The Universe of Discourse

The food I couldn't eat

[ I wrote this in 2007 and it seems I forgot to publish it. Enjoy! ]

I eat pretty much everything. Except ketchup. I can't stand ketchup. When I went to Taiwan a couple of years ago my hosts asked if there were any foods I didn't eat. I said no, except for ketchup.

"Ketchup? You mean that red stuff?"

Right. Yes, it's strange.

When I was thirteen my grandparents took me to Greece, and for some reason I ate hardly anything but souvlaki the whole time. When I got home, I felt like a complete ass. I swore that I would never squander another such opportunity, and that if I ever went abroad again I would eat absolutely everything that was put before me.

This is a good policy not just because it exposes me to a lot of delicious and interesting food, and not just because it prevents me from feeling like a complete ass, but also because I don't have to worry that perhaps my hosts will be insulted or disappointed that I won't eat the food they get for me.

On my second trip to Taiwan, I ate at a hot pot buffet restaurant. They give you a pot of soup, and then you go to the buffet and load up with raw meat and vegetables and things, and cook them at your table in the soup. It's fun. In my soup there were some dark reddish-brown cubes that had approximately the same texture as soft tofu. I didn't know what it was, but I ate it and tried to figure it out.

The next day I took the bus to Lishan (梨山), and through good fortune was invited to eat dinner with a Taiwanese professor of criminology and his family. The soup had those red chunks in it again, and I said "I had these for lunch yesterday! What are they?" I then sucked one down quickly, because sometimes people interpret that kind of question as a criticism, and I didn't want to offend the professor.

Actually it's much easier to ask about food in China than it is in, say, Korea. Koreans are defensive about their cuisine. They get jumpy if you ask what something is, and are likely to answer "It's good. Just eat it!". They are afraid that the next words out of your mouth will be something about how bad it smells. This is because the Japanese, champion sneerers, made about one billion insulting remarks about smelly Korean food while they were occupying the country between 1911 and 1945. So if you are in Korea and you don't like the food, the Koreans will take it very personally.

Chinese people, on the other hand, know that they have the best food in the world, and that everyone loves Chinese food. If you don't like it, they will not get offended. They will just conclude that you are a barbarian or an idiot, and eat it themselves.

Anyway, it turns out that the reddish-brown stuff was congealed duck's blood. Okay. Hey, I had congealed duck blood soup twice in two days! No way am I going home from this trip feeling like an ass.

So the eat-absolutely-everything policy has worked out well for me, and although I haven't liked everything, at least I don't feel like I wasted my time.

The only time I've regretted the policy was on my first trip to Taiwan. I was taken out to dinner and one of the dishes turned out to be pieces of steamed squid. That's not my favorite food, but I can live with it. But the steamed squid was buried under a big, quivering mound of sugared mayonnaise.

I remembered my policy, and took a bite. I'm sure I turned green.

So that's the food that I couldn't eat.

[ Some of this 2007 article duplicates stuff I have said since; for example I cut out the chicken knuckles story, which would have been a repeat. Also previously; also previously; and another one ]

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