The other day I was walking down Fairfax, heading for the Farmer’s Market to pick up some vegetables, when I was hit by a car. It all happened so fast. I was down for the count, bleeding all over, broken hips, my hand smashed in five places, and I think I was on fire. Then along come a couple of old Hungarian women, and lucky for me they had been well schooled in the weird Balkan medicinal traditions of their home country.

 

 

After several hours, they placed me in the bathtub and parboiled me in a mixture of steaming hot water, paprika, olive oil, goat’s blood, carrots, and chicken meat. All the while the women, dressed in the traditional black robes of women in mourning, chanted prayers to what god’s I knew not. And I fell into a fever.

 

Days came and went, darkness into light, again and around, songs on the radio, static, horns on the street, far away the stench of sweat, of bad water and bottled-up dreams. I heard the snorts of draught animals, the stamping of hooves, and far away in the mountains the cry of wolves, the ringing of a steeple bell, the bleat of sheep and the sweet summer sound of water against stones, of rain on a roof, and I was a boy again and all was forgiven, all my sins and my cowardice and my shrinking from challenge and fate, and music filled my ears, and lifted my heart, and I awoke.

 

I was in my own bed. My wounds were healed. And my telephone was ringing. I picked it up. It was a representative from the Hungarian Paprika Grower’s Association of Szeged. Tell the world of the wonders of paprika, the voice said - that it heals bones, and offers sinners a glimpse of light. Tell them what you saw, and heard, and use those visions for good. Use them to help us sell paprika.

 

And then, just like that, the line went dead. But a few days after that, checks started arriving. Checks from the Paprika Association. Sizable ones.

 

It’s all a mystery. But I’ll tell you something: paprika is a spice to be reckoned with. Seek some out today, and ye shall know wonder.