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Journalism of Courage
A Snake in my Stomach
As I reached out to shake Quoc Trieu8217;s hand, I couldn8217;t help but notice his misshapen fingers. They were twisted and gnarly, like he had been a victim of torture. But 1998 was a quiet time in once-tumultuous Vietnam, and his sylvan little village8212;an hour out of the capital Hanoi8212;couldn8217;t have been any quieter. A genial, portly man, Quoc Trieu was obviously used to the sidelong stares. He smiled and quickly explained. 8216;8216;I get bitten by too many snakes,8217;8217; said Trieu. 8216;8216;The cobras are the worst, but there are others.8217;8217;
Essentially, Trieu was talking about the price he8217;s had to pay for my lunch: a seven-course snake meal. Even out in the East where they fry flies and roast roaches, snakes weren8217;t so common. So it did take a lot of asking to get to the mysterious place called 8216;Snake village8217;. It8217;s quite simple really. The village is stuffed with restaurants where the main course is snake. You can also get iguanas, lizards and bears8217; paws, but really, those are just sideshows. It was evident Trieu8217;s slithery menu had brought him fame and money. Yes, that was his Landcruiser parked outside. The meal was varied: snake soup excellent for the libido, a waiter indicated8212;with a busy forefinger since we shared no common language, snakeskin wafers, snake spring rolls, snake bones, sauteacute;ed snake, snake stir-fry. It was, umm, a little chewy, a little like squid, but really interesting. I washed it all down with snake wine, much like the Goan variety8212;except for those dead snakes at the bottom of the bottle.
Avoiding Black Beauty
Try explaining the phrase 8216;8216;I8217;m so hungry I could eat a horse8217;8217; to the Japanese and they8217;ll give you some politely blank looks. They eat horses all the time, raw.
It8217;s called basashi, a delicacy favoured in Western Japan. I was working in Osaka as an English teacher when a couple of students of mine decided to broaden my culinary education by taking me to a local horse meat restaurant. I downed a couple of cups of sake before our food arrived8212;a dozen slices of marbled red-and-white horse flesh. Seeing me gazing at it, not altogether happily, one of my students urged me on, demonstrating the method. Sprinkle chopped ginger, chives, onion and garlic on a slice of basashi, fold it over, and dip into soy sauce with your chopsticks. Pop it into your mouth and eat.
I did so, picking the leanest-looking slice. It was surprisingly good. A little greasy, but tasty. The flavour was beef-like, but not really. It tasted like, well, horse.
There were three different cuts to choose from: Lean, fatty, or a lard-like white cut that wasn8217;t meat at all but cartilage. Cut from under the horse8217;s mane, it is chewy and squid-like. Five minutes of chewing later, it seemed no closer to being digestible than it had been on the plate. I gave up and just swallowed.
After another slice of the leaner cut, though, I started enjoying the meal, dismissing unbidden images of Black Beauty galloping majestically across a field from my mind.
I enjoyed basashi, but once was enough. Now if someone tells me they8217;re hungry enough to eat a horse, I just ask: 8216;8216;Raw or cooked?8217;8217;
Pet Peeves Down Under
Like many meat-eaters I8217;m squeamish about eating an animal that8217;s friendly, cute and hasn8217;t existed in my world view as an edible creature. If an animal has a name and is perceived as a pet, it8217;s not steak. Max the dog and Minnie the cat are strictly out of bounds. So it was before a trip to Australia that I8217;d imagined cuddly kangaroos hopping through grasslands with babies in their pouches.
On my first day there, I found the kangaroo on every souvenir, on the Australian coat-of-arms, and always, endearingly called Roo or Skippy from a famous cartoon show. By the end of a week of driving through the country, I8217;d seen more kangaroo road kill than I could count. By end of week two, I knew that kangaroos outnumber humans 3 to 1 in Australia, are often considered pests, are systematically culled and form a major export to Europe.
On the last day, as we sat in a Thai restaurant sipping Australian wine and looking out over Sydney8217;s Darling Harbour, the menu said kangaroo with basil and red curry paste. 8216;Why not8217;, I thought.
The meat was a deep red colour and, the maitre d8217; assured us, had only 2 per cent fat, most of it, the 8216;8216;good8217;8217; polyunsaturated variety. The sauce was delicious, the meat distinct, juicy though slightly chewy, like game-meat but not strong, and unlike beef or lamb.
Now with mad cow8217;s disease, foot-and-mouth, and bird flu around, if I8217;m offered a roo burger, I8217;d certainly get one.
