In my early twenties, I took a job as a cook for a coach operator touring around Australia. Most of the time it was great work: most of my hours were spent downing beers by a camp-fire with the friendly tourists who came on board my bus tour.
I was a good cook, with a few years of experience, so cooking for 40 or so people every night was really the work of a couple of hours, and I soon had it down to a fine art. It wasn’t gourmet food, but we were travelling through the central of Australia in hot and humid weather for most of the trip; eating was rarely the tourists’ priority when there was so much to see and do.
That is, until the day the senior citizens booked themselves on board the bus. For two weeks, as we travelled from Adelaide to Darwin, all I got were complaints. My soups were too thin, there weren’t enough vegetables in my stews, hotdogs were inappropriate dining and the bread wasn’t fresh. The list of grievances went on and on — all delivered in particularly nasty tones.
A few of them, after I had done my best to scrounge up some fresh produce in a backwater outback town, went so far as to tell my boss that I wasn’t trying hard enough. Although a kind enough employer, my boss had to keep his tourists happy, and I was publicly warned that I had to up the ante from then on.
I decided then and there that I would indeed do my very best to make sure their dining experience was extra special!
The very next day we pulled into Alice Springs. With fishing being a popular pastime in the nearby rivers, I soon found what I was looking for: a bait shop. I bought two kilos of fat slugs, and spent half an hour secretively holed up in my makeshift kitchen, hammering away at them with a mallet until they were pulped. Added to minced beef, they made an undetectable addition to my extra special chow mein!
I expected to get caught out — I had no idea what slugs and bugs tasted like. So I was absolutely beside myself with glee when the compliments started rolling in that night! Several passengers came back for seconds, and two even asked me for the recipe. Needless to say, I told them it was a secret.
Although I wasn’t bold enough to keep on serving them such disgusting meals, my one night of supposed brilliance gave me a reprieve for the rest of the trip; I promised I’d make the chow mein again once we got to Darwin — as long as they accepted the food they got until then!
Once we’d arrived in the northern capital, I quit my job and found a far better position cooking lunches in an easy-going bistro.
The worst my new customers ever got was a well-done steak that wasn’t quite well done, which I happily sent back as it was ordered — wondering all the while if the customer would have complained knowing what this chef was capable of!
Picture: Getty Images. Posed by model.
Your say: Did the tourists deserve to dine on slugs, or should the cook have lifted her game? Have your say about this true confession below…
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