Stomachs on legs are proud to present

I've been debating what to call this blog post over in my head for a while now, I was thinking about calling it Mae Hong Son, The Other Provence, or Cooking with the Stars.

Let me explain. A couple of weekends ago I headed to Mae Hong Son for the weekend, where my long suffering beloved was taking a week long bromance with Thai food aficionados Austin Bush and Andy of Pok Pok fame. I got to stay for a single weekend, during which it mostly rained. So we decided to stay in and cook. We went to the markets and bought a huge array of not-so-exotic mushrooms other required ingredients for making gaeng hed.



I insisted on buying stink beans.



We also got the ingredients for Burmese pickled tea leaf salad and picked up some larb kuat, larb dip and grilled chicken on the way home.



Cooking got under way.




Some people would and do spend a fair sum of money to cook food with AB and Andy, instead I got bossy and insisted that someone invent a new yummy dish involving stink beans. Andy delivered big time with a dish of stink beans with kapi and mushrooms



Our other favourite Thai food expert was unable to attend the gathering as he was busy in Bangkok promoting his new fish sauce brand Mega Chef and couldn't make it to MHS, he was however present in fishy spirit.



We sat down to an astoundingly good meal





In an outdoor dining room located next to this picturesque rice field



Mae Hong Son is truly beautiful and I wish that I had gotten to spend more time there. Initially my plan was to finish writing my PhD up in MHS but this plan was scrapped after hard words from my supervisor and the realisation that job hunting from the sticks probably wasn't the smartest idea I've ever had. Nonetheless I plan to go back. It's not quite Provence however, as it was apparently described to my friend in New York by a hi so Thai acquaintance, but if fish sauce is your balsamic, stink beans your broad beans and larb dip your beef tartar, it could well be even better.

Fashion designer Karen Walker enjoyed her candlelit dinner at home, and TV3 newsreader Samantha Hayes spent an hour in the dark, thinking about the impact of her lifestyle on the climate.

Really NZ Herald?

We slipped in early to Momofuko with pal Ms Q in our whirlwind tour of NYC landmark eating. So no queue. We quickly decided what to eat and informed our extremely surly dragon lady waitress of our preferences

To start, hamachi with beet and apple, then some of the famous steamed buns, two pork, and one shitake for me which engendered funny looks from Hock and Ms Q. One bowl of the supposedly famous ramen and the skate to finish. A few "artisinal" beers which Hock chose.

Sashimi with beet and apple


This dish arrived as a painfully small portion of sashimi of a generally low grade. Words cannot fully describe the disappointment I felt over this fish. It could have, should have been lush thick pieces, with tart crisp apple playing off against a sweet beet flavour. Instead I felt like I was being fed left overs from a diners' meal at David Chang's more upscale Ko. Left over sashimi at a $16 US price point or there abouts.

Pork Buns


Shitake Buns


The buns arrived and offered a brief moment of reprieve. They were pretty good, but considering the price, (if memory serves they were around $9 for two) and the hyperbole, you'd hope for something decent. Especially given that it is still just a steamed bun - street food in most places in East Asia that can be had for a mere dollar or two - with much more succulent pork, speedier, sweeter service and less fuss. Such as this one, had in Japan for a quick bite (and created by someone who appears to be the Japanese "elvis" of pork buns)





But I digress....next arrived the ramen

Ramen


This was a major disappointment. With all the fuss that surrounds momofuku I half expected it to be the best bowl of ramen I have ever eaten. Alas it was at this point that Hock and I turned to each other in agreement and said "the emperor has no clothes". The broth lacked depth of flavour, the pork was like a dry Chinese char sui rather than a succulent fatty ramen pork. The noodles were definitely edible, but again at 16 USD for a bowl I felt as though David Chang had personally sucker punched me in the wallet.

With a single bite into the dry unmalleable pork, both Hock and I began to pine for "our" ramen guy on Thonglor, Bangkok. A simple ramen shop that serves the most unbelievably tender and delicious pork, with a dollop of homemade miso chili paste for the modest price of 80 baht. Or 2.50 USD. Now I know that labour costs and rents are higher in New York than Thailand, but you'd expect that labour perhaps to be more skilled or at least capable of preparing ramen of equal if not superior quality......but no the "labour" in question, standing behind the "noodle bar" seemed more concerned with the placement of his hispter head band and iphone communications than the succulence of our porky noodles. And certainly there was no appreciative yelling of "thank you very much for your custom" that cheers me to no end after eating at family style ramen joints.

