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Random Thoughts: On Cilantro and Masochism

I've had this thought rolling around in my mind recently: could there be a connection between loving things that you also don't necessarily like and masochism? What about when "like" is too much of a simplification for the experience? Is there a word for loving things that simultaneously are difficult? Oh, wait - I think there is: masochism.


Obviously, the title of this post gives away my example: cilantro.


I went the first 35 years of my life avoiding the stuff like the plague, which is a difficult thing to do in Texas. I was one of those people to whom cilantro tasted like soap, even in minute amounts buried deep in an otherwise delicious salsa. Nope, no way, no how.


Then when I was 35, I saw this intriguing recipe for a Vietnamese flank steak - the only catch was that there was cilantro in the marinade. But the recipe looked so delectable...and I was craving any morsel of delectable those days. I was stuck in a house with a baby who only ate oatmeal and a husband who only ate steak and potatoes (I'm not counting my then-one culinary buddy, my 3-year old, who would gladly eat anything). The bland, repetitive meals that I was stuck recreating day after day was not simply monotonous, it was depressing. So when I was struck by this random recipe, I thought, "to hell with my taste buds! Cilantro won't actually kill me and there's a slight possibility that this could be light years better than facing yet another two-dollar piece of 'steak.'"


You see, what I didn't recognize at the time (because I was stuck in such a deep psychological rut), was that those bland repetitive meals were mirroring my marriage and my life. I wasn't just stuck with cheap steaks, I was stuck in a pathetically loveless marriage. I wasn't just stuck with babies eating oatmeal, I was stuck with not enough money to pay my bills, let alone to buy those babies anything much better. It was a bleak existence in those days and I couldn't see the forest for the trees. So, I certainly couldn't recognize a "vanilla" dinner from an authentically thrilling one, much less a sub-par life from an authentically fulfilling one.


So, I made the Vietnamese flank steak. That stupid recipe took me hours to cook. But you know what? It was fucking delicious. Transformative. Did I taste the cilantro? Yes, I could still taste the tinge of something akin to soap, but its vibrant herbaceousness brought lightness to the deep soy and fish sauce-marinade; the meat was simultaneously rich and somehow, thanks to that damned cilantro, bright and airy. It was so confusing to me - how could I taste the flavor I decidedly did not enjoy yet also taste the most nuanced, exquisite flavors of umami and earth?


Years later, I still remember that day like it was yesterday.


It took a long time from that first bite to my life now - as a masochist. My rich, authentic, most vibrant life as a masochist. Do I feel pain when I'm being beaten or slapped or pinched or tied? Absolutely. Real pain is there. But, like the cilantro, there's something magical about how that pain is served by D - I still feel the pain, but it adds a whole other necessary level of primal lust and need that I could never access or achieve in my vanilla life. And so, yeah, I do think about masochism being tied to other arenas (decidedly non-sexual ones) in my life. It's a lovely idea to think of masochists finding beauty and joy in painful or difficult things.


P.S. This post is for D, who will forever hate cilantro.




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