Hospital Cuisine, Act II

Recovery Escapades:
A Newsletter Of 2nd Chance Life Across Cardiac County Line Road

Episode Six: Hospital Cuisine, Act II

The hospital food I ate after waking up from cardiac surgery - OK, time for another rant (short ) about hospital food.

Easier to tell this if I was on a vaudeville stage.
I'd hire a back row shill to respond like this after my opening line.
"Yeah, the hospital food it was sooo bad" I'd say as my opener.

Then from back of the audience you'd hear the hired cry - "Yeah that food, how bad - just how bad was it?". Then since I was asked directly from the audience it would be rude for me not to tell. Would be natural to tell.

I will pretend you just did that. Don't think it strange that I do; people pretend to hear such questions in the most intimate of relationships, to give themselves permission to say what's on their minds.

So how bad was it? Small portions, very heavy and calorie intense.

The breakfast eggs? They were bland and awful but otherwise it was OK to a morphine muddled mind; decent enough cafeteria style grub. Hey, we all survived high school cafeteria, right? Could you do worse than lunch hour back in high school? I think not.

My guess about why the twisted taste presumes that dieticians expect their bed bound patients to have suppressed appetites. So they load nutrition supplements into the food, intensify the lunch tray real estate. That would explain my swallowing a bite of hospital meat loaf. Or was it a kneaded loaf of pottery clay?

Meat loaf that lands in the gut with a solid thud. Meat loaf that goes down the gullet like a safe tossed down an open elevator shaft. If they put a wireless mike down my esophagus ... I swear you would record the same sound the safe makes as it lands at the bottom of the elevator shaft. Might even take as long a fall to get there.

Some cannot rest after seeing a magic act until they understand the illusion. Fine. Then here is the secret on how to make meat loaf taste like it was made from industrial crumb rubber. Conjecture is that a heavy dose of corn meal (not flour) is the trick that congealed the hospital meat loaf to the density of tire retreads left behind by an 18-wheeler.

Yours Truly As Your Bad Critic Of Bad Food,
Living Across Cardiac County Line Road

James Sullivan