Skate with brussel sprouts and kochujiang style sauce


The skate was fresh. And that about sums up all I have to say about this dish.

The beer was good, if not again a little over priced....aahh what a funky label and the words artisinal will do for prices these days




The total price of the meal USD$150 plus tips.....my Chinese grandmother would turn in her grave if she knew what we paid for a bowl of noodles and some pork buns.

Afterwards we headed to Chickalicious for a quick and reasonably price dessert

thumbs up...



it was good to see the original chef still working at her kitchen

Afterwards we landed at a bar in the lower east side that is reached by walking through a Japanese noodle bar. I walked in and half heartedly wished we had eaten here. We had a few whiskys chatted and Hock talked to the Japanese barmen. He told them we had just eaten at momofuko and how bad it was. They nodded in agreement and proclaimed it odd that "white people just love it there"




Which is exactly what momofuko is, it is gentrified "Asian" food cleaned up for a primarily white clientele who will unwittingly pay three times the price for an average bowl of noodles for the privilege and convenience of not having to navigate unfathomable menus and dirty toilets. "Eating the other, without meeting the other" is a term I recall being used once, which is odd, as I thought Japanese street foods like ramen and steamed buns had already been demystified to the general populous, and certainly a Japanese toilet is often far preferable to a western one...and here I was thinking that "Asian" is the new "White"....and that the time for repackaging a steamed bun and selling it for three times the price to scared white folks were over...how wrong I was.....David Chang may not be the greatest chef in the world but he certainly isn't the stupidest either.

So in the end we too had to come to the same general conclusion as David Chang himself conceded when interviewed about being given the James Beard award - confusion and general bewilderment that such praise is utterly undeserved.

Jake Houseman: Max, our Baby's going to change the world.
Max: [to Lisa] And what are you going to do, missy?
Baby: Oh Lisa's gonna decorate it.


One thing about guilt.
It's bad for digestion.

Generally, I have a talent for guilt. It often feels obscene to be posting about luxurious food stuffs on this blog. Maybe it is a case of the famous 'white guilt' but then I do think white people deserve to be guilty. They kind of suck.

Reading Nalika's post Hand to Mouth Eating#3 brought up a few more of those inescapable food-related guilt pangs.

I think somebody should outline an ethical guidelines for eating. Maybe this could be something like karma credits in Buddhism.
Maybe you don't have a 'nest egg' saved up, maybe you don't have health insurance, maybe you're stealing creme eggs on the reg. These stressors would be like credits for a bonus round.
"Don't get caught"
If you have a huge student loan, no savings to speak of and get down to loose change at least once a month, this gives you the potential for an extra ball to play with, or alternatively, one serving of Hokkaido scallops and caviar.

Does someone get automatic mega karma points (imagine a flashing pinball game screen) for living in the developing world? Do you get minus points for every ten grand you earn per year? Perhaps there should be a sliding scale with purchasing power parity: i.e. if you are the equivalent of a millionaire compared to what the poorest people in your country earn, your social debt increases.

Should poor people be absolved from caring about the planet? Is ecological thinking a luxury?

Does every choice in the 'free world' come with a burden of guilt?
If I take a vitamin supplement, is it automatically a bourgeois sin, because an Ecuadorian might not have the choice to do so?
Game over, next player.

I was telling my friend Hanna about my guilty thoughts, like maybe I should be working as a nurse in the Ruhr area, like maybe at some point I have to take some social responsibility in Germany even though I still feel a negligible feeling of connection to society in general here. She said "You just have to do what you feel naturally driven to do and have some useful talent for, and do it ethically and somehow you will end up having a positive impact on the world."

