Field training was pleasantly difficult with lots of swearing and sweating. Midway through my summer training camp, for three fiercely hot and buggy days, my fellow trainees and I took a break from marching and Air Force academics to hang out at a muddy Kansas lake. We called ourselves survivalists. In truth, the only thing we were really trying to survive was the young enlisted man put in charge of us for the adventure. He was actually younger than most of us. Imagine if mom and dad went out and left the youngest in charge for a change, yeah, the result would be revenge torture. The airman and I got off to a spectacularly bad start when he asked all of us the simple question, “Why did we join the Air Force?” Why didn’t I provide a safe response like most of my fellow campers? All I remember was that I was powerless to suppress the shit-eating grin stretched across my face as I replied, “So I can be the dictator of a small third world country.” Who knew there would be worse things to eat than shit? The airman, that’s who. And he made me eat them.
The airman bided his time. Day two of our hostage cum survival situation and the evil airman had us out in the fields beating the ground with clubs in order to flush out a rabbit. The male campers were channeling their inner Neanderthal while chanting “hasenpfeffer” over and over again. I never actually believed we would be successful. Unfortunately, I was wrong. After a few hours broiling under the July sun a rabbit dashed across the field on a suicide mission. One scrawny rabbit versus twenty scrawny college students. The odds were about even but the students prevailed. With all the rejoicing you would have thought we brought down a Wholly Mammoth to feed the tribe for an entire year. I figured I would make due with another granola bar for dinner and leave the lapin for the boys, but the airman had other plans. He sat us down in a circle and began skinning the rabbit, explaining the procedure as he cut and sliced. The males of the tribe were ecstatic; the females, disgusted. But now it was the airman with the shit-eating grin. I would soon figure out why.
“Cadet, when you become the dictator of a small third world country, you will have to learn to enjoy native delicacies.” With that, he popped out an eyeball and handed it to me.
“I want you to chew this eyeball and tell your fellow cadets what it tastes like.” A chorus of murmurs arouse around me, “dude,” “brutal,” ‘awesome.” I looked to the small contingent of female cadets, all with horror stricken looks on their faces. My roommate shook her head and whispered, “You don’t have to eat it, he can’t make you.”
Never before had I been able to swallow pills. Never. I always chewed them the few times pill taking was required of me. But as I starred down at the little grayish-black blob in the palm of my hand I knew it was time to learn that skill. And just like that, swallowing a rabbit’s little eyeball gave me the biggest pair of cojones in the camp. No, I did not chew it as instructed. But my sly smile and brief comment, “smooth and salty” seemed to satisfy my personal Torquemada. When the airman cut out the rabbit’s stomach and passed it around for all of us to partake of its contents, I did not even flinch. I have yet to find a small third world country interested in me as their dictator, but the ability to eat anything has served me well in a civilian capacity.
My mantra while in China has been, “One billion Chinese can’t be wrong” whenever I am confronted with a challenging dining option. My husband has been my ally in this regard. Growing up in a hunting family in upstate New York, he swears they ate squirrel pot pie as kids; and I thought my mom’s meatloaf was traumatizing.
Shortly after our arrival in China we visiting the charming southern city of Kunming, famous as the home base of World War II’s Flying Tigers. While there we were feted by customers of my husband’s company. Hospitality is an important aspect of Chinese culture. One of my endearing memories of China is the near universal pride in their culture, and their desire to share their culture with visitors. An integral part of Chinese culture, is Chinese cuisine.
Chinese believe in big dinners with lots of different dishes. Food is served family-style on large lazy-susans. In this way, everyone has the opportunity to try many dishes. The optimal number of guests at a Chinese meal is ten, with at least that many different dishes. At our dinner in Kunming the snacks arrived first; baskets of grasshoppers and what I thought were deep-fried worms. Since worms have no legs they look less threatening, so I snacked on some of those. They were like Cheetos, without the cheese. I guess my husband did not have the heart to tell me those were no worms. I would only find out much later from someone familiar with Yunan food that what I had eaten were really deep-fried maggots; as if the distinction were significant. Who knew all the ways my Air Force training would come in handy?
But it was not all maggots and bugs. Despite the fact that little of what I encountered in China resembled anything from the Peking Garden restaurant back home, I did really like some of the things I ate. One of my favorite Chinese dishes comes from Sichuan province. It is called MaPo Doufu. The translation of which evokes images better suited for the dermatologist’s office than the dining room. MaPo Doufu translates as pock-marked, old lady’s tofu. If you can get past the title it is a delicious, spicy tofu dish. Ants Climbing Up a Tree is another Sichuan favorite. Not mine, but someone’s. It is not really ants, but bits of beef served on noodles. I know; darn. In other cultures ants or their image are unwelcome at mealtimes, but for someone from Sichuan the ants marching one-by-one is a saliva producing image.
Despite images of insects or nasty skin conditions, the folks in Sichuan cannot compare with their adventurous neighbors in Guangdong province. During the 2003 SARs crisis it was thought the disease was spread by Civet cats sold in markets for food. An individual interviewed at a market specializing in exotic animals offered by way of explanation a commonly held sentiment in Guangdong, “You see an animal and you naturally wonder what it tastes like.” As the saying goes, “the Cantonese eat everything with legs but tables, and everything that flies but airplanes.”
For lovers of American Chinese food, being confronted with Chinese Chinese food may feel, look, and taste, a bit like bait and bait. There may even be the temptation to dine at a non-Chinese restaurant. Flashing red warning sign. If you see a foreign restaurant you may want to dine at, make sure there is a foreigner who matches the cuisine working in the kitchen. Or you may encounter quiche with nary a whiff of egg, pita bread being passed off as pizza, or enchiladas with a red curry sauce. Then try bringing the discrepancy to the attention of your unconvinced Shanghai waitress. The Chinese do not do attitude, they do impassivity.
During our China tenure we held a nearly unbroken streak of confronting and consuming culinary challenges. I will admit to two failures. The turtle. I just could not do it. It reminded me of the old box turtle that showed up from time to time in our backyard as a kid. I draw the line at pets as food. My husband is far less principled. He nonchalantly sliced off its head and mucked it on down. But even he reached the edge of his eating envelope. When offered the business end of a male donkey he politely declined. He later vaguely explained it had something to do with gender solidarity.
No comments:
Post a Comment