I’ll be honest, I stole the idea for Rudi’s tea from a friend’s Facebook post.
I needed an example of a meaty, starchy comfort meal for him to eat in today’s chapter of Teratogenesis and I had written “a steak I had cooked impatiently, mash and a mug of Bovril.” But when I saw a friend’s Facebook update, I changed it to beef noodles and hot dogs because it not only seems more authentic, but because steak and mash isn’t the kind of lucky combination that comes up when you shop while hungry. You get salad and rice or beans and Spam, truly atrocious meals that you have to eat because there is nothing else in. But sometimes, you do get lucky; the occasional pasta and chilli con carne or Mars bar toastie. And so, we get to noodles and hot dog sandwiches. Good call, Nik.
Also, it’s the lyrics to a song:
“…Looking for a place called Lee Ho Fuks /Gonna get a big dish of beef chow mein…”
One of the things that I’ve had to do over the last year is develop who (and what) Rudi is. Given what Teratogenesis means, it should be obvious by now, but it has definitely been easier to describe the mental changes rather than any physical ones. It was even very tempting to use an existing clinical condition but ultimately, that would’ve been a cop out. Which meant I had to work out what would happen to someone afflicted with the “other” condition. I imagine it would ache a lot and would leave you hungry, no matter how much- or even what- you ate…