I guess I sort of agree with her, as long as your natural talent isn't exploiting Polish workers to pick white asparagus or sell mulled Glühwein in the Christmas Markets. Beyond that, I guess I can vote in the NZ elections, read the Mental Detox, try not to throw out half a pot of rice and freeze it instead for next week's chahan, send money to my mother, donate to charities, and just keep dreaming about a retirement fund.

Does all of this make me more hypocritical than the guy who eats a solid block of corn syrup for breakfast, drives an old gas-guzzling pick up truck and eats GE potatoes for dinner because they're the cheapest and therefore the most democratic.

This week I might spend ten euros on a fancy piece of cheese, next week I might have the IRD department banging on the door. Oh well, at least I don't care about fancy cars.


Johnny: Last month I'm eating Jujubes to keep alive, and this month women are stuffing diamonds in my pocket, I'm bouncing on shit and quick as that [clicks his fingers] I could be down there again.

From Johann Hari in The Independent:

Below the headlines about rocketing food prices and rocking governments, there lays a largely unnoticed fact: bananas are dying. The foodstuff, more heavily consumed even than rice or potatoes, has its own form of cancer. It is a fungus called Panama Disease, and it turns bananas brick-red and inedible.

There is no cure. They all die as it spreads, and it spreads quickly. Soon – in five, 10 or 30 years – the yellow creamy fruit as we know it will not exist. The story of how the banana rose and fell can be seen a strange parable about the corporations that increasingly dominate the world – and where they are leading us.

Welcome to peak banana, at least, for rich people. What much of the coverage of the latest round of coverage of Panama Disease (Black Sigatoka) ignores is that most of the world doesn't eat the bananas worst affected: the creamy yellow, sweet Cavendish bananas grown as vast monocultures for export to the West. From the American Phytopathological Society:

Although it is viewed as only a dessert or an addition to breakfast cereal in most developed countries, it is actually a very important agricultural product. After rice, wheat and milk, it is the fourth most valuable food. In export, it ranks fourth among all agricultural commodities and is the most significant of all fruits, with world trade totaling $2.5 billion annually. Yet, only 10% of the annual global output of 86 million tons enters international commerce. Much of the remaining harvest is consumed by poor subsistence farmers in tropical Africa, America and Asia.

The good news for people not eating a sweet banana, black sigatoka-resistant varieties seem like a viable substitute. The news from "Post-harvest characteristics of black Sigatoka resistant banana, cooking banana and plantain hybrids" seems to suggest that they resistant strains don't fare too badly when cooked and a minor positive is that the resistant hybrids seem to cook quicker, meaning less fuel will need to be used to prepare them. The human taste-testing does however seem quite limited.

Anyone who follows food writer Jeffrey Steingarten's columns in American Vogue will have often remarked on how odd it is to be reading about his cheese fondue experiments in a magazine that is a pillar of an industry that (whether consciously or not) by promulgating certain body types, implies a much less voluptuous version of what and how much we should be eating.

Last year the New Yorker magazine noted on its website "how bizarre it is that the dean of American food writers should be publishing his scientific food forays amid images of Caroline Trentini jumping in Prada and furs", for a piece about burger science and Heston Blumenthal. (see picture above).

The sometimes gothic or even horrific relationship between fashion and food was highlighted again this week when France's lower house of parliament adopted a measure that makes it illegal to "incite extreme thinness." The law will apply across all media, including magazines, websites and advertising.

The law was supposedly in part a reaction to the recent death of a Brazilian model of anorexia - and by all accounts is largely aimed at the extremely disturbing trend of 'pro ana mia' websites. Ana and Mia are shorthand for anorexia and bulimia respectively. The French Federation of Couture responded defensively, deriding a law that would allow the goverment to decide 'who is skinny and who is not'.

When it comes to the eating disorder websites, health experts say a crackdown will be hard to enforce as well as not necessarily having much effect on preventing the eating disorders.

So, having read this, I naturally went to one of those websites out of curiosity. Blech.... of course, it was disturbing, to say the least. The hints for distraction, deception and purging, were just too pitiful to be repeated here, involving talk of stomach-acid bursts, pretending to be vegetarian, and mind-controlling mechanisms involving food and repulsive visual stimuli.

