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 by J. Peterman |
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 by J. Peterman |
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 by Heiress |
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July 11, 2008
"Wise choice, sir. It is a local delicacy."
Is there another phrase that can strike more fear into the heart of the veteran traveler, hunched over the menu in a bracingly "authentic" local bistro and puzzling over the descriptions of various items with a shaky grasp of the local dialect? Surely "birds in a nest" must be a bit of poectic license, you reason, looking for confirmation from the perpetually smiling and agreeable waiter.
And then you wait for the plates to arrive. What you ordered could be a delightful array of succulent squab nestled in some doughy creation shaped to resemble a nest. Or it could be half-plucked sparrows splayed in an actual nest.
That kind of gamble can be part of the joy of travel, a gateway to new sensations. Or it can be sheer torture, depending on how much of your mistakes courtesy and hunger force you to swallow.
But really, you can't call a trip much of an adventure unless you've suppressed your gag reflex a few times. There's a large swath of Asia, for example, that you really haven't experienced unless you've at least sampled the flesh of the durian fruit. Football-sized and covered in formidable spikes, the uncut durian looks about as intimidating as a fruit can get. (Asian newspapers routinely carry reports of rural people injured by falling durian.)
But you don't truly appreciate the durian's offensive power until you cut inside and release its smell, a malodorous symphony that has been variously compared to dirty gym socks, stale vomit, skunk spray, raw sewage and rotten onions. The scent is so powerful that Singapore and many other metropolises expressly forbid durian consumption on public transit and in hotels.
But muscle past the gag reflex induced by the smell, and you discover the wonderous flavor of the fruit's creamy interior, a custardy mash with hints of almond and caramel. Anthony Burgess compared the nose-vs-tongue durian experience to "eating sweet raspberry blancmange in the lavatory."
Similarly, you haven't really done Europe unless you've sampled at least a few organ meats generally reserved for pet food in the States. Whether it's Scottish haggis (sheep stomach stuffed with liver, heart and lungs), Greek splinantero (lamb liver, spleen, and small intestine) or French tete a veau (a calf's head, classically served with brains, glands and all), just tell your brain that "meat is meat" and try to enjoy. I'm always reminded of an old Jay Leno routine about searching through a British garbage can after one too many nights of kidney and pancreas pie and finding that's where the Brit's keep the filet mignon.
Or maybe your buttons will be pushed over what types of animals, rather than which parts, are fit to eat. Consider the guineau pig -- cute, low-maintenance pet here; revered delicacy in Latin America. (Jered Diamond notes in Guns, Germs & Steel that it was the sole domesticated food animal in the Americas pre-Columbus.) Spend much time in any of the Andean countries, and you'll no doubt have numerous opportunities to sample cuy, fried, roasted, fricassed or, best of all, barbecued, and served more or less whole.
The flavor? Guineau pig is frequently described with perhaps the second-most-fearsome phrase for off-the-beaten-track diners: "Tastes like chicken!"
But nobody's calling you chicken. Tells us about your most adventurous dining experiences, favorite local dishes, and saved-by-Tabasco moments.
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still thinking about today...
What's your secret for managing local cuisine?
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Where should I start?
As a boy in Britain I did eat haggis. It did not taste like chicken. I also ate blood sausage, heart, kidneys, liver (and onions). They didn't taste like chicken, either.
America was wonderful: hot dogs, hamburgers. Although I was disappointed to discover what animal body parts a hot dog can be made from. Kosher it's not, but sometimes they do taste like chicken.
Now my "best" dining experiences were in Vietnam (I saved the best - or worst - for last). Steamed monkey brains, fried pinkies for breakfast (yes a 'pinkie' is a new born rat, no hair, and eyes still closed) and pickled water buffalo penis. The latter was excellent but I didn't know what it was untill a villager told me. I should've known.....it was a large salami-looking thing with a small tube down the middle! The things you have to do for your country!
I also had octopus, smothered in garlic sauce. The eye staring at me was interesting. I think a sergeant got drunk and finally ate it. He said it tasted like chicken. I took his word for it.
Notice I've not mentioned dog.....I don't know if I had dog unless it was that slighty chewy meat that tasted like chicken....although it was hard to tell with all the Tabasco sauce.
The most interesting meal was chicken noodle soup. I was enjoying the dish when I scooped up a small baby chick, de-feathered but complete with head and beak. Now that really did taste like chicken!
Monkey brains and pinkies don't taste like chicken....they taste like Tabasco sauce......I'll let you guess why.
