Strange Foods and Unfamiliar Places

Every once in a while, I see these “quizzes” in social media asking you how many of the list of various foods you do/do not eat. I don’t generally respond because I’ve eaten just about everything on the list – and generally enjoyed it. I’ve said on many occasions that when I encounter a new food, my response is “try it, then ask what it was” as if you know beforehand what it is you may have a reaction to the name of it rather than to the food itself. I will sometimes have to take a slight delay before eating it – just because I want to watch someone else eat it first to know if I’m eating it properly. And I’ve only refused something once – as I’ll explain at the end of this blog.

Here, in no particular order, are a list of some of the less usual foods that I’ve had the opportunity to eat. I’ve limited myself to no more than one food per country/city, partly because I don’t always remember what it was I ate for every meal and there are so many good foods in every country I’ve been to. Note that there are restaurants in the US which serve these types of foods, but having them in their country of origin is the best!

 

Peking Duck (Beijing, China) – Peking is the original name of the city of Beijing, so it’s only natural that this is the best place to find that specialty. The more famous restaurants which serve it are known by nicknames: Big Duck, Little Duck, and Sick Duck (a strange name for a restaurant, but so known because it’s across the street from a large hospital). There are multiple cooks involved in the preparation – some specialize in the cooking, and others in the carving process. Each of the pieces has skin, fat, and meat – not at all like the US tradition of slicing a chicken/turkey. Yumm!

Tortillas with Fried Bull’s Blood (Mexico City) – While in Mexico City on business we went out one day to a really nice restaurant and this was on the menu. I was feeling adventurous (as is often the case), and decided to try it. It’s just what it sounds like. They pour bull’s blood from a pitcher onto a hot grill and stir it around until it turns a brownish-red color and begins to coagulate. You get a dish of it along with tortillas. You put a tortilla on your plate, add a spoonful or two of the fried blood, roll it up, then eat it. I liked it so much I had a second one. Doesn’t this sound appealing?

Raw Fish (Sushi) (Tokyo) – Before visiting Japan, I wasn’t sure about the idea of eating raw fish. But when I was there for a few days with one of my Japanese contacts, Ishida-san, and he took me to a little restaurant where they served it, I figured, “why not?” We were at the bar with the chef right in front of us. He would make a few of one kind of fish, lay it on top of a hand-formed bit of rice, then put it on the counter. I lost count of the number of different types of fish we had that meal – but all raw (of course) and all delicious.

Slime Balls (Venezuela) – I’m not sure what the correct botanical name for this fruit is. They look like a hard-covered fruit, larger than a grape but smaller than a golf ball. You crack the hard-covering off, then pop the whitish, slimy-looking, fruit in your mouth. You can only suck them as there is a large, hard pit in the center. Not the greatest to look at, but in a hot climate the moisture is appreciated.

Fufu (Ghana) – This is a soft, doughy staple food made of boiled cassava mixed with plantains. Most foods in Ghana are not eaten with utensils. You take a small handful off the big ball on your plate, shape it appropriately (using the right hand only) and dip it in the soup/stew – often a peanut butter soup, trying to keep your hands relatively dry. After the meal you wash your right hand using a bowl of water and soap on the table. When I began my stay in Ghana the first few days I would have a very discolored hand from the soup, but by the end of the week, I would only have staining on the ends of a couple of fingers. You can read more about my Ghanaian eating experiences here.

Brazilian Barbeque (Sao Paulo, Brazil) – Unlike the US version of barbeque, the Brazilian version is a restaurant where there are a wide variety of meats. Each is cooked on a skewer and the waiters walk around with them. You select the waiter with the meat you want and he cuts off large slices/hunks onto your plate. There is a large “coin” by your plate with a red and green side and you put the red side up when you don’t want service and the green side up when you do. I lost track of the number of different kinds of meats that had! See here for more info.

Korean Barbeque (Seoul, South Korea) – Korean barbeque is also not at all like the US. All the meats are thinly sliced and available at a self-serve station. Each table has a grill in the center. You take a serving of the kind of meat you want and cook it yourself. Being very thinly sliced, it cooks very quickly. See here for more info.

Mongolian Stir Fry (Beijing, China) – Sometimes it’s not the food itself, but the restaurant experience that is rememberable. I went to a Mongolian Stir Fry restaurant near Beijing. You take a large bowl past a self-serve area that is stocked with various meats and vegetables (all uncooked). When you have what you think you’ll eat, you hand the bowl to one of the cooks who is working at a VERY hot round flat-top grill (about 5’ in diameter). He pours the contents of your dish onto the grill, and, using a pair of long wooden sticks, tosses everything around so it all gets properly cooked. When it’s done (in a very short amount of time), he takes the sticks in one hand and a clean bowl in the other, sends all the food flying in the air with a swish of the sticks, and collects the whole thing into the bowl as he moves it under the airborne food. You then take the bowl to your table and eat. Fun to watch – what talent those cooks have!

