I am going traveling for awhile and may be out of touch, but will return with new and better stories to share.
EE
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Fried Brain Sandwich Once there was a time I wouldn’t eat anything green. Meat, potatoes, a handful of boiled corn or carrots, white bread (batter whipped!), lunch meat, a stray fruit cocktail (red dye #1 through 27) and milk with cereal containing more sugar than a wedding cake. Fish or pizza on Fridays, and Kentucky Fried Chicken on Sundays, with the acceptable mildly green ‘Nat King Coleslaw’ and whipped potatoes with sad brown gravy, all served in white Styrofoam carrying cases. This went on for years. Then one day I decided to become a vegetarian, long before it was as widely acceptable as it is today, when you were considered un-American and traitorous for trying to live your life without consuming meat. People would wave a hamburger in your face and say, “You really want one, don’t you?” They couldn’t believe I didn’t secretly want to scarf bacon or meatloaf when nobody was around. Since those days I have constantly experimented with food. I eat meat sometimes and sometimes I don’t. I’ve tried a raw vegan diet and felt great. When I craved meat or chicken, I indulged in it, thinking my body was trying to tell me something. I lived a whole year on fish and fruit. Mostly, these days, I try to combine protein with some good fat, and complex carbohydrates. That would basically be whole grains and vegetables, and I try not to eat anything overly processed or too white in general. I never eat because I’m angry, or because I am bored, or because I’m feeling unloved. I eat to nourish my body. Yet, there are other times I celebrate and eat whatever the hell I want to, acknowledging that sometimes food is medicine and it has the power to make you feel sublime. So now, I am in China. An edible universe, a moveable feast, a carnival of crunchy delights, a cruise ship buffet table for the senses. Food is everywhere. I know, I know, I am a sucker for bizarre food stories and photos, but I don’t report these things from a superior viewpoint: I am just amazed at what China eats. Nothing is packaged in plastic, totally removed from its source, it’s right there in your face, and every part is available, from hoof to head, from beak to snout, from stomachs, to lungs, to brains, to eyeballs. Barbecued, spiced up, sautéed, grilled. Your choice, de-feathered or not, defanged or not, the raw and the cooked, available everywhere. There is a pleasant honesty to all this. As if to say, “Yes, we’ve learned through famine to eat these things, but dammit, they’re tasty, and if you can get over your squeamishness, you will probably agree.” I am going to try to eat widely and report on the things that make me cringe, reflexively gag, hold my palms up and say no! Where will I draw the line? Anthony Bourdain, a hero of mine, never did, as far as I know. Stay tuned to find out if I am as courageous as he. No matter what, it can’t be as bad as Spam, or the ‘Heart Attack Grill’s’ Quadruple Bypass Burger, or the heavily battered, deep fried calves’ brain, served on a bleached white hamburger bun that is very popular in the Midwest. One person’s poison is another person’s delight. The above slogan is printed in English on a bag of snacking crisps. This typically is the only kind of written English I ever see. When I landed in Shanghai, I was eating breakfast and the waitress eagerly wished that I enjoy my delicious ‘brokefast.’ I guess that made sense to her: break, broke, what’s the difference, right? And while I chuckled discreetly, these things add up inside, this assault on the language you use to explain everything, this dismantling of word particles, this evaporation of linguistic solidity. Which brings me to the 4th of July. If there ever was a year I was going to celebrate independence, it would certainly be this year. Yet, in the past, living abroad, I recognized that US holidays were not readily acknowledged and cheerfully directed my enthusiasm toward any local festivities that would have me. It usually endeared me to the residents and cleaned out any backlogged celebratory cheer. But this year, having allowed St. Patrick’s Day to slide by unacknowledged, and Easter, and Memorial Day, as well as the Summer Solstice (very big in Alaska) I was damned ready for a holiday, and even though there wasn’t the slightest indication here that it was a big day in the USA, I went out of my way to spread some red, white, and blue cheer. I had for ‘brokefast’ some oatmeal with blueberries, strawberries and plain white yogurt, topping it off with a hotdog with mustard. Then for lunch, I had a burger with real ketchup and a can of Papst Blue Ribbon beer that I scored in a convenience store. Everyday, firecrackers explode in China, and as I finished the PBR, someone lit some off and I imagined they were lit in my honor. Then I got a cake, decorated it with some red, white and blue candles, lit them up, and had some friends eat the cake, while telling them stories of the Boston Tea Party and the Declaration of Independence. Of course they didn’t understand, they were Chinese, but they were polite and pretended to, while enjoying my miming of Paul Revere getting the drop on half-drunk redcoats. All in all, a pretty good 4th of July. I think most expats would agree, rituals take on a new importance when you are far from home, when your language is mangled, you are misunderstood, baffled, cannot communicate, are reduced to a curiosity, a stereotype, a grinning barbarian with an abundance of arm hair and have trouble even buying something as simple as aspirin. The meaning of the holiday doesn't so much matter as much as being connected to something shared, something remembered, some allegiance to something hard-wired into your limbic system. I am already planning my Labor Day party. And a quick shout out to Melissa the firecracker born on the 4th of July! |
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