Slurry

Anyone who knows me will know my phobia of the bottled condiment. My chief loathings are:

Ketchup

Salad Cream

Branston Pickle

Mustard

The hatred is completely out of control. In fact hate doesn’t cover it really. I am afraid of the aforementioned items to the point of hysteria.

More than this, I hate any establishment where the default setting is to cover otherwise palatable food in condiment slurry, without asking the patron if this is acceptable. In any given country the first sentence I learn is something along the lines of “No crap on my burger please”.

In Brazil it is “Sem nada” (which is actually a double negative, but let’s not get snippy), in Germany it is “Ohne (insert condiment slurry term here)”, in Spain it is “Sin (insert condiment slurry in here) etc etc.

Yesterday in Holland, home of slurry, I slipped up…I hadn’t learned the key sentence and had to shriek, “Nooooo! I don’t want that stuff!” as a mountain sized dollop of mayo was ladled onto my chips and a lake of yellow goo was smeared onto my sandwich bread. The startled operative looked incredulously at me as if I’d asked for a bike with no wheels.

I explained, “I don’t like mustard”.

“But this is not mustard, it is something else” he said as if this would make everything OK.

“You see, ” I say as I hop up on imaginary psychiatrist couch, “I don’t like any of that stuff”

He looks at me with undisguised pity.

“I wouldn’t be able to eat it if it had anything like that on it,” I whimper, as if apologising for disrespecting his national culture.

The operative shrugs and looks over at colleague in a way that negates the need for a whirly finger at the side of the head to suggest madness.

I have yet to discover the phrase I need for “No condiment slurry, please” in Dutch, but I suspect it doesn’t exist.

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And so onto today’s sign or product with an iffy name, but is in no way disrespectful to the country I am visiting. We think this might be a phrase denoting a special room dedicated to return visitors at the clap clinic: