From questions asked by 2nd graders . . .

Do you eat different foods when you travel like ducks, eels, and frogs?
We don’t always like to eat food that looks or smells strange. We don’t always ask about what we are eating, but in India and particularly in south China we try to always eat a little of everything that is served.

We both have eaten duck, but one of Mike’s most memorable FAVORITE meals was Beijing duck at a specialty restaurant in Beijing in 1990. He wishes he could remember where that restaurant was . The sauce was out of this world and the duck was so tasty. He didn’t think it would be, particularly when the meat was served and the cooked duck head was proudly set upright on the serving dish to make the meal prettier. It looked interesting, but Mike had never seen (and hasn’t since) anything like that before.

Mike has had eel once or twice in South China, probably on his last trip two years ago.

Neither of us have knowingly eaten frog, but Mike had rattlesnake at a Christmas Party in High School put on by his biology teacher. It tasted like really good chicken.

One of the worst things Mike had was a spicy dish in 1990 near the Great Wall of China. He thought he was eat-ing a mini-head of corn (like are found in some salads here), but it turned out to be a very spicy squid tentacle. He feels once was enough.

One thing Mike ate that he didn’t hate, but wasn’t outstanding was fried bees in Kunming, China.

The tour guide put the fried bees on a plate on the table to freak out our small group of four business people. It worked. We were all shocked. It went around the table’s lazy Susan and no-body touched it.

The second time around Mike knocked one off because they looked like mini French fries. He tasted it. They DID taste like hard, crispy French fries. They needed salt, but you couldn’t tell they were bees. They didn’t taste like anything but a very crunchy French fry.

SO . . . for the effect on the other guys, Mike scraped a BUNCH of the “mini-French fries” onto his plate and be-gan to eat them. Crunch, Crunch. No big deal, as long as he thought of them as French fries, but all the other guys were grossed out.

Until that point Mike was in charge of the money for the trip, but they took that responsibility away from him. He was glad.

The only bad point was about 1/3 of the way through the mini-French fries, Mike came across one that wasn’t fully cooked. Ick. But he made sure the other guys didn’t see him flinch. He ate a few more of the crunchy ones (looking out for any that seemed NOT crunchy) and once everyone was totally grossed out, he quit. He won’t do that again probably, but it was worth it. 

What do you eat?
American food when we can get it . We try to eat as much like the nationals as [we] can. We try to never com-plain or indicate ANY negative feelings about food placed in front of us. We do OK most of the time.

Mike tries to avoid McDonalds and American restaurants when he travels. The only time Mike was sick on his trip to Kunming in 1996 was when he had an American hamburger in a Hotel restaurant. Now Mike tries to only eat what the local people are used to cooking and doesn’t make them sick.

Debbie hates chop sticks (to eat with). Mike likes them (kind of like people who only want pop in plastic or bottles, but not cans.)

Mike eats a lot of Indian food, but doesn’t care for it too much (except Tandori Chicken), but he will eat any North China food and some more ‘normal’ South China foods.

Ethiopian food can be spicy and Mike has begun to like spicy foods, Chinese and Indian as well. In Ethiopia, as in NE India people eat with their right hand and NO silverware. It is considered gross to eat with your left hand.

In Kenya and Costa Rica the food is very bland and Mike finds it a little boring. Mike actually got to liking school lunches in Belarus, but most visiting speakers to the Minsk Bible School didn’t like the food and found their food boring or gross (the hot dogs in Russia are not colored with food coloring). Belarusians use a lot of potatoes and fat.

Some places have a lot of Tomatoes which Mike likes, but not in Costa Rica, or Kenya.