Shayde muttered a prayer to her ancient god.
Zyrik was inclined to agree.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / draghicich]
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