In general I think mental illness as a whole deserves more sympathy and understanding from society - but these types of eating disorders are somehow much harder to feel sympathetic towards. At once deeply narcissistic and nihilistic: they are a scary reminder of how twisted the human mind can become...


So Coco Chanel isn't directly responsible for eating disorders that are far more complicated than simply feeling guilty for having eaten one too many strawberry-lavendar muffins or a boxful of chocolate eclairs from Laduree in Paris.

But I guess we all know women who never eat a full meal: who often have nothing to eat all day except for one slice of cake and one piece of toast, and temper their moodswings with anti-depressants, cups of tea and/or shopping on their credit card. Or boys who complained when you ate your whole plate full, because they are used to girls who left half their portion for them to consume? And what of Karl Lagerfeld, who reportedly stays trim by simply chewing things up and spitting them out?

Whether you think predigestive regurgitation is sexy or not. The relationship between fashion and food is pretty fucked up.

Girls, will you please just eat your granola?

Or even turn all those obsessive-compulsive controlling impulses into something useful like creating your own sourdough starters from the natural yeasts that hide on freshly milled flour?

Basically, just behave more like Jeffrey Steingarten. As if he was on a south beach diet.

Carl Zimmer is a freelance science journalist, who in his spare time, collects pics of science tattoos. Thankfully, food scientists represent with the above tatt of glucose and the below tattoo of my unofficial molecule of choice, capsaicin.

I’ve just been a bit slow in pulling on the latex gloves and getting out the hacksaw for an impromptu autopsy of the still warm but tasty corpse. Over the last few weeks, I noticed a few posts rueing the good old days of writing about food on the Internet, back in the golden year: 2005. Graham Halliday, writing on Word Of Mouth quotes a friend, scent of green bananas:

the best food blog ever is already dead... everything about it was personal and informative without giving away too much personal information, nothing about it was soulless... i never felt like it was a commercial site, nor that [he] was ever shilling for anyone nor anything. i didn't feel like he was using it as a personal resume, or as a platform to something else. it was just a really great journal about food

The blog in question, Fatman Seoul ended in ’05. Back then Conde Nast hadn’t wizened up to the online game. From Accidental Hedonist:

When it comes to food blogging, I miss 2005.

There. I've said it. I feel a whole lot better.

This has been on my mind for quite some time, partially exasperated by the fact that Epicurious, was voted 2nd best food blog this year in the Weblog awards. We've come a long way from all of the press the food blogs received in 2004/2005. In two years time we've gone from individuals and private citizens getting acknowledged and read for their writing and their passion for food to that bastion of individuality Condé Nast getting kudos.

This isn't to knock the fine folks over at Epicurious, but I've always felt that food blogging was the anti-Condé Nast - the place where you went to when you wanted to get an individual's opinion on food, not an institution's.

Coincidentally, 2005 was the first year that I started writing about food for my own website. Eating Asia, Real Thai and Chubby Hubby all started in 2005. Gut Feelings, as far as I know, was yet to be dreamt up.

So what killed food blogging in 2005?

If I had a healthier ego, I’d say that it was me, personally poisoning it with impure prahok. Otherwise;

Corporatisation of food blogging.

Around 2005, people started to get paid for writing food blogs. Not paid well, but paid nonetheless, often as another part of their existing role in a media organisation. (It is worth mentioning that apart from a small handful of online editors, nobody is making a living from writing solely about food online yet. I briefly made a living from it, but only because I was living in the world’s 13th poorest nation). Since ’05 Conde Nast’s aforementioned vehicle began, as did Word of Mouth, the Guardian’s attempt to shoehorn newspaper content into the online boot. Part of the problem with both blogs seems to be a lack of clear identity: are they a separate entity of the publishers or do they exist to shill for the offline publication?


Professionals moved online, food porn goes hardcore

More food writing and photography professionals – people who otherwise make a living from food media - joined the online fray in 2005; often freelancers independent of the publications for which they work. This had two distinct effects. Firstly, it raised the bar. At a guess, the slickness of photography, design, or the quality of the writing acts as a deterrent for new food bloggers, many of whom have something worthwhile to contribute. It scared the old guard who had previously drawn audiences without having magazine-quality pics or prose.

