Food is a big part of my life, I really enjoy cooking and until I met my wife I always thought I was pretty good at it. It seems that in actual fact my culinary expertise was quite limited and I have now been shown the error of my ways.
When I was a kid I was really picky when it came to the types of food I would actually eat, I would not eat many vegetables and there were many occasions when my dinner plate would leave the table as full as when it arrived.
I have to say that in recent years I have become more adventurous and I have tried many of the foods that I would never even consider and they have actually become some of my favourites. We nearly had a family crisis a few weeks ago when my sister in law threatened to eat all of the Cauliflower cheese before I could get to it. Luckily she was only joking and there was plenty left by the time the serving dish made its way to me. I think in some ways my present attitude towards food must be making up for my previous fussy eating habits as nowadays I really enjoy a challenge and find myself actually looking for different types of foods to try.
My first experience of unusual food was on a trip to Thailand, there was a food court just over the road from the hotel and I pointed at an item on the menu and received something that bore no resemblance to what I wanted. I was a bowl with a weird soup and even weirder contents. I somehow managed to get a description of what I was eating and it turned out to be Steamed fish innards. To make this a more acceptable dish they accompanied it with a Quails egg.
On my last trip to Australia we all ended up in a restaurant that had a platter which had 3 alternative types of meat on offer so I had to give it a go. They had Crocodile, Ostrich and Kangaroo all one plate. It is often said that the Australians are the only nation to eat the animals featured on their crest but after trying Kangaroo and Ostrich I can see no reason for them to stop. I actually tried both of these again just a few weeks ago at the Good Food show in Birmingham where they were serving up these tasty meats in a Burger. I have to say that I was not really a fan of the crocodile, it had a slightly fishy taste but the thing that put me off the most was the texture. It was a little too slimy for my liking.
Also at the Good Food show I had the chance to try a Wild Boar Hot dog, this was really nice and I am eager to try this again if the same stall is at the summer show when we return in June.
While all these are quite exotic things to try, they are still just meat and you know that this isn’t going to be too much different to any of the other types of meat you have tried in the past. One of my real challenges came when I went to a French Bistro in Birmingham and found that they had Snails on the menu as a starter. I looked at it a few times and in the end my wife dared me to have them. I asked the waiter what to expect and he told me that they were like mussels so I went ahead and ordered them. He lied. Snails are nothing like Mussels. For a start, they look nothing like Mussels, they actually look like snails. The portion I had were not served in the shell, they were just placed on the plate among the garnish so you were under no illusion on what you were just about to eat, Secondly they are a little more chewy than Mussels and finally they have a weird earthy taste that stays with you even after the Snail has gone.
I don’t think I would be in any rush to try these again, they say that they are an acquired taste but I am not really inclined to eat enough of these to acquire the taste for them.
So, that is my experience of “Alternative cuisine”, it’s not exactly a bush tucker trial but when you consider that as a kid I would not eat cabbage I really have come a long way.
Click here to read more tales of “Culinary Adventures” from Danny Davies.
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