Food Poisoning of a Different Kind
Everyone has a regrettable food poisoning story they can’t quite recover from. My dad recoils at the mere mention of white Magnums after yielding to his ice cream cravings way too soon after major surgery. One friend can’t bear the thought of rum after a night out - “I was so hung over I missed a wedding the next day”. Another friend threw up after an IMAX seating, claiming the bed of rocket cushioning her calamari lunch beforehand as the culprit, never to be consumed again. Sun dried tomatoes elicit the same nauseating response in another, it’s something about the oil.
I have a few gross tales myself. My most unfortunate work travel experience is easily told in five words: food poisoning on day one. Mayonnaise is now banned from my condiment repertoire after a sandwich recommended by a colleague abroad took me out (let’s describe the proceeding two weeks of food-related work in this condition as character building). In my 20s I experienced legitimate blood poisoning after a kidney went wild - the last thing I consumed before my momentary downfall was a mug of Oolong tea. Gag.
My earliest vomit memory however is being a flu-y six year old - a delivery of Pizza Hut arrived and I promptly hurled at the scent of a bit of meat lovers. I couldn’t deal with tomato sauce in any iteration for quite some time. Pizza, parmi, nada.
These learned food aversions are consuming and enduring - semi-permanent if we’re fortunate. The latter is true for pizza and me, though it’s taken almost a lifetime to galvanise resilience. I now go out of my way to consume pizza, I often take photos of pizza, I even learned to make pizza fairly well. I own two (2) home pizza ovens – what a success story! Hydration percentages, low or high moisture mozzarella, I’m all about it.
Nearly 30 years later however, lightning struck twice in an odd kind of way.
Around a week before I left my ex-husband I unknowingly offered a final thoughtful gesture. He was in a low mood so I suggested we invite a friend of his who had recently moved to a neighbouring suburb for an impromptu visit, we could hang out on the balcony with some drinks, and I’d make us dinner - hey, how about pizza?
I won’t get into how I shopped everywhere for the very precise things required to do the job right, or how I calculated the fermentation times (I hate numbers) to make the dough for some imperfect but fairly good pizza one November night: Neapolitan with smoked oil, a herb cream thing, something with prosciutto and a Nutella finale as homage to our suburban, wood-fired roots. I will mention however that I remember them having a fun night.
Six days later we finally broke up.
As is the case with breakups, many things were said after said breakup. One of the many sentiments articulated from my end was how I felt I’d often tried to find ways to make him happy when he wasn't, for example that pizza night, and I wish he had offered a similar level of both effort and attunement in the way I needed throughout our tenure.
His response?
“You only did all that because you like making pizza”. Angrily.
You probably don’t know me as you read this. I could easily be an exquisite example of a toxic avoidant borderline narc, or any other pop-psychology term de jour (not everything is an attachment issue, everyone). I’d like to offer my opinion and say that I am not. In this moment my earnest intentions were reframed from kindness to selfishness and it was devastating to hear.
Here are some other things I understand to be true about myself. I’ve inherited the act of cooking to show people I care. If I see someone hurting I want to put them first. I try to be generous with my time and only want people to feel comfortable in my home and in my presence (ideally of course, my deficits sometimes get in the way of unfettered virtue). At the very least two things can be true at once - I do enjoy applying high heat to dough, but my impetus was for him.
I can now see this comment for what it is – a knee-jerk reaction to get a one-up over a perceived threat to sense-of-self in a moment of felt inadequacy, but I’ve become tired of expending energy to decipher deeper meanings when someone’s words at face value communicate enough. Embarrassingly, I still feel obliterated at the accusation.
It’s been two and a half years and I haven’t made a pizza since. When people ask to suss my cool balcony pizza oven I tell them the gas canister needs to be replaced. What I don’t say is that I refuse to replace it. There have been several occasions, on hospitable autopilot, I’ve invited new friends for pizza only to remember mid-sentence I won’t be having them over anytime soon. The idea of making a pizza now exists as the stomach-churning equivalent of a mug of Oolong tea or a sandwich oozing with mayonnaise, or both, jammed into my face. Repulsion. Similarly to my prior aversion to a particular sauce, I am now intensely turned off by the idea of spooning strained, crushed tomatoes onto a bit of dough.
I see my oblivious past self methodically preparing and gladly kneading for that evening and feel overwhelmingly sad for her.
Single women protecting their peace is a prevailing motif in 2025 as discrepancies in heterosexual relationships are revealed, discussed, and rightly deemed unfair by correct audiences. I don’t at all disagree with these sentiments, but sadly I have no ‘peace’ to protect as I come to terms with everything that happened, the things I never shared with anyone to protect him, while he protected his comfort over my happiness.
I may sit by my enormous rented window with a warm drink and occasionally sigh with relief, but my baseline is that of contrition and emotional impoverishment. I am haunted by an absence of reciprocity. In the face of the eschewing I’ve historically tried to connect, repeatedly, at my sanity’s expense, as I subconsciously experience love as some kind of endurance test I hope to eventually pass. And by trying so hard I failed myself because I’m sitting here distraught about the last time I made pizza. Who knew round food could become so stressful.
This is the part where I’m supposed to tell you, hey, I hosted a pizza party, overcame an unwelcome moment and all is in the past. But I haven’t, and it’s not. Instead I’m reminded of feeling like a fucking idiot for trying, and I feel like a big stupid dickhead for now struggling with an intrinsic part of myself.
So here I stand among the segues to food aversions: a supreme hangover, a violent reaction to anaesthesia, germy salad leaves amplified by motion sickness, and… trying to make someone happy.
The only silver lining I can think of is that if I ever ingest something that requires me to purge for survival, all someone needs to do is hand me a peel, throw me before a home pizza oven and tell me to imagine someone I care about. No Ipecac required.