Secondly, it started a range of blogs with specialist topics dear to the heart of their creators, the antithesis of the “journal about food” for which scentofgreenbananas pines. Sometimes the new blogs seemed to be borne from the frustration of producing dull content for mass market publications; an outlet for the non-commercial and not readily marketable food ideas. Sometimes they were just borne from the love of a single topic. Bacon, for example. This atomisation of food sites makes it ever more difficult to find a niche.

The tide of shit

Like the rest of the Internet, most food blogs are not worth reading. For every thirty new food sites I come across, one will end up in my RSS reader. This lukewarm tide was not perceptible when I began in 2005 or at least, the ratio of good to bad was more favorable.

The problem with so much bad content is that the corporate and professional blogs seem to shine in comparison. Well written but poorly designed (or poorly photographed) blogs have little chance to stand out any more.

So, any chance of resurrecting the corpse in 2008?

For further proof of why Lynn Yaeger (and by association, the Village Voice) is brilliant:

Read Yaeger's column on cheap coats and a creepy new dieting recipe book.


I can't believe there is a book called Skinny Bitch in the Kitch! haha!

Now your favourite neurosis follows in the footsteps of TIGI haircare and a swathe of American drinks and packaged goods to come bottled with FUN gumdrop-style slogans like 'PMS' - Pissy Mood Snacks.

Tawandang Micro Brewery Rama 3, Bangkok Thailand

There are two reasons to go to Tawandang Micro Brewery and endure the horrible and loud baby boomer cover songs played by the house band. One is the beer. They have a micro brewery on site and serve fresh wheat beer. The second reason is the schweinhuxen a la Thai style where they boil a whole german style pork knuckle, then deep fry it and serve with chili sauce, mustard sauce, mashed potatoes and sauerkraut.

As always things get better when we all cooperate




Thai Beer Fraus


Half Thai Beer Frau



Swinhuksen a la Thai


NB: Mashed potatoes, sauerkraut and a chili

I've been pondering the notion of food racism lately....

Given Brillat Savarin's quote "tell me what you eat and I will tell you who you are" it only bares to reason that food in many senses becomes symbolic of difference, similarities and cross cultural miscommunication

Michael Pollen wrote that colonisation of one country over another starts with diet.

I still think back to the stifled work lunches and dinners between foreigners and Cambodians, where foreigners would pick at the Khmer food on the plate in a way that was symptomatic of more than just a reluctance to "break bread" with their dining companions.

So I was thinking of all the racist slurs for the "other" based on food such as:

Kraut
Curry muncher
Dog eater
Limey
Twinkie
Bounty Bar
coconut
frog eater

And it occured to me to take a look at what wiki considers to be the national dishes of various countries.

"A national dish is a dish, food or a drink that represents a particular country, nation or region. It is usually something that is naturally made or popular in that country.The concept is highly informal and vague, and in many, if not most cases the relationship between a given territory or people and certain typical foods is ambiguous. Typical dishes can vary from region to region, and the use of the term "national dish" does not always imply the existence of a "nation" in any legal sense...
Similarly, countries can share a national dish...National dishes also function as stereotypes. These can be either autostereotypes, describing a nation's self-image, or heterostereotypes associated with a nation in the outside world, or both. While most "national dish" stereotypes are positive to neutral, they can also acquire the status of ethnic slurs....In some cases, supposed national dishes are similar to urban legends, especially when relating to countries that are exotic from the perspective of another country. E.g., the popularity of fried spiders in Cambodia, dogs in Korea is largely overestimated in the West. Urban legend-like national dishes can also turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy, as demonstrated by the example of the Scottish deep-fried Mars bar, which is believed to have become at least moderately popular after English media circulated the story of its existence. For more on the stereotyped usage of foods and its political implications see Freedom fries."

Although Wiki's politically sensitive preamble quite rightly points out the pitfalls of having a "national dish", it still goes on to stereotype countries according to their food and it still lists fried spiders next to Cambodia.

Now I know that in some parts some Cambodians have been known to eat tarantulas but I'd hardly call it a national dish...when you go to Cambodia you will not find people wandering around snacking on big hairy spiders

For New Zealand, we have pavlova, fish and chips....ok....but what the F*&k is Colonial Goose?????

