An Exotic Palate

To become a legend, it took killing one.

The ocean’s jealous body pounded with a fury that sent icy air like rocks tumbling through his chest. He twisted in pain, registering not the absence from his body, only the colossal eye still trained on him. He dared it to break contact. One swipe, and the hull was near to caving in. He wrestled the mass squeezing life from his pores, and sank his teeth in.

Salt spray cauterised his wound while the limb clamped in his jaws still flailed, pink and divine. Blood mingled on his chin and brows as the colossal eye retreated, weeping a shriek that bubbled and lurched the boat toward the nearest harbour. As it drifted to safety, he neglected his own loss — the gnawing pain — to seal the win.

He licked his lips clean of the near-victory and winced. A problem for later.

They called him ‘The Chef,’ like there was any doubt, having achieved more than enough to truly own that title. Backlash, too, was served on a silver platter, but his defence always absolved him: his passion.

Nevertheless, a riot of protesters met him on the Australian shores at the opening of his first restaurant (already the eyes and taste buds of the world were on him) where he served his now-famous Jellyfish and Pesto Rosso Brioche. Consequently, the species trickled back into endangerment, but he blamed their exotic flavour.

The fate of 17 species had followed, one falling with every new menu. 18, actually. A small flock of dodos had been miraculously rediscovered. Less than a week later, the emerging Dodo Preservation Trust was defunded. And the kabobs were ‘unparalleled,’ a dozen elite critics reported.

Too soon, his career was as outdated as his menus, mundane as the flavours of Monkey’s Paw Filet, Anglerfish Lure Risotto, and Elephant Ear Stroganoff. He adapted to survive. At every change of appetite, he camouflaged like the chameleons he served orange on cheesecakes. The world was a wide and delicious place, and his accumulated wealth showed no need to end his travels, finding new flavours across every border and ocean.

The queues of protestors were still shorter than those at the doors, but the critics and connoisseurs (both of them, fans) dwindled in numbers and interest. Not quiet, but quieter. He looked on his volumes of cookbooks with pride, and his list of victims with much the same. This was all that mattered until the patrons turned the last page and asked for something new.

He suspended his plans to retire early and began the search for a dish to secure his legacy as more than just an aftertaste. Something that, like him, was alone among the ranks of creatures. A god of sorts, that no mere mortal could cheapen by reducing it to plastic-wrapped frozen blocks in some chain supermarket.

Immortality can’t be mass produced.

He lounged on the terrace of his first location, facing the Opera house, and wondered how to outlive it. Hunger bubbled in his throat, but his plate was still untouched when beneath the glassy black water a mass emerged. It was the creation of his hunger, but it ignited a thought in him. He headed out, and for the first time overlooked the culinary section of the library he’d half-stocked with his own flavours.

He was prepared only for victory when he sailed out toward the open ocean with only a set of co-ordinates and an appetite.

It wasn’t a dark and stormy night. His old eyes couldn’t afford missing his target. He planned to catch it by surprise as it slept, but for all his research, it was ready for him…

They all watched him haul it out, struggling under its weight, awe muting debate off their tongues. It took a minute for the cameras to flash back to life, but they were torn between the Kraken limb and the makeshift pegleg.

A sacrifice had been made. He hobbled away, dragging the bounty behind. Ambulances were called, but nobody was allowed in.

For three grilling days he toiled, tasted and adjusted his legacy, writing and re-writing the recipe with cinnamon, rosemary, soy sauce — anything! Sealed behind a windowless kitchen, hundreds of platters went up in the flames of his desperation, but it was no use. He destroyed the leftovers, shameful and vile as the emptiness that ruled his remaining limbs. Only now did the thrumming pain where his leg had been hum its mockery.

In his final moments, the Chef did not mourn his legacy. Instead, he only wondered if he had tasted just as bad.

This story exists in the same universe as ‘How to Eat a God’