Stomachs on legs are proud to present

Who doesn't dream of bubbles in their yoghurt? My favourite tingly (though not really bubbly) yoghurt product is filmjölk, a really yummy Viking-era delicacy, which, due to the healthy bacteria, gets extra coagulated (a nicer word would be 'creamy'). But at the same time it has a pleasant fizzy tingliness reminiscent of those Nerds candies that crackle in your mouth, or a pottle of vintage kimchi that's been sitting at the back of your fridge for at least 6 months. You know – the really good stuff.

But I had heard rumours of Nordic yoghurt drinks that were not merely tingly, but also carbonated, and I was intrigued. So when I saw this little bottle (pictured above) next to the filmjölk, I snapped it up.
Turned out not to be a bubbly yoghurt drink (Calpis soda is probably as close as I'll get to that kind of heaven). Instead, it is a whey drink made from horse + goat milk.

Horse milk, the label claims, is highly digestible by humans and rich in nutrients. I tried it - it tasted like any whey-based sports drink, very cold and watery, except with dominant sour and gamey (goatish?) top notes. Probably won't be my quaff of choice on hot summer afternoons.
I'm not actually sure anyone should drink it unless they are a lactose-intolerant person who is recovering from a marathon or diarrhea.
I'd write it off as yet another example of a fad where people will try anything for their health - but apparently horse milk was so popular it was actually delivered door to door during the First World War in Germany. And horse meat is a staple old-timey roasting meat here too. So the traditionalists and modern organic types can get together and go to town on this one.

In other news, the Japanese beverage company Calpis has a newish lactic acid drink called MiLQ, "inspired by the benefits of mother's milk", which I'm dying to try.

I just read this cute blog on Blue Lotus about a person who has never liked raw oysters, trying one fresh in Hokkaido and becoming a convert. I like this story. I like it when people try something new and change their opinion. It always fills me with hope.

Except I know if I was her friend and there with her, she would probably still hate oysters. This is because of the way I embarrass and harangue people into trying new food.

I'm a bit of an old nasty hag, you see. I know that.

I recently berated someone I like very much for never having eaten a raw oyster. Our common friend had a dinner party and bought fresh oysters which he shucked himself. A real treat. I happily downed my allotted two and then turned to my friend D and enquired as to why he wasn't eating them?

"I've never tried them before"

"let me guess, you grew up in some inland rural town of Australia"

"yes" he said relieved that I understood that raw oysters were not native to him

"yeah, but you're 31 now and how long did you live in Melbourne? I'd understand if you were 18 and fresh from the bush, but goddamit your 31 and you still haven't even tried one? What the hell is wrong with you"

So then, ummm, yeah. He tried one. I patted him on the back and he gave me a look like I am evil.

I know I am. I like to point out people's sore points, give them a hard time, see if they'll crack under pressure. If I had not said anything maybe he would have tried one, decided he liked it and ate another. But having eaten one under such trying conditions, I'm sure that he was left with a bad after taste, raw oyster or not.

I guess that makes me a not very nice person.

But really the story of raw oysters and me is not really a very nice one to begin with.

I was eating oysters in the womb. I kid you not. My mother reckons that when she was pregnant with me she constantly craved raw oysters, even though she herself doesn't like them. Nonetheless she gouged on them, swearing it was me demanding them. Pregnant women are not supposed to eat raw oysters, or raw anything for that matter as a bad one can give you such violent food poisoning that it can kill your baby. So perhaps I was so demanding of raw oysters in the womb that it was impossible to resist, or maybe she was trying to abort me from the start. And given that my mother and I have never really gotten on, I sometimes think it was possibly a little of both.

Sometimes I like to think being fed raw oysters in the womb has given me some sort of bad raw oyster immunity

Today, happily alive and blogging, my raw oyster fetish continues unabated. They haven't killed me yet. However on a recent trip to Sydney to see my sisters, I'm now a little more wary of the true dangers of oysters. As per family tradition, we all trundled down to the Sydney Fish Markets and I bought five dozen oysters. 3 trays of Sydney Rock oysters (small and sweet), and 2 trays of pacific (larger and salty).





They were pre-shucked. It was the last day of the Easter holidays. We ate them and a few hours later my little sister was in agony out both ends.

I stayed up the entire night with her. Bought her glasses of water and kept a watchful eye to make sure she didn't cark it. She survived the night and the next morning was driven to the airport, placed in a wheelchair and flown back to New Zealand.

She has made a full recovery, but is unlikely to eat a raw oyster for a very long time.

I'm so glad that it wasn't her first time eating an oyster. I'm glad that she wasn't my friend D and that on top of being harangued into eating an oyster he wasn't nearly killed doing so.

I swear to the Flying Spaghetti Monster that the next time I tease someone into eating something they've never tried it will be fresh, cooked and unlikely to kill them.

I'm not sure if there was wild horse culling in North Rhein Westphalia last week, but when I went to buy chicken for our chipotle salad, the meat section contained a truckload of horse in various stages of being chopped, processed or cured.

The whole horse meat thing is something I can't get down with. Hypocritical (considering I am OK with eating other equally noble & cute animals), yes. Do I care? No.

I tried horse sashimi in Tokyo and don't think I'll ever get over the memory of that strong, funky taste.
Yuck.

In fact, one of my favourite Rheinland meat dishes, sauerbraten, was traditionally made with horse meat, though I've only had the beef version. It's marinated for a few days in vinegar and a sweetening agent, with spices like juniper and cloves, plus raisins, and then roasted. It turns out extremely tender and has that great sour/sweet/spicy edge to it. A very delicious christmas dish.

I guess I might one day give horse sauerbraten a go. But I've got to say the horsemeat bierschinken& jagdwurst below (luncheon meat, usually had on bread at breakfast time) looks like the devil's work.

Methods to make your udon noodle the least appetizing:

1. Cook the noodle as you normally do.
2. Separate the noodle, trimmings and soup.
3. Put the dry ingredients flat on a plastic plate and soup in a plastic bowl.
4. Put plastic wrap all over it.
5. Serve lukewarm on a hospital bed.


6. To prolong the appreciation of the food, when done do not take them away for another 12 hours and have a feast with ants.
7. Don't forget to keep injecting the 5% dextrose IV into your veins even though you are capable of having regular meals.

I was hospitalized for a severe onset of type-A influenza.

Before we knew what it was, as soon as they learned I have insurance (and was running a fever as high as 40 degrees), they decided to put me in a VIP room.

On my second day, I was eating three regular meals a day, covered in plastic, but they kept me on IV.

On my third day, the fever went down, but I lost my appetite.

Since it wasn't any of those dangerous tropical diseases like the Dengue or Malaria, I insisted to go home, which they reluctantly accepted.

They charged 340 baht ($10) for a very cheap looking toiletries set which one of the nurses brought to me saying "it's a gift for you!". Liar.

I am almost hating udon noodles and khaw tom (rice soup), traumatized from the appetite-stripping presentation at the hospital.