Friday, January 14, 2011

Whoever Said...

..."Necessity is the mother of invention" was wrong. Bugs are the mother of invention.

I have this jar of taco seasoning that came from the U.S. Before I continue you must understand that if you are an American living in South Africa (especially one from California), you will cherish your Mexican spices, import them, have visiting friends bring them, and hoard them. They might even be worth more than gold!

Tonight I wanted to make some Mexican food, and when I went to reach for my taco seasoning, it had these funny little "paths" in it - like you might see in an ant farm. That's when I noticed the contents of the jar were teeming with little bugs - from larvae to active and crawling bugs to dead bugs. There was no way I could make what I wanted to make without the correct seasoning, but what to do?

I Googled "homemade taco seasoning" and came across some wonderful recipes. Which brings me to my point:

Had bugs not infiltrated and ruined my taco seasoning, I might never have discovered something new (something, truth be told, I actually like better). I could have moaned and complained (and in most cases I do), but there was a determination within to make Mexican food no matter what tonight, which led to some research and creative alternatives.

I should do that more often.

2 comments:

C.G. Koens said...

Oh my gosh, I have BEEN there!! And I'm still laughing! I took my taco seasoning with me everywhere we went - except Mozambique (we were SO LIMITED on weight that time!). At any rate, necessity WAS the mother of invention for us in Mozambique because we HAD to have some taco seasoning. SO thankful for the wonders of the internet! ;-) Sorry about your bugs though!

wakeupcowboys said...

I'm trying to make gnocci tonight from scratch. Ah yes, it is good to find those things on Google (or on an Italian cooking TV show, in my case.)