Ham Exam
It was my wife's idea. She enlisted me and informed me after the fact. And I could have said no. But some things are just not worth fighting over. And besides I was promised $30 for the effort. "Let's see...$30, or sleeping on the couch?"
So I found myself in a room, a very stuffy room, with thirty fellow participants. On the table before me was a stack of evaluation sheets. The Ham Professor called the class to order. He made a few ham jokes, which I will not bother to repeat, and then presented instructions. We were going to "triangulate". Triangulate? I did not sign up for that kind of thing- I'm a Christian. Then he explained that I would have three slices of meat placed before me. Two would taste the same, and one would be different. My job was the analyze and evaluate the differences.
I do not have a distinguishing palate. Hamburgers, steak, lamb chops- they all pretty much taste the same to me, at least between two slices of bread with lots of ketchup. And any ham is good ham. Yet I was to offer precise judgment in matters of taste, texture, color, saltiness, smoke flavor, etc. So I tasted all three pieces. No difference. I chewed on a cracker, to cleanse the palate, and tasted again. And then I sniffed. I have a pretty good smeller. For instance, I am always the first to know when a diaper change is immanent. I sniffed again, this time long and drawn. My wife punched me in the ribs. "Stop that. You're embarrassing me." Yeah, I did not realize you could be embarrassed at a Ham Taste Test.
Then I heard a commotion behind me. The lady raised her hand, and exclaimed, "Teacher, there's an eyelash in my ham." Wow, that made things appetizing. Later she informed me there were three. I told her that was normal, that pigs do have eyelashes. She was not amused, but I was starting to enjoy the evening, at least a little.
Over the next hour I analyzed 12 slices of ham. I noticed that many of the participants made a meal of the adventure. An exception was the guy across the aisle from me. He used the "chew and expel" method, onto his plate. Yum.
Question: What is your favorite spiral sliced ham? Quickly I was running out of time, and could not think of the brand name. So I wrote "Spam".
A guy in the back spilled a glass of water, all over his ham exam.
As we left the room, we all received envelopes containing $30 in cash. I was thinking it was rather nice pay for an hour of ham, when my wife latched onto the envelope with her steely grip. "That's mine", she said. Again, I could have protested and kept the money. But I'm not stupid.
Next month will be the Turkey Taste Test. I've been volunteered.
