Speaking of ConFrancisco, we should mention that worldcons do not only present you
the opportunity to meet people you've previously only known in print. They also
provide maybe the only yearly occasion to see old friends again. Winning our second
Hugo at ConFrancisco was indeed pleasant; it was a bright moment in our Worldcon
trip. But what we value even more was reunions we had with many friends and
acquaintances, including the writer of the following article.
 Nicki told to us at ConFrancisco that
Mimosa would produce an issue concentrating on food and would we have
anything interesting to say?Do birds fly?My spouse and partner for 12 years
just recently retired from the Air Force after 20 years of faithful service. During
those 20 years, he has literally traveled around the world and in so doing, has
sampled cuisines that we in America just don't normally experience (in some cases,
this is a Good Thing). I joined him in 1981 in Guam, so I missed some of the more
interesting fair such as 'Alpo on a Cracker', and 'Pasties'. The following is
Dafydd's first-hand experiences; I'll take up the narrative again at the end.- - - - - - - - - -
David Neal Dyar, TSGT, United States Air Force, Retired: My first experience with truly alien
cuisine was in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, my first active-duty assignment,
from 1973 to 1976. Sandwiched between Lake Michigan and Lake Superior, it has more
in common with Wisconsin, to which it connects to the west, than to Michigan proper,
to which it connects not at all. Settled mostly by Finnish immigrants in the 1880s,
the 'U.P.' is home to numerous saunas and a turnover-like meat pie called a 'pasty'
(PAH-stee). The easiest way to tell a newcomer to the U.P.(besides the fact that
they have no idea what the initials 'U.P.' mean) is their obvious confusion over
the many signs exhorting 'pasties' -- the plural of pasty, not, as is most often
assumed, the ornaments of striptease dancers (PAY-stee). Pasties are strictly a
local delicacy, being bland and almost tasteless, with a consistency like boiled
leather wrapped in stale dough. Fortunately, sub/hoagie/hero/grinder sandwich
shops also abound to supply much-needed sustenance. The trick is to get them home
before they freeze.My next assignment was in Turkey,
from 1976 to 1978. The Turks like to think of themselves as being vastly different
from the Greeks, whom they despise, but their cuisine is actually quite similar.
Almost everything is soaked in olive oil, which has a devastating effect on
regularity in those unaccustomed to such plenty, resulting in a condition commonly
known as the Turkey Trots. Since the Turks owned and operated the NATO bases in
their country, there was no escape from their culinary method. Turkish sanitary
facilities are little more than ceramic sewers, so it was a good idea to build up
one's immunity before attempting off-base dining establishments.
The main constituent of Turkish food
is goat and lamb. Beef is almost unknown outside of Istanbul and even there it's
imported. While we had beef patties for hamburgers on-base, it was topped with a
local goat's-milk cheese whose distinctive flavor earned them the nickname
'lamb-burger'. These were actually quite good, once you got used to the olive oil
in which they were fried. There was also a local 'pizza' made with pita bread,
ground beef(?) and goat cheese which has been likened to 'Alpo on a cracker'.Several local foods earned a large
American following, the best of which was a roast lamb dish called 'Doner kebab'.
This was basically a haunch of lamb turned on a spit and basted with (you guessed
it) olive oil and sesame seeds and sliced off in slabs as it cooked. Served on a
bed of lettuce and pita bread, it was the all-time favorite local dish. There was
also a fruit drink called 'Meysu' which came in three flavors: cherry, orange and
grape. This was also quite popular but had to be filtered carefully because it was
laced with wormwood.I spent a year in Greenland from
1979 to 1980, but everything I ate there was imported from either America or
Denmark. There was some very good cheese called 'Maribo', with a consistency like
Gouda but a flavor and color closer to Swiss, some of the richest and sweetest
butter I've ever tasted (which was also a favorite with the Arctic raven)and Danish
pastries that were served daily with breakfast. The only reason we did not fatten
up to blimpish proportions is that the temperature averaged 20-below for most of
the year and you could burn off a thousand calories just walking from the dining
hall to the dormitory. If you carried any food with you, you could expend another
thousand calories beating off the ravens (wingspan up to six feet!) that would
swoop down on you. A common trick played upon new arrivals was to drop a few of
foil-wrapped pats of Danish butter in the pockets of their parkas during lunch.I was in the Philippines from 1980
to 1981. 'Pancit Canton', a variation on chow mein, and 'shu pao', a steamed rice
dough stuffed with teriyaki pork or beef and a hard-boiled egg, were particular
favorites also found later on Guam, but you could find almost anything in the
Philippines. Within walking distance of the main gate were the Kobe Japanese steak
house, Peking House Chinese restaurant, Muy Thai restaurant and Didi's Pizza Parlor.