I'm sure that Canadians will be disappointed to be labelled as "Kraft Dinner Eaters" as much as the Taiwanese would dispute "stinky tofu" as their national dish

The list is the most detailed for English speaking countries, but pretty thin on the ground in terms of everyone else...which makes me think how little it is that we really know about the known edible world outside of our own distinct cultures.

It's a sad but true testament to the low levels of cross-cultural understanding in the world.....it's true, my Chinese aunties seem to believe that western food is primarily steak and chips

So in order to foster a greater sense of cross cultural understanding through food....we are inviting all non-contributing team members and anyone else who wants to, to compile and post a list of "must eats" from your home town....lest we continue to think of you solely as curry munching, colonial goose eating krauts


Wiki's National Dish List

• Argentina - locro, asado, dulce de leche, alfajor.
• Australia- Meat pie, hamburger with beetroot, Vegemite on toast, Pavlova
By state
Queensland - Moreton Bay bug
New South Wales - Balmain Bug
South Australia - Pie floater
• Austria - Sachertorte, wiener schnitzel (Vienna), apfelstrudel
• Bahrain - Machboos/Machbous, Muhammar
• Barbados - Cou-Cou and Flying fish
• Belgium - pommes frites, moules bruxellois (Brussels)
• Bhutan - ema datsi
• Brazil - Feijoada, rice and beans,pão de queijo,churrasco, coxinha, brigadeiro.
• Cambodia - ahmok, fried spider
• Canada - maple syrup, Kraft Dinner, Timbits, Pancakes.
"Cuisine is poorly defined in the national mythos, especially outside of Quebec. However, each region has a distinctive dish or in the case of Quebec, an entirely separate regional cuisine."
By Province or Region
Alberta - steak (beef or bison)
British Columbia - salmon steak, Nanaimo bar
Manitoba - Red River cereal
Newfoundland - fish and chips, flipper pie
Ontario - Pancakes
Quebec - poutine, pea soup, tourtière
• Chile - sea bass, palta (avocado), jaivas (food)
• Greater China
- The staple diets in Northern China are: mantou, bing (Chinese flatbread) and wheat noodles
- South: rice, rice noodles and rice congee.
By city/province:
Beijing - Peking duck, hot pot
Fujian - Popiah, Fotiaoqiang, Oyster omelette
Guangdong - Dim sum, slow cooked soup, Char siu, century egg
Hong Kong - egg tart, dim sum, BBQ pork with rice, wonton noodle soup, pineapple bun
Hunan - Orange chicken
Macau - Galinha à Portuguesa, baked pork chop bun
Shanghai - Xiaolongbao, ci fan tuan, red-cooked stews, Shanghai hairy crab
Sichuan - Szechuan hotpot, Kung Pao chicken, Twice Cooked Pork, Mapo doufu
• Colombia - Bandeja paisa, arepas
By Department:
Santander - Hormigas Culonas
Cundinamarca - Ajiaco
Valle - Sancocho
• Costa Rica - Gallo Pinto, Casados
• Cyprus - Halloumi
• Denmark – Pork Roast, Frikadeller, Smørrebrød
• Egypt - Ful medames, Kushari
• Ethiopia – doro wat (chicken stew) , injera
• Finland - Karelian pasties, mämmi, hernekeitto (Finnish yellow pea soup)
• France - Pot-au-feu, baguette (particularly Paris), cassoulet, truffles,
foie gras (declared part of the French cultural heritage by legislation in 2005)
By region
Alsace - Sauerkraut, tarte flambee
Bordeaux - Entrecôte with Bordelaise sauce
Brittany - Crepes
Burgundy - Coq au vin, beef bourguignon
Lorraine - Quiche lorraine
Normandy - Camembert
Provence - Bouillabaisse, salade nicoise, ratatouille
• Germany - Sauerbraten, sauerkraut, currywurst, doner kebab
• Greece - moussaka, fasolada, Greek salad
• Hungary – goulash
• Iceland - Þorramatur
• India - curry, samosas, naan, chapati, chutney, dal
By region
Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad Biryani, aavakaaya
Goa - Pork Vindaloo, Goan fish curry
Kashmir - Rogan Josh
Kerala- Sadhya
Punjab - Tandoori chicken, aloo gobi, raita
Tamil Nadu - Masala dosa, idli, appam
• Indonesia - Satay, gado-gado, nasi goreng, rijsttafel
• Iran - Chelow kabab
• Ireland – colcannon, Irish stew
• Israel - felafel, Chicken schnitzel
• Italy - pizza, pasta, minestrone, ciabatta, polenta (northern Italy)
By region
Bologna - tortellini, tagliatelle al ragù, mortadella, lasagne, Parmigiano Reggiano
Florence - Bistecca alla Fiorentina
Genoa - foccacia
Naples - Pizza Margherita, gelato
Milan - risotto, ossobuco with gremolata
Rome - porchetta, spaghetti carbonara, Stracciatella
Sardinia - pecorino, pane carasau
Sicily - arancini, caponata, ricotta
Torino - agnolotti, grissini, Gianduiotto
Venice - scampi
• Jamaica - saltfish and ackee
• Japan - sushi, Japanese noodles, tempura, donburi, curry rice
• Jordan - Mansaf
• Korea - kimchi, bulgogi, bibimbap, naengmyeon
• Laos - larb
• Lebanon - Kibbe, Tabbouleh
• Malaysia - nasi lemak, roti canai, char kway teow, satay, assam laksa
• Mexico - pozole, taco, mole, guacamole
• Morocco - couscous, tagine, pastilla, harira
• Myanmar - mohinga
• New Zealand – pavlova, fish and chips, Colonial Goose
• the Netherlands - stamppot, hutspot
• Nicaragua - Gallopinto
• Nigeria - Jolof rice
• Norway – lutefisk, fårikål, kjøttkaker
• Pakistan - Nihari
• Palestine - Musakhan
• Peru - ceviche, quinoa, maize
• Philippines - adobo, lumpia, sinigang, bistek, bangus
• Poland - bigos, barszcz, pierogi
• Portugal - Bacalhau, Feijoada, Pastel de Nata
• Romania - Mamaliga, Mititei, Cozonac, Fasole cu carnati
• Moldova – Grape-leaf Sarmale, Fermented wheat bran Borscht
• Russia – borscht
• Saint Kitts and Nevis - Coconut dumplings, Spicy plantain, saltfish, breadfruit
• Saint Lucia - green figs & saltfish
• Senegal - tiebou dieun
• Singapore - Hainanese chicken rice, curry laksa, chilli crab
• Slovakia - Bryndzové halušky
• Spain - cocido, tapas, paella, chocolate con churros
• Sri Lanka - rice and curry
• Sweden - pea soup, smörgåsbord, köttbullar, sill & surströmming
• Switzerland – rösti, fondue
• Taiwan - Suncake, Stinky tofu, Ba wan, Beef noodle soup
• Tanzania - ugali
• Zanzibar - octopus curry
• Thailand - Pad Thai, gaeng (Thai curry), jasmine rice, tom yam, tom kha gai
• Tunisia - Couscous, brik
• Turkey - döner kebab, pide, köfte, dolma, pilav
• Ukraine - pierogi
• United Kingdom
England – roast beef dinner, fish and chips, chicken tikka masala, English breakfast
Wales – laverbread, Welsh rarebit, Cawl
Scotland – haggis, deep-fried Mars bar
Northern Ireland – Ulster fry
Jersey – Jersey Royal potatoes
Isle of Man - kipper
• United States - apple pie, turkey and pumpkin pie (as part of Thanksgiving dinner), hamburger, hot dog, donut
New England - New England clam chowder, New England clam bake
The South - grits, corn bread, country fried steak, fried chicken, gumbo, barbecue
By state: See List of U.S. state foods for more
California - sourdough bread, hamburgers, fish taco
Hawaii - lau lau, Spam, poi, kalua pig
Illinois - Chicago-style deep dish pizza, Chicago hot dog
Louisiana - jambalaya, Gumbo, Crawfish, po'boy
Maine - lobster
Michigan - coney dog, Pasty
New York - buffalo wings, Manhattan clam chowder, pizza
Pennsylvania - Philly cheesesteak, hoagie
South Dakota - fry bread
Texas - chili con carne
• Uruguay - Chivito, asado
• Venezuela - pabellón criollo, hallaca, arepas
• Vietnam - bánh mì, phở
• Yemen - saltah

Whoever said that Fusion cooking was dead obviously forgot to tell the chefs of Bangkok




hmmm chicken larb pizza and sauteed fried rice with strawberries....