Szechuan steak (Shanghai, China) – When in Shanghai with two others, one from the US and one from Korea, we were sightseeing on our free day and it was getting to be dinner time so, since I had been in Shanghai before, I was tasked with finding a restaurant. Looking around, I saw one that looked promising on the 4^th floor of a nearby building. We took the elevator up. They had trouble locating an English menu, but we were seated. I chose a beef dish which had three peppers next to it (meaning it would be pretty spicy) and the other two chose the mildest dish they could find. When my meal was delivered, I saw why it was marked the way that it was. There were so many crushed red pepper flakes that I had to move some aside to find the meat underneath. It was definitely hot, but I knew it wouldn’t last long afterwards, so I really enjoyed it through the tears flowing down my cheeks. Afterwards, my companions informed me that I was no longer allowed to choose the restaurant on the remainder of our trip together!

Seafood Pizza (Bangkok, Thailand) – There are many, many, good foods in Thailand. But one I’d like to mention was one I had on my last trip there in 2012. I was there a day early and thought I’d wander through the small mall that was attached to the hotel. Passing a Pizza Hut, I noticed that they had displays of their food in the window and one particularly intrigued me – seafood pizza. Since that is not something that we have in the US, I thought I’d try it as I particularly like to have seafood in different parts of the world because it is often locally available fish which varies from one part of the world to another. The only thing about this dish that most folks in the US would recognize as “pizza” was that it was on a base of a circle of bread. But there was no tomato paste, no cheese, no pepperoni or sausage, etc. There were small shrimp, clams, and large chunks of some sort of fish, all smothered in a spicy, rich brown fish sauce. It was delicious!

Chilli Crab (Singapore) [Note that this is the proper spelling in Singapore!] – This is a very popular dish in Singapore. Mud crabs are stir-fried in a semi-thick, sweet and savory tomato-and-chilli-base sauce. It is traditionally eaten with bare hands (lick your fingers afterwards!). As the name suggests, it is fairly spicy, but it’s good! (More about it here).

Fresh from the tank (Jakarta, Indonesia) – While visiting our company subsidiary in Indonesia, I was taken out to lunch at a seafood restaurant. What was different about this one was that all the sea creatures were still alive and swimming in tanks around the outside of a room. You would wander around the room with a waiter following and just point to the ones you wanted to eat (“I’ll take that yellow one, I’ll have one of those, etc.”). They would take a net; catch the ones you pointed to and take them back to the kitchen area to be prepared and cooked. Fifteen minutes later, the ones you pointed out would be on a plate in front of you. I have no idea what kind of fish or other sea creatures they were, but I certainly couldn’t complain about the freshness. Fish is often one of my go-to choices in other parts of the world as there are so many different varieties available.

Regional foods (US)

Scrapple – For those not from SE Pennsylvania, scrapple is a mush of pork scraps and trimmings (the leftovers) together with a binder like corn meal. It is then formed into a semi-solid congealed loaf and slices of it are pan-fried before serving. As long as it is decently prepared and fried enough (i.e., so it’s no longer mushy), I like it with maple syrup for breakfast or with ketchup and fried eggs. It’s definitely an acquired taste.

Catfish, Hush Puppies, Grits, etc. – I’ve been on enough business trips to the SE US that I’ve gotten to like their “cuisine”.  Things like fried catfish, hush puppies, grits, okra, etc. are all part of this fare.

Frog Legs – In college the house manager of our off-campus dorm was always trying to be as economical as possible. When visiting the local food outlet one week she found that someone else had ordered a full case of Indian frog legs by mistake and didn’t want them so the outlet had a greatly reduced price on them. She snapped them up and made them the main dish for dinner that night. Many of the students, especially the girls, turned up their noses at them, but I enjoyed them. That also meant that there were lots of leftovers the following couple of nights and the cafeteria policy was that you could have as many leftovers as you wanted. So, I feasted on frog legs for several nights. Tastes just like chicken!

Ostrich Burger – While in Denver for a conference we had our lunch hour free to buy food at any of the many restaurants in the area. One served burgers – but not your standard beef – they had burgers made from Bison, Ostrich, Alligator, and other exotic animals. I only had one day there, so I chose the Ostrich burger. Tastes pretty similar to beef.

My Only Refusal

Fish Eyeball (Hong Kong) – There was only one time that I declined a new food. I was in Hong Kong and we were at a restaurant on the north side of the island right next to a fishing dock. You ordered and the cook went down on the dock, bought the fish directly from the fisherman, then cooked and served it. The plant manager ordered for the half-dozen people in our party and the main dish was a whole fish (just descale and clean it and throw it on the grill). It is delivered to your table whole, i.e., with the head and tail still on (the proper way to eat it is to NOT flip it over, you take the meat from the topside, then if you want more, you lift the tail and scrape off of the other side, but do not flip it over!) The key delicacy is the eyeball – which is staring up at you (the other eyeball which is on the down side of the fish was against the grill and is not edible). I was perfectly willing to try it, but most of the time I watch someone else so I know “how” to eat it. Since there was only one, if I accepted the offer I would not be able to watch anyone else. Eating with chopsticks (which I’m very comfortable with), I could just see myself trying to lever the eyeball out of the eye socket and sending it flying across the room! So I declined out of concern for embarrassment, not out of not wanting to try eating it.