Then he saw them. A small, sad package of cocktail wieners. And a can of vegetarian beans in “maple-ish sauce.”
The corner store was still open. He walked the three blocks in a fine drizzle, rehearsing the geometry of the meal in his head. But the store’s cooler was a graveyard of culinary compromise. No all-beef. Only “poultry links” and something called “wheat-based protein tubes.”
Arthur Figg was a man ruled by routine. Every Tuesday at 7:13 PM, he prepared his signature dish: two all-beef frankfurters, cross-hatched and griddled to a precise chestnut brown, served atop a quarter-cup of Boston baked beans. No bun. No mustard. Just frank, beans, fork.
He stood there, a man between two existential cliffs. Frank represented tradition, certainty, the savory anchor of the meal. Beans represented the sweet, saucy chaos that swirled around it. Without frank, was he just a man eating beans? Without beans, was he just a carnivore on a plate?
The quandary was solved. Next Tuesday, order would be restored. But for seven long days, Arthur Figg would live in the gray space between what a meal should be and what it actually was. And that, he supposed, was simply the taste of being human.
Then he saw them. A small, sad package of cocktail wieners. And a can of vegetarian beans in “maple-ish sauce.”
The corner store was still open. He walked the three blocks in a fine drizzle, rehearsing the geometry of the meal in his head. But the store’s cooler was a graveyard of culinary compromise. No all-beef. Only “poultry links” and something called “wheat-based protein tubes.” the frank & beans quandary
Arthur Figg was a man ruled by routine. Every Tuesday at 7:13 PM, he prepared his signature dish: two all-beef frankfurters, cross-hatched and griddled to a precise chestnut brown, served atop a quarter-cup of Boston baked beans. No bun. No mustard. Just frank, beans, fork. Then he saw them
He stood there, a man between two existential cliffs. Frank represented tradition, certainty, the savory anchor of the meal. Beans represented the sweet, saucy chaos that swirled around it. Without frank, was he just a man eating beans? Without beans, was he just a carnivore on a plate? He walked the three blocks in a fine
The quandary was solved. Next Tuesday, order would be restored. But for seven long days, Arthur Figg would live in the gray space between what a meal should be and what it actually was. And that, he supposed, was simply the taste of being human.