Tell me what is your worst fusion horror story?

Chicken and cranberry and camembert pizza always takes the prize for me...

In Singapore I recently had my first Indian mango...and what a revelation it was too.

Indian mangoes are squishy, sweet and delicately fragrant....they have a certain...perfume taste to them which makes them ten times a more exotic mango than your common all garden Southeast Asian mango, which are nice and mangoey but do not possess the same floral undertones as the Indian mango....overall I highly recommend Indian mangoes, they have lifted my enthusiasm for tropical fruits once again, just at the point when I thought there was little else to discover.



Another favourite fruit sampled in Singapore was durian, although Phil describes it "like eating vanilla custard in a latrine". I tend to think that people that say this have not had a perfect durian in season. I agree that out of season they can taste a bit like this, but in season they are like a warm sweet avocado with what I can only describe as a certain nyum nyum -ieness.

The smell that most people complain of is imperceptible to me. I am, it appears durian proof. So I bought one on the street in Singapore. I was all excited until Hock reminded me that I could not take it back to the hotel, in a taxi or on the train. So I opted to eat it on the street.

As I stood there nibbling on large fleshy soft chunks of durian a group of Indian women wandered past and peered inside my polystyrene container and I overheard one proclaim just within earshot


"oh I didn't know that they could eat that"

So, I now find myself further and further west - this time Dubai. The disneyland for adults, where all things artificial can be found, if not valmorphanized from sand, then transplanted from Germany, UK, France, Russia, Philippines, India, and yes even little old New Zealand.

In fact I found myself watching a polynesian folk band with accompaning dance troupe this evening. Transporting us all by Air Polynesia to the many destinations of the Pacific. Now being a young Kiwi man, I couldn't help but have a good old yarn with the performers. It had been a while since I had been greeted with such a phresh-as accent. Even my dear friends Maytel and Hock are eclipsed in comparison. So as I listened to Harry from South Auckland, strum away some bar chords, I was to learn that one of the dancers, a Rarotongan New Zealander, hailed from Brotown's finest Morningside. She, being a worldly 18 year old, was discovered at a hangi where she was performing in a dance-off; Morningside Next Top Model, or something to that effect. The other dancer hailed from Flaxmere, near Hastings. Both towns renowned for their cosmopolitan lifestyles.

However my time has not been simply occupied by conversations with my fellow suburban compatriots. Earlier in the week, I found myself eating white asparagus, kartoffelsalat, lieberkase and sauerkraut and drinking 1 litre steins of Maibock a rye-based beer from Bavaria. Yes that time of year had once again arrived, Bavarian Maifest. Some good old-fashioned knee-slapping drinking, Munchen-style, complete with kitschy Bavarian singers - lulling you away to the uber-sweet melodies of the Black Forest. After the third stein I completely forgot I was living in an Islamic nation, which is devoid of any forest. Such is the magic of Dubai, in creating such illusions and fantasies in a way that not even Walt Disney himself could beat.

However, my experience of listening to a troupe of Filipino singers sing the songs of Tuscany and Umbria whilst dining in an Italian trattoria and hitting the slopes of one of the world's largest indoor slopes, where temperatures outside reach 50 degrees, whilst inside they are minus 10 - took this illusion a little too far (Just like Disney did with Tim Allen in the Shaggy Dog).

So there it is, Dubai, ruled by a conservative minority - (many of which drink various fine wines from plastic pepsi cups in restaurants), yet dominated by people from a multitude of countries, many of which frankly couldn't give a toss about the local culture and decide to implant their own into the vast desert landscape. And to hell if a few innocent camels die in the name of lush fresh white powder snow!