One had to be careful ordering a pizza 'with everything' as that request would be
taken quite literally, resulting in a pyramid of toppings of dubious origin. The
streets were lined with vendors selling everything from raw sugar cane to Mongolian
barbecue (a sort of Asian smorgasbord) to barbecued beef, chicken and pork on a
stick. The latter was quite an adventure for two reasons. First, each stand had
its own unique blend of barbecue sauce, ranging in intensity from mild to deadly,
whose potency could only be ascertained by trial and error. Second, while there
were chickens and caribou (a kind of ox) a-plenty, I don't recall ever seeing a pig
anywhere in the Philippines, raising some serious questions as to what constituted
'pork' in these dishes. Given the Filipino taste for canine and feline entrees, it
was probably best to avoid pork altogether or order it with extra sauce. The sugar
cane was also a good investment, as it proved an excellent antidote to even the most
powerful barbecue sauce.
One Filipino 'delicacy' doubled as
an initiation for newbie Marines and a general test of manhood for both gennders.
'Balut' (Ba-LOOT) is a duck egg allowed to develop to the embryonic stage and then
fermented in the shell. The result is best classified as a biological weapon. I
have no idea how it tastes, but the rotten-egg smell will gag a maggot at twenty
paces -- and that's before the shell is cracked open. Since taste and smell are
co-dependent, that was more than enough for me.Guam, where we resided from 1981 to
1983, is a polyglot with almost no native culture left. Filipino and Japanese
cuisine are to be found all over the island. One of the few remaining vestiges of
Chamorro culture is the 'fiesta' -- actually more of a luau -- and the 'boonie
pepper', a cross between the jalapeno and kung pao peppers. The boonie pepper is
so potent that the oil from its skin that sticks to your fingers will blind you if
it comes in contact with your eyes. The effect is similar to the controversial
'pepper spray' self-defense aerosols. It was on Guam that we were introduced to
the chicken burger, a breaded chicken patty served on a sesame seed bun with
shredded lettuce and the usual hamburger toppings. The Guamanian chicken burger
was somehow lighter and more flavorful than the chicken patties available Stateside,
but I don't know if it was a local breading recipe or the way they deep-fried it
that accounted for the result.- - - - - - - - - -
Montgomery AL, where we lived from
1986 to 1990, should be considered a foreign-duty assignment because the food is
vastly different from anything we had previously encountered. What are grits and
why do they come in so many varieties? Southerners expect them at breakfast and
don't seem to understand requests to omit them. Their only discernible virtue is
that you can use them to scour the plate after breakfast. On the other hand, only
in the South is iced tea served either sweetened or unsweetened. This proved
especially attractive because the sweetened tea was a saturated solution of sugar
and ordering it unsweetened allowed us to sweeten it to our individual tastes. At
least we had the option.This isn't to say that the food was
all bad in Montgomery. The BEST barbecue we ever had is still at Country Barbecue.
I mourn each day I munch a rib because Country had the BEST ribs and sauce these
lips ever smacked. Our last meal in Montgomery before going on to Iceland was at
Country Barbecue.Iceland was the last stop on Dafydd's
journey of what would be 20 years in the Air Force. What an interesting place
(NOT!). As with Turkey, all perishable items are purchased on the local economy,
so we ate Icelandic eggs and yogurt whilst we drank Icelandic milk. They use
different cultures in their yogurt which I found to be intolerable despite my love
of yogurt. Their sour cream wasn't the thick, delicious white globs we've grown to
love here in America, but rather thin, runny and disgusting. I didn't sample any
of their milk and cheese as I have an allergy to same. If the yogurt and sour
cream was any indication, I imagine it was foul.
Icelandic 'pickled' foods were also
unusual, because the Icelanders pickle with sour milk instead of brine. One of the
local delicacies was a pickled shark and pickled herring was a close second. Every
winter they would celebrate 'Thorrablot', a banquet of Icelandic delicacies such as
the aforementioned pickled fish and sheep's brains. As you can imagine, we and our
stomachs opted not to attend.With the number of sheep on Iceland
outnumbering the native population of 250,000 by a good 10 to 1, I expected to find
more lamb available. Lamb was expensive and I never purchased any of it even at
the base commissary. I just couldn't fathom spending $2.50 PER lamb chop (that
was fatty to boot). Lamb, I subsequently discovered was still considered a delicacy
that was served on special occasions such as Easter. We did eat smoked lamb on a
trip around the Snaefellness Glacier (prominent in the Verne book Journey to
the Center of the Earth) which was exquisite though fatty.The main problem with travel is that,
while you encounter items that defy classification as food, you also come to love
items that you can't find on your return home. You don't have to travel all that
far either -- restaurants have built their reputations on a unique recipe for this
or that and once you've gotten hooked on a particular recipe nothing else will do.
If ever there was a definitive application of the IDIC principle, it would have to
be food. All illustrations by Charlie Williams |
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