The restaurants of the Wayside are not known for the quality of their food but rather the qualities of the food. An important distinction. The food leans unique. It leans experimental, though the experiments are largely without intention. It leans inedible, sometimes, and in this case it leans so far it falls.
‘At the intersection of food and art there is ‘The Poisoned Plate,’ a restaurant that serves from a menu of natural, organic, farm-to-table, poisonous food. No, not like what you’re thinking. Not the puffer fish that has to be cut just so. Not the thistle, that loses its bite when cooked. This food is prepared such that the poison remains intact and, though it isn’t specified anywhere, the food is prepared so that the poison saturates every bite. There are those who might want to visit the restaurant as a challenge. There are those who might try to nibble the garnish and say they survived a meal at ‘The Poison Plate.’ They would likely die or suffer the chronic and life-long effects of nerve damage.
Signage says as much.
‘The Poisoned Plate’ has no license to serve food. It’s zoned as an art gallery, likely as a defense against lawsuits arising from patrons who choose to ignore the generous warnings of servers and the bold print on the menus and the waiver one must sign before sitting. The only thing that indicates one might consider eating the food is the absolute delicacy with which plates are prepared. The food looks good. It looks really good and it smells delicious. It is the enemy of the primal brain and that seems to be the thesis, if a thesis beyond profit can be said to exist.’
I order the cheapest item on the menu, which still sets me back $60. It is a side salad that consists entirely of poisonous greens, served with a vinaigrette of berries that can only be digested by a bird that shares its ecosystem. The bird is also on the menu, its flesh made poisonous by its diet of berries, but I can’t afford it and wouldn’t buy it even if I could. I roll my eyes and try to take a sip of my water but a server gasps and knocks the glass out of my hand. The water is laden with heavy metals. The broken glass, though not considered a food item, is mildly radioactive. The silverware is lead.
I pay the bill and they bring me my salad in a to-go box. Where can I throw something like this away, knowing it might kill whatever scavenges it? The salad rots in the RV for a week before I burn it in a campfire, careful not to breathe the fumes.
-traveler
