Anyone for duck foetus? and other odd Laos/Vietnam foods
Anyone for duck foetus? and other odd Laos/Vietnam foods
When living in South Korea, I tasted bundegi: boiled silkworm larvae (once was enough) and mettugi: crunchy fried grasshopper, for dares. I tried raw fish and octopus, got a taste for dried then blowtorched squid-on-a-stick. I became addicted to shin gimchi jjigae: cabbage fermented for 3 years in chilli, garlic and ginger then made into soup. Most controversially, I nibbled a meaty lump from a bowl of bosintang: dog soup. So I reckoned I was a bit tough in the 'odd foods' department. I hadn't counted on befriending Laos lass Tou and her uncle in Luang Prabang night market, Laos.
In Luang Prabang night market, there's a lively alleyway crammed with little food stalls. I went there every night for the 5000 kip (30p), all-you-can-pile-in-the-bowl vegetables and noodles buffet. Spot on! The first time I went I was a bit grossed out walking by stalls selling bits of pig brain, intestines, liver, kidneys and even whole heads out of slop buckets, as the sellers waved plastic bag-on-twig flags at the flies. I gradually got accustomed to the offal through its daily 50 second inclusion in my dinner time. But it didn't prepare me for the foods I was to try.
One evening, Tou suggested that if I like spicy food (Too right! Chicken Rogan Josh is well up there on my list) then I should try the papaya salad she was making. After a chopstickful, then 10 minutes of firemouth (Rusholme vindaloos and Osaka tablespoonfuls of wasabi are gaylord soft in comparison), I suggested she rename it 'red chilli salad with a sliver of papaya'. Not content to let me eat something more regular, Uncle forced me to try a sliver of pig skin. It wasn't crackling or crispy, with its only slightly cooked, juicy and centimetre-thick white rind. And with the hairs and goosebumps protruding out the other side, it felt like a rubbery bit of a fancy dress moustache. "No I don't want to try any buffalo skin, thank you."
The next evening's delicacy for me to savour was ant's eggs and fish paste. Actually, it didn't taste that bad, but I didn't like it because it sounds so wrong. Leaving the foodmarket, I made the mistake of asking Uncle why the piles of white-shell eggs had the numbers, 1, 2 or 3 written in blue pen on the shell. When will I learn to keep my mouth shut? Literally.
Uncle was thrilled that I'd shown interest in another Laos delight and bought two eggs from the '2' pile. It turns out they were duck eggs, but unlike their chicken counterparts, these weren't unfertilised blobs of yellow in white. Uncle uncapped one to reveal a 2-day/week(?) developed baby duck, sat upright in clear juice and attached to a hard yellow yolk that had hair's breadth black lines running through it: placenta and blood vessels, I presume. He necked the amniotic fluid, cracked the shell open wider and wolfed down the foetus whole. As I was wearing the most disgusted facial expression to his dessert, I was cajoled into opening the other egg. Jocken slurped some of the juice, and Terrie and I nibbled the smallest crumbs of the yellow lump we could pick off. It had a much richer flavour than chicken yolk, and was a melt-in-your-mouth guacamole smooth.
Ever the scientist, I studied the foetus, prodding its partially-formed and still transparent head with curiosity. But then I saw its open eye and dropped the egg in shock. The shell split open and the tender foetus splattered into the gutter. So what does one do next? Pick it up? I apologised to the unborn duck, sighed dishearteningly and walked away to Uncle's, "Don't worry about it". I felt guilty leaving it there, but would picking it up, dusting it off then scoffing it have been any better? At least a crooked-tail cat got a meal.
Mooching through Laos, I've come across some odd things on menus. Some may be typing mistakes, others sound pretty minging, and a few plain unfathamable. Anyone fancy:
Breastfast
Rap beef
Fried spaqhetti with beef
Soup eggs vegetable not saited
Transparent noodle with chicken soup
Soup pork not saited
Fried morning glory with pork
Fried morning glory with chilli
Steamfish inside banana life
Steam picklefish and stewed vegetables
Day meat smashed style Luang Prabang
Sausage buffalo style Luang Prabang
Lao style intestine, onion salad
Silent,Deeply pork
Pork Fried ginger (chilli)
Banana flower soup with pork
Muang Sing Sour Rice (no meat) - White rice mixed with tomatoes juice, fried garlic chilli served with cucumbers and water buffalo rind
me (noodle) yum yum with vegetables
Rice and F.hot morning glorying & fried egg
Baguette + omelet with fresh minced milk & tomato ?
In Vietnam, the occasional restaurant boasts just as yukky foods as in Laos:
Roasted chicken with black leg
Noodie soup brown in fat with hear and kidney
Turn upside down rice - pickles brown in fat with beef
Dove stew with eastern medicine
Snail browned infat with chilly
Grilled perfume snail
Sea product miscellaneous mix.
Also:
And not forgetting the countless dog meat restaurants in Hanoi and by the roadsides. And is it going to get any better in China!
When living in South Korea, I tasted bundegi: boiled silkworm larvae (once was enough) and mettugi: crunchy fried grasshopper, for dares. I tried raw fish and octopus, got a taste for dried then blowtorched squid-on-a-stick. I became addicted to shin gimchi jjigae: cabbage fermented for 3 years in chilli, garlic and ginger then made into soup. Most controversially, I nibbled a meaty lump from a bowl of bosintang: dog soup. So I reckoned I was a bit tough in the 'odd foods' department. I hadn't counted on befriending Laos lass Tou and her uncle in Luang Prabang night market, Laos.
