LatinosUSA

Eliot Bullocks, a tall, obese man, stood over a pot of chili in the test kitchen of Foodies R Us and took a spoonful of the winning dish. He tasted it and then shook his head disagreeably. «I’m sorry, Ms. Ellison, it just doesn’t taste the same,» he told the 50-something woman. “What did you do to it?” he asked suspiciously.

“Like I told Arthur, er, Mr. Roach,” said Virginia Ellison, winner of the 2025 Foodies R Us recipe contest, “This batch doesn’t contain precisely the same ingredients as the sample I prepared for the contest.”

“Roach!” barked the fat man in the direction of a gaggle of culinary consultants waiting in the wings. “Ms. E. says you didn’t use the same recipe as you did for the contest. Explain yourself, you miserable worm!”

Mr. Roach, a 40-ish man with a skeletal frame and a receding hairline, rushed forward, a printed copy of the recipe in question clutched in his small, oily hand. “Not so, Mr. B,” he insisted. He began rapidly running down the ingredient list for Donkey Chili, winner of the recent contest.

As Roach recited, Virginia stared at him with resentment in her eyes. Unknown to the contest officials, Virginia and Roach were involved in a torrid affair predating the contest.

When Roach concluded his recitation, Bullocks flashed his bushy eyebrows in Virginia’s direction. “What about it, Ms. Ellison?” he asked. “Are these the same ingredients or not?”

“Well, yes,” she said, “They’re the same–insofar as they go.”

“What does that mean?” asked the fat man.

“I mean,” explained Virginia, “That Donkey Chili contains 28 ounces of canned Del Monte Stewed Tomatoes, but they were not from 2025–they were from 1971.”

“Huh?”

“My late husband,” said Virginia, “Collected canned comestibles.”

“He did?” said Bullocks gruffly. “Why?”

Virginia sighed. “He fancied himself a collector of antique food. Our whole house was a veritable emporium of antique edibles. He used to buy and sell and trade it on the black food market.” When Bullocks only stared at her, she shrugged.

“So,” said the CEO of Foodies R Us, “You purchase your food from purveyors of old goods?”

“No. Not anymore. But the food is there. It would be a shame–a sin–to waste it,” she remarked frugally.

“But,” said the man, “Weren’t these items marked with a sell by, or a best if used by date?”

“Yes,” she acknowledged. “But you know how those food companies are: always wanting you to waste food so that you’ll buy more.” She shook her head in disapproval.

“Roach!” snarled Bullocks, turning to the other man, «Did you know about this?»

Roach opened his mouth to deny everything, but catching Virginia’s withering stare, he folded. “Yes, I knew,” he admitted. He watched his career take wing and flutter out the window. “I knew everything. I knew that using the antique foods would produce a superior product, but I also knew that the techs in the kitchen wouldn’t go along with it. So,” he said with a sigh, “I hoped we could get by.”

After Virginia was stripped of her title and sent home without her prize money, and Roach was summarily fired, Bullocks sat with the other man in the CEO’s sumptuous office in the Foodies R Us building. Roach was just rehired on a confidential, personal contract with Mr. Bullocks, and they were discussing the particulars.

“Are you certain that you can obtain the necessary antique foods, Art?” asked Bullocks. “I want to market an exclusive run of Donkey Chili, but we must have 50-year-old stewed tomatoes to make it.”

“Not a problem, E.B.,” replied Roach. “Virginia has more than 5,000 cans of the stuff in her cellar. Plus, she has contacts in the antique food subculture, which could turn up at least half a million cans. Besides, I’ve got men scouring landfills and other likely locations.”

Bullocks nodded. “Terrific. And at $200 per can, I stand to…we stand to make a killing.”

The two men sat in companionable silence for some moments, pondering their avarice, before Bullock asked, “Weren’t you afraid that chick might poison you, Art? I know she’s a helluva cook, but weren’t you ever reluctant to take a chance?”

“Only once,” said the other man. “And that was when she insisted I drink more.” At Bullock’s questioning look, he added, “But, I refused to take more than two slices of whole milk.”

previously published in “Plateau Area Writers Quarterly”