Then I found the log I’d been looking for, and sat, and slowly ate the chicken. It was like chewing leather. The ..sinew wouldn't break down, and its toughness made it almost indigestible, my chewing turning the meat into a rubber ball. Queasy over a meal he called a “mess of bouillabaisse”, Henry James said that it was “a formidable dish, demanding French digestion”. Maybe I needed that. I was defeated by the food… and I mocked myself with a pompous phrase I'd heard a foodie use on a TV show: “I regret to say this dish is not fully achieved.” But it was something in my stomach, and that was a victory in this hungry province.
from The Last Train to Zona Verde by Paul Theroux.
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