When I arranged to eat miscellaneous offal at work on a Friday afternoon, it seemed like as good a time as any.
I hadn't thought about the fact that it was the day after the Herald's Christmas Party, at which I had consumed many beers.
So as the pungent smell of durian - probably the world's stinkiest fruit - began wafting through the newsroom, my stomach began to churn.
I'm not usually overly fussy about food, I told myself. How bad could it be?
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.I followed the stench to the kitchen and was greeted by a spread of South Korean offal soup (Sundaeguk), Chinese century egg, a Polynesian-style roasted whole pig's head, and the dreaded durian - a spiky fruit with a pus-coloured centre.
My colleague Lincoln Tan had taken on the role of provider of gross food with great pleasure, and as I sat between a blindly staring swine and a grey bowl of murk featuring floating bits of miscellaneous meat, I thought his grin mirrored the pig's to perfection.
I began with the soup, which contained fatty pieces of intestine, liver, lung, cartilage and "other".
It was quite nice, to be honest - how can you go wrong with salty, meaty and "other"?
But Mr Tan had decided I was enjoying it too much, and as I ate a hunk of blood sausage - made from pig's intestine, stuffed with chewy cellophane noodles - he came up with some creative and unsavoury similes that cannot be repeated. I swallowed without chewing, and moved on to the next course - Chinese century egg.
This traditional Asian street dish is made by preserving a whole egg in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, quicklime and rice hulls for several weeks or months.
I bit into the egg. Its interior was a dark putrid green colour, and it was surrounded by a thick layer of brown gelatinous something. It smelt like ammonia and its flavour and texture could only be described as salty-fart-tyre.
I happily moved on to Old Major - the whole, delicious-smelling, head of a probably-not-free-range porker whose time came too soon.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.I looked at the pig. The pig looked back at me, and winked.
"Eat me," it snorted.
Had the century egg caused me to hallucinate, or was I getting Mr Tan and the pig confused again?
I didn't care, it smelt good, and my mouth tasted like fart-tyre. I stuck my snout into the trough, and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Next up was dessert. The durian was emitting a stench that had drawn an audience of curious Herald employees.
I tried hard to stop thinking about how the thorny fruit, with its pale yellow gooey centre, looked and smelt like a sebaceous cyst.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.The best technique for conquering this battle, I decided, was to close my eyes, block my nose, and imagine it was custard - stringy, meaty, stinky custard.
After a small section of the Southeast Asian fruit, I was beat.
I sauntered back to my desk ... and the smell came with me.