Of all the "proofs" that can be offered for the existence of God, Tabasco sauce is the only proof I have that God exists. Thank God for Tabasco sauce.
To: Heiress,
I've had frog legs and snails. Frogs taste like chicken. Snails? they tasted like Tabasco sauce...I let you guess why.
I forgot to mention that there is a Vietnamese restaurant in a nearby community I go to regularly. I enjoy the pho ga soup (that's a chicken noodle soup with small pieces of chicken). The owner knows me and she always brings me a bottle of Tabasco sauce. The other customers never know why I'm the only one with the Tabasco bottle. She tells them I'm a VIP. I always get looks of curiosity from the other customers. The real reason is the owner and her hostess staff know what I ate in Vietnam. The Tabasco is an inside joke.
It's nice to be a VIP.
(With a wink to ExPat)
I gathered and purged my own snails this year, because they were invading my garden and it's an "eat or be eaten" world.
My husband can catch an octopus, tenderize, cook and serve it with a delightful parsley vinaigrette. Now there's a man!
But we've had a bit of a conflict at the dinner table recently... my young daughter (5 yrs old) has started fighting my husband for the rabbit's brain. I try to imagine any of her American cousins doing that, and it makes me smile. You are what you eat.
However, no frog-munching here... that would be cannibalism!
By the way - if anyone here would like to see some scenes of shameless frog-eating, watch "Les Triplettes de Belleville..." Very funny French animated film that came out in 2003.
Les Triplettes de Belleville.. I LOVE that Film ~ The animation, the creativity the fact that it has no talking cars or big purple dinosaurs in it ~ It's a 5 star Animated film to me.
I'm sorry to say my out of U.S. travel expeirence is some what limited but growing up in a Polish community I have been able to try Polish Duck Blood Soup ~ Once you get over the way its made it really is just a soup. My German Grandfather always eat cannibal sandwiches rye bread or a cracker, raw hamburger add a little S&P plus a slice of onion. I LOVED them. Of course back then you slaughtered & ate the farm cows you raised so you could do it really without worrying about the true content of the meat.
While in Russia did not have too much of a chance to try local cruisine, did have reindeer though ~ tastes like Venison ( WHAT? thought I was gonna say Chicken)
We have a WONDERFUL Korean Restaurant in the area & I happen to LOVE Kimache & the Pickled Radishes they serve along with most of the Sushi Roll choices. I was watching Anthony Bourdain tour South Korea the other day & one of the delicacies served at the sidewalk eateries is Chicken Feet. He LOVED them. Not sure if I could really eat one without alot of tabasco or not. The twenty something guide though eat them like they were french fries.
I guess it just goes to show that as we have discussed before your eating habits & choices are a product of how your brought up as Heiress's daughter is proving at the age of 5.
drdgscott said...
When I lived in northern Sweden, reindeer and moose were almost daily fare. I also discovered what, in 59 years, was my most volatile gustatory experience -- fruit soup.
If you wind up in Philadelphia, ask for scrapple but not about scrapple. It's the other gray meat.
A recipe from my recent visit to Belize:
Cow Foot Stew
Ingredients:
2 lb Cow foot
1 bottle GRACE Jerk Seasoning
1 Sweet Pepper Large
1 Coco, large
1 doz Okras, small
Black Pepper
1 can Whole kernel corn
GRACE Spicy Steak Sauce
1 can GRACE Coconut milk
1 lb Tripe
1 Onion, large
1 Potato, large
1 Cassava, medium
Salt
1can GRACE Peas & Carrots
1 clove Garlic
GRACE Curry Powder
GRACE Vinegar or lime
Directions:
Clean cow foot and tripe.
Cut tripe into 2-inch pieces. Wash with lime or vinegar.
Scald with hot water, drain. Season meat with Jerk seasoning and steak sauce; add onion, sweet pepper and garlic. Marinate for 2 hours, cook until tender. (Use approximately 12 cup of water if using a regular pot)
Slow cooker or pressure cooker will use less water. Cut ground food in cubes and put to boil in another pot. Add these to the pot with the cooked cow foot and tripe.
Add the can of coconut milk and boil for another 15 minutes.
Add okra during the last 15 minutes,
Serve with white rice and baked plantains.
Serves 8.
Do you wash the tripe pieces with Lime or vineager to take some of the "sour" taste of it?
My Grandmothers always soaked wild game & venison in vineager or milk for that reason when they were young. Today the same "sour" or "Gamey" tastes to these foods seem not to be as strong. Most likly due to more food sources & the practices of baiting by area hunters.
