Like many little kids, I went through a fierce Egyptology phase. It culminated with me building a miniature City of the Dead in my backyard (okay, so maybe most kids don't go that far), and died a quick, painful death involving a book about embalming and a bowl of beef stew. I had, up until that point, enjoyed a thoroughly satisfactory relationship with beef stew: it wasn't my favorite food by any stretch of the imagination, but unless my parents forced the issue of carrots, I ate it without complaint. When the Incident (as I later came to think of it) happened, I was fourteen and had already developed the extremely rude habit of reading during dinner; on that particular day, I was plowing my way through a new book about the life and withered remains of Tutankhamen. It never occurred to me that eating and reading might not always be compatible until I got to the part where the author described removing the brain by poking an instrument up through the nostrils and then pulling bits out.

I looked at the description.

And then I looked at my food.

And then I put the book down, shoved the plate away, and spent the next decade or so dodging beef stew.