A Tale of Adventurous Eats
December 1, 2006
I have never been an adventurous eater. My English heritage means that the farthest I ever need to go down the road of culturally exotic food is a brief rendezvous with cauliflower cheese or Shepherd’s pie. I enjoy things like curry or Chinese food, but anyone who knows anything about either of these foods would probably look at my Americanized selections and make one of those half-concealed, scoffing, throaty chuckles designed to let me know that I’m that boring white girl who would be gastronomically screwed if she ever set foot in a country that was not involved in the Revolutionary War.
But in college, you try new things, and so I sought to rid myself of the mantle of Most Boring Eater Ever. I am a student at a global university in a diverse city. It was time to embody that.
And so I went to Chinatown. A walk down Beach Street will cause one’s nose to encounter a myriad of scents bizarre, delicious, and, occasionally, stomach-turning. After a few wrong turns, I ascended the steps of Thailand Cafe with my intrepid and generous friend Lucia. After being seated, and with a steaming cup of green tea in front of me, I combed the menu for the weirdest (and cheapest), most unlikely-to-be-eaten-by-me food that I could possibly find.
I settled on a delicious appetizer of chilled pork intestines with Five Essences sauce, to be followed by a main course of stir-fried noodles with eel. As I ordered, our waitress pulled a killer eyebrow raise/head shake/disapproving grunt combination move. I asked Lucia what she thought of what was about to befall me (or, conversely, change my life for the better). She was silent for a few seconds and then, “Yeah. Godspeed.”
The intestines came first. OH. MY. GOD. They look like intestines. Exactly like what intestines should look like. Cut up into inch long sections, they are a curious shade of pinkish grey, and smell like souring chicken that has been sitting on the porch on a hot day. Each smooth piece is of a unique, softly bent shape. There is a hole through each one, and if you look inside it you can see the bumpy surface of the intestinal wall. From a biological standpoint, it might be interesting. But this is not a science experiment; this is my dinner. And I can see exactly why nature made intestines an internal organ.
I also have that Five Essences sauce, and I have a feeling that this is my saving grace. Vaguely wondering what those five essences might be, I pick up a piece of intestine and drench it in sauce. Using the chopsticks that I’m handling terribly, I move it towards my mouth, dreading what I know is the inevitable end to this situation. I look at Lucia, and she gives me a look that says plainly, “GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN!” I pop it in my mouth. I chew.
At first, I can’t really taste anything but the sauce, which is fine as long as I pretend that it’s not really a burning sensation that I’m feeling. I can, however, feel the texture of the intestine, and it’s not good. It’s rubbery, bouncy, and I feel like my jaw is being sprung back open after each bite that I take. It’s mushy too, and now I can taste the strange smell that it brought to the table. It tastes like nothing I’ve ever eaten, but rather like something that’s grey and alive. There’s a bizarre, almost fishy aftertaste, which is almost a relief when I think that that taste’s presence in my mouth means that I am no longer actually chewing the intestine.
And then, because I have a full plate of intestine and I’m not going to stop so soon, I repeat this process three times. On the fourth time, I decide to be daring and eat the intestine with no sauce. This episode quickly ends my brief and torrid romance with pig’s intestines. It’s a grey taste explosion of terror, with nothing to hide the texture of the intestine. I am ready to move on to the next course.
The eel noodles looked just like your standard lo-mein, except for the long, slightly curled black strips of eel that populate the dish. Each strip has a crease down the middle, with horizontal ridges running the length of the strip. After the intestines, this is as welcome as birthday cake, but I’m still a bit distracted by the way these things curl. It’s weird. I’m reminded of that scene in The Little Mermaid where those two eels, Flotsam and Jetsam, eyes aglow, contort themselves into a variety of complicated positions and dance moves for the purpose of creeping out Ariel. But I will not be deterred. I pick up an eel with my chopsticks (which I handle so badly I’m contemplating asking for a fork), and then I just go for it.
The most overwhelming taste I’m getting is fishiness. The texture is a bit odd, but if I shut my eyes tight, I can pretend it’s just a really thick, dark colored noodle. Pretending my food is something else may be counterproductive to my purpose of experiencing new things, but, at this point, I’m willing to cut corners. Still, the eel is tolerable. No, not tolerable, it’s good! I begin to really dine on this dish; I can eat eel! Granted, I’m practicing an 8:1 noodle to eel ratio with each chopstickful, but this, this is all right.
Afterwards, I think that in my attempt to take to my new exotic foods, I may have slightly overdone it with the eels. I feel a bit sick, and recall telling Lucia on the train ride home that I’m never eating again, exotic or not. Of course, I don’t mean that. I have braved the frowns of Asian women, the ridiculous potential for the pun of “You have intestines in your stomach!,” and the near-mutiny of my taste buds to sample this food. I tried them and grimaced and digested and even enjoyed a little—and look, I’m still alive! Foods like haggis, tripe and nameless, fatty smoked meat may not be on my short list of Things To Eat, but now I know that experimenting with such things is exactly the kind of adventure that I want to be having.
And if nothing else, it’s terribly fun to take my food back to campus and freak my friends out with tales of what I’ve just done. And I would be lying if I said that I didn’t take an intestine or two to a high place and drop it to see just how springy they are. If you were ever curious, pig intestines really bounce.