To: rings90,
Washing the tripe with lime or vinegar, or par-boiling the tripe with crushed ginger for 10-15 minutes, helps to "rid off the unpleasant smell" (please do not ask me to describe this "unpleasant smell)! : - (
With all due respect to your brave and adventurous taste buds, the strange-side of the menu is “not the hill I want to die onâ€, nor gag for that matter.
As I have previously mentioned my father worked in the Chicago Stockyards / slaughter house and he often took great delight in revealing the secret ingredients of Armour’s hot dogs at dinner time. Now that didn’t turn me off from hot dogs, or tongue sandwiches, but it did make me wary of other mystery meats.
What really put me on the road to food conservatism was my older sister’s cooking. Whatever she cooked could either be the cure of, or the cause of a plague. In other words, her cooking would “mag a gaggotâ€.
I salute your adventurous natures, but for me, escargot is as far of the path I will go. In fact, I’m starting to lean toward raw veggies, well at least getting my toes wet in that direction.
Bon appetite! I think I'll have some toast today.
about Escargot always wondered Does it taste like Chicken & are they really slippery little suckers?
Would you reccomend trying them without Tabasco? I will say I can & will eat Oysters Rockerfeller, not my favorite but not the worst thing to have to eat either.
rings,90
I've always had escargot in a dark garlic sauce and only at a restaurant in Atlanta called the "Uptown Peasant".... kinda chewy in a clam sorta way. I'm good with oysters w/ horseradish (but they gotta go down quickly), clams and calamari . . . anything with the texture of mushrooms.
My worst food/gag reflex memory was when my Dad convinced me to drink a glass of beer with a raw egg in it. He loved it. I won't be having lunch today as a result of the memory.
How about fried ants and fried scorpions, in Singapore, washed down with copious amounts of Tiger Beer. Had some concern about the stingers on the scorpions, but managed anyway.
I'm a tad ashamed to say that before I was a vegetarian, the most adventurous meat I ever tried was duck [like fatty chicken].
My dad makes chopped liver for passover, and it was one of those deals where you don't realize until five seconds after your third helping that it's disgusting.
In something like second grade, I'm convinced there was a chicken's head with brain inside mixed in with my chicken nuggets.
I'm afraid I may be missing out on some of life's adventures by not eating meat.
Lovey,
Do not fear, life always offers a limitless smorgasbord of adventures. Meat is just one of the more mundane ones at that.
Beer plus Raw Egg is an old Belgian Tradition. I know a lot of people some young, some old that love it & drink it quite often of course these are the same people that eat the pickled eggs... So maybe tha thas something also to do with it....
Not sure about the idea of eating scorpions I'm with Mr. Peterman on this one the stingers on those & the idea of eating Fugu (AKA Puffer Fish) and dying from it really doesn't seem like something I would ever want to try.
Although I think I may want to take the venture in trying Petelake's suggestion of Escargot in the Garlic Sauce.
MaryOfDoom said...
I tried some durian when a coworker returned from Philadelphia with one in tow. It tasted like a combination of onions and melon. Another took a hilarious video of us brave adventurers, while she squealed and maintained that she wouldn't try it.
A braver soul than I took two huge bites and then proclaimed, "That's not a flavor that I would seek out."
I AM PROUD TO SAY THAT I HAVE NEVER EATEN NOR WILL I ANY OF THE DISGUSTING THINGS YOU BRAVE FOLKS HAVE MENTIONED BUT I THINK MY BROTHER MAY HAVE EVERYONE TOPPED. WHEN HE WAS IN VIETNAM ON AN ISLAND WITH THE MONTAGNARDS (i think i spelled that right). THE CHIEF REQUESTED HE COME TO DINNER. THE TRIBAL CHIEF WOULD GET VERY UPSET IF YOU DID NOT EAT THEIR FOODS. SO MY BROTHER ISN'T SURE WHOM HE WAS EATING...AND HE DIDN'T ASK.
To: MACKDADDY1,
Perhaps your brother had some of the Montagnards' famous "jerkey". The wise part of diplomacy was not asking your host "what" or "whom" you were eating.
It tasted like chicken, especially after being dipped in tabasco sauce......but those little shrunken heads hanging in the village kitchen will make you wonder what kind of chickens they raised..............
I know this is tame compared to eating a dish previously named Eddie but I've always had a fondness of pickled herring during the winter holidays.