A spoonful of yogurt

By Kapka Kassabova

You’re on a desert island and allowed only one food—what would it be? I’ll have yogurt, thanks. I’ll have your ration of yogurt, too. I’ll have yogurt before I have oxygen. For me, yogurt is oxygen.

The past makes choices for us, and my choice was made in a Sofia apartment. I’m at the kitchen table which comes up to my face, and my face is involved with a tub of plain yogurt. Everybody knows that the way to tackle a tub of yogurt is with a spoon, and that yogurt is best eaten before, with, and after your meal. On this occasion I’m snacking, and the guilty knowledge that this tub of yogurt was reserved for tonight doesn’t take away the pleasure. In fact, guilt might be the pleasure. The spoon cuts into a surface pristine as a snowy morning in the Balkan mountains; with each spoonful, I carve out sharp white cliffs. The yogurt is firm and fatty on my tongue, and I can feel its edges; the sad advent of low-fat is still in the future. It is cool, clean and silent all the way down when I swallow. I am at the source of life. Nothing can go wrong.