What was the worst meal that you ate out of politeness? Part 1
I was in Slovakia and had just found the home of some distant relatives. It was in the tiny village of Osturna; they had only one street, so they had never bothered to name it.
I was in their kitchen/eating area, and they offered me some bread and what I thought was cheese.
I picked up a piece of the cheese, bit into it, and realized it was lard. I probably should have just put it down, but I finished it.
I was trying to be polite. They probably thought what strange eating habits Americans have.
Then they fed me some chicken soup. It truly surprised me. It was the identicalsoup that my Mom always cooked! It was a watery soup with big globules of fat floating on the surface and some small chunks.
I had never realized that my Mom's soup was a Slovak soup; she had learned how to make it from her mom, who was an immigrant to the US from Slovakia.
I always hated my Mom's chicken soup. The floating fat was disgusting.
It almost made me gag. In fact, my wife still remarks on how rarely I order soup at a restaurant; that comes from years of eating soup that I couldn't stomach.
But sitting in that room in Slovakia, I very politely finished off the soup. A plate of half-cooked white rice with soy sauce.
I immigrated to the UK with my family when I was eight (back in 2000). Despite being a Chinese girl who spoke broken English, I quickly became good friends with a very lovely English girl called Ali.
She was the most welcoming,kind and patient person you could hope to meet, and very soon she invited me over to her house for tea.
Her mother is a similarly enthusiastic and friendly plump English lady. She told me with barely contained excitement that she has prepared Chinese food for dinner, to accommodate me.
My eight year old self was so flustered and happy to be invited, to be able to make friends and to fit in so well with my new English surroundings.
Her mother happily spooned me a plate of boiled white rice. 'Please have as much as you like!!' The rosy cheeked ladybeamed.
I stared at the sad pile of grains in shock. The rice was boiled in water and drained, not cooked in a rice-cooker. She had cooked it like pasta. The grains were half-cooked and very hard to chew.
I guess Alis mum had cooked it al dente, like pasta. Being a Chinese girl who grew up on fluffy sticky fragrant rice, this was horror like I've never seen before.
Why are all the grains separated from each other? Why is it in a watery puddle on plate? Why are you putting salt into the rice?.
'Well, rice is just the transport for the other dishes, Ill just ate more of those. ' I thought to myself in an attempt to cheer myself up.
As it turns out, the only side-dish provided was….a bottle of soy sauce. No vegetables, no meat, no cheese. Nothing.
Ali beamed, 'I love soy sauce! Yum!' she said, as she mixed soy sauce into her half cooked rice grains and took a huge bite.
By then, I basically just went, fuck it, and started to eat the rice. My eight year old mind is so confused by all that is happening and horrified by the bizarre quality of food.
Ali's family is clearly a well-off middle-class white English family living in South-East England. Yet here we are eating half cooked rice with soy sauce which is poverty food in China.
Not even poor people food, but proper poverty food that you eat to prevent yourself from dying of starvation.
Ali's mother was so sweet about it as well.
'Would you like another plate? Oh dear, I am afraid we don't have Chinese food very often, so I tried my best.' I tried to convey that it is delicious because I didn't want to hurt her feelings (and ruin my friendship with Ali, my first English friend in this foreign land.).
I guess it is just a case of both parties being too polite –Ali's mum clearly had no knowledge about Chinese cuisine, and chose the two most Chinese food she know about.
(BTW this was back in 2000, back when there weren't many Chinese restaurants in UK) She was trying so hard to be accommodating and was worried that her foreign English food might not be to the taste of a Chinese girl.
And I being a meek eight year old don't know how to say 'actually please can I have some other food to go with these badly boiled rice.'.
Ali and I are still friends now. But we tend to have pasta or pizza when we are around each other's place.
For more infomation >> Family Photo Of Barron Has People Going Nuts After They Saw What's In The Background - Duration: 4:17. 
For more infomation >> Family Photo Of Barron Has People Going Nuts After They Saw What's In The Background - Duration: 3:24. 
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét