The foreign neighbors gave me this and wished me a pleasant appetite: but it\u2019s something hard and not at all like food, more like an egg.<\/p>\n
At first, I was even scared.<\/p>\n
The neighbors are foreigners; we hardly communicate, we just greet each other in the elevator. And then one evening, there\u2019s a knock at the door. They\u2019re standing there, smiling, handing me a bag and saying in Russian with an accent:<\/p>\n
Enjoy your meal!<\/p>\n
I look inside \u2014 and there it is\u2026 this. Dark, hard, strange things, as if from a museum or a dinosaur movie. They don\u2019t look edible at all. In my hands they\u2019re cold, like stones. I even smelled them \u2014 almost no scent.<\/p>\n
Is this\u2026 food? I asked cautiously.<\/p>\n
They nodded, smiling even wider, and left.<\/p>\n
I stood in the kitchen for a long time with that bag. Thoughts were spinning in my head: What if this isn\u2019t meant to be eaten at all? What if it\u2019s a joke? What if I\u2019m missing something very important? Putting it in the fridge felt scary; throwing it away felt awkward.<\/p>\n
In the end, I went online. I searched by photos, by description, by shape. And when I finally found it, I couldn\u2019t believe my eyes.<\/p>\n
It turned out to be a water chestnut.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s eaten. You peel it, boil it, and eat it raw as well. In some countries it\u2019s a common food, almost a delicacy. I had simply never seen anything like it in my life.<\/p>\n
The next day I met the neighbors and told them I had figured out what it was. They were happy, started explaining something quickly, showing with gestures how to peel it and eat it.<\/p>\n
And I caught myself thinking how strange the world is: for some people it\u2019s a frightening, incomprehensible thing, and for others it\u2019s simply \u201cenjoy your meal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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