On food...

One of the best things about exploring foreign lands is exploring the food. Living in the west, we’re lucky enough to be able to enjoy foods exotic food relatively easily. We think nothing of eating Chinese, Indian, Mexican or Mediterranean food. Indeed we seem to eat foreign cuisine even more than our own traditional dishes. Especially in England where our own food, while hearty and comforting, is generally quite boring compared to that of other countries.

     

     The sheer variety of it surprised me. I’d never heard of a lot of the things on offer – strange fruits and veg I didn’t recognise – the soft, refreshing flesh of dragonfruit, peppered with tiny seeds, the fruit we ate in the jungle in Laos which looked like small potatoes but had a keen, citrus taste (I still can’t figure out what it was). Even with our cosmopolitan diet, I’d never come across morning glory or many of the other nameless vegetables I saw. The Vietnamese street food consisting of various small fruits, in sugary syrup with sweet rice-based hunks and slivers of coconut in a glass packed with ice was delicious.

     

      Another thing that struck me was how selective our meat intake is. Chicken, beef, pork, fish and occasionally lamb are the staples in the west. Out there you get these and more – tofu is a common meat substitute. Snakes, frogs, crickets, cockroaches, spiders are all fairly common, especially in Cambodia where the expense of raising meat is reflected in its price. Most of us would balk at the idea of eating insects when actually it makes sense. The idea has been put forth as a way to solve food crises; insects are cheap and easy to breed, they consume less and contain just as much protein – if not more – than chicken or beef. Not saying everybody was always walking around munching on locusts or anything but it was there if you wanted it, and it seemed pretty popular.

     

     Again, it comes down to practicality; if you can get the nutrition you need from cheap and readily available insects, why shell out ten times the money on beef? Apparently they’re pretty tasty too, when fried up with the right spices. I can personally recommend barbequed snake with a squeeze of lemon and a salt and pepper dip. Very tasty, if slightly bony. Or whole baby squid; skewered and whacked on a barbeque for a few minutes then dipped in chili sauce, amazing. And yes, they eat dog in Vietnam. No, I didn’t eat any, I didn’t get the opportunity. Shame, apparently it tastes beautiful.