In Luang Prabang night market, there's a lively alleyway crammed with little food stalls. I went there every night for the 5000 kip (30p), all-you-can-pile-in-the-bowl vegetables and noodles buffet. Spot on! The first time I went I was a bit grossed out walking by stalls selling bits of pig brain, intestines, liver, kidneys and even whole heads out of slop buckets, as the sellers waved plastic bag-on-twig flags at the flies. I gradually got accustomed to the offal through its daily 50 second inclusion in my dinner time. But it didn't prepare me for the foods I was to try.
One evening, Tou suggested that if I like spicy food (Too right! Chicken Rogan Josh is well up there on my list) then I should try the papaya salad she was making. After a chopstickful, then 10 minutes of firemouth (Rusholme vindaloos and Osaka tablespoonfuls of wasabi are gaylord soft in comparison), I suggested she rename it 'red chilli salad with a sliver of papaya'. Not content to let me eat something more regular, Uncle forced me to try a sliver of pig skin. It wasn't crackling or crispy, with its only slightly cooked, juicy and centimetre-thick white rind. And with the hairs and goosebumps protruding out the other side, it felt like a rubbery bit of a fancy dress moustache. "No I don't want to try any buffalo skin, thank you."
The next evening's delicacy for me to savour was ant's eggs and fish paste. Actually, it didn't taste that bad, but I didn't like it because it sounds so wrong. Leaving the foodmarket, I made the mistake of asking Uncle why the piles of white-shell eggs had the numbers, 1, 2 or 3 written in blue pen on the shell. When will I learn to keep my mouth shut? Literally.
Uncle was thrilled that I'd shown interest in another Laos delight and bought two eggs from the '2' pile. It turns out they were duck eggs, but unlike their chicken counterparts, these weren't unfertilised blobs of yellow in white. Uncle uncapped one to reveal a 2-day/week(?) developed baby duck, sat upright in clear juice and attached to a hard yellow yolk that had hair's breadth black lines running through it: placenta and blood vessels, I presume. He necked the amniotic fluid, cracked the shell open wider and wolfed down the foetus whole. As I was wearing the most disgusted facial expression to his dessert, I was cajoled into opening the other egg. Jocken slurped some of the juice, and Terrie and I nibbled the smallest crumbs of the yellow lump we could pick off. It had a much richer flavour than chicken yolk, and was a melt-in-your-mouth guacamole smooth.
Ever the scientist, I studied the foetus, prodding its partially-formed and still transparent head with curiosity. But then I saw its open eye and dropped the egg in shock. The shell split open and the tender foetus splattered into the gutter. So what does one do next? Pick it up? I apologised to the unborn duck, sighed dishearteningly and walked away to Uncle's, "Don't worry about it". I felt guilty leaving it there, but would picking it up, dusting it off then scoffing it have been any better? At least a crooked-tail cat got a meal.
Mooching through Laos, I've come across some odd things on menus. Some may be typing mistakes, others sound pretty minging, and a few plain unfathamable. Anyone fancy:
Breastfast
Rap beef
Fried spaqhetti with beef
Soup eggs vegetable not saited
Transparent noodle with chicken soup
Soup pork not saited
Fried morning glory with pork
Fried morning glory with chilli
Steamfish inside banana life
Steam picklefish and stewed vegetables
Day meat smashed style Luang Prabang
Sausage buffalo style Luang Prabang
Lao style intestine, onion salad
Silent,Deeply pork
Pork Fried ginger (chilli)
Banana flower soup with pork
Muang Sing Sour Rice (no meat) - White rice mixed with tomatoes juice, fried garlic chilli served with cucumbers and water buffalo rind
me (noodle) yum yum with vegetables
Rice and F.hot morning glorying & fried egg
Baguette + omelet with fresh minced milk & tomato ?
Was the pig a philosopher or a computer hacker?
Anyone for seconds?
Despite these odd main courses, Laos has some delicious national dishes. The PVO cafe's (Vientiane) scrummy foot-long hot baguette rammed full of pate, pork, ham, tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber, beansprouts, chilli sauce and a fistful of coriander got my breakfast vote every morning. But the best meal I had was a giant bowl of noodle soup containing handfuls of freshly torn coriander and mint leaves and hearty chunks of water buffalo rump. If anyone's passing, it's available from a noodle stall by Luang Nam Tha bus station (near the Laos-Burma-China border) and is the perfect stomach filler for a 14-hour-long bus journey through mountainous north Laos. Shame about the in-bus entertainment (another instalment).
In Vietnam, the occasional restaurant boasts just as yukky foods as in Laos:
Roasted chicken with black leg
Noodie soup brown in fat with hear and kidney
Turn upside down rice - pickles brown in fat with beef
Dove stew with eastern medicine
Snail browned infat with chilly
Grilled perfume snail
Sea product miscellaneous mix.
Also:
And not forgetting the countless dog meat restaurants in Hanoi and by the roadsides. And is it going to get any better in China!
posted by Graham, Manchester at 9:24 am
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