Jul 5, 2004

Night Market Fermented Eggs & Riverside Durian

Anyone who's eaten with me know's that I'm more inclined to order the wierdest thing on the menu, rather than the tried and true. Well, I pushed my limits recently. With the help of my more enthusiastic new Vietnamese buds (the Accupressurist and the Monk), we ate fermented eggs and Durian.

Be honest... would you eat this???





During last night's dinner in the market, they insisted I try boiled fermented duck eggs... apparently a favored delicacy. Tang, the Accupressure Dr., demonstrated how to access the truly disgusting looking innards by expertly tapping, rubbing, and then ripping off, the tops. I practically realed backwards at the horrific sight of the boiled yellow yolk and nearby charcoal colored veined goo. It seemed to me that this egg might have been further along in the developement stage than the eggs I'm used to at home. I had repulsive visions of the philipino style egg that includes the rubbery beaks and bones of partially developed chickens. A dip into the mass with the tiny spoon revealed a large hard white mass that I was told to avoid eating. All this was floating in a clear liquid that my friends sucked down with relish. With their prodding, I approached the egg and gingerly brought it to my lips. With all the courage I could muster, I braced myself for the "fermented" worst and sipped a tiny amount of the fluid off the top. I'm sure my expression was quite entertaining. To my astonishment, this liquid was extremly delicate in taste. Despite the truly ugly appearance and somewhat disturbing texture of the rest of it, the flavor was nothing much more exciting than a slightly salty boiled egg soup.


Fortunately the rest of the meal was much less psychologically challenging, and obviously fresh and delicious! A good thing with herbs and seafood. If ever there's a time to fall off the vegetarian wagon, it's in Asia.

The Holy Trinity...






My second food challenge came today, when our dynamic trio decended on a spiky durian in a shady outdoor pagoda in yet another tacky waterfall park. The purchase of the durian, a few minutes earlier, was quite interesting to watch. My friend squatted in his suit to sample the sidewalk durians sold by an old woman.I witnessed sampling at it's most generous, with this woman splitting the durian in several sections as my friend fingered and tasted the creamy yellow masses. At one point, he spat out and rejected one durian. They split a new one open, and the pungent aroma permeated the whole area. I understand why hotels, airlines, and many other public places, ban the fruit. They repeated the sampling of different sections, and my friend finally approved... albeit with as little enthusiasm as possible so as to keep the price down. We convoyed to the waterfall on three separate motorbike taxis. I so enjoyed the view of my elegent reed-like dapper suited friend with the huge spikey durian in tow. When we eventually got down to the serious business of eating the durian, my friend's prowress showed. He confidently shoved on the intimidatingly spiky pod, at just the right spots. With much effort, he split open about 4 sections exposing the creamy yellow fruit. My best description of the dense sensuous mass is that it's a cross between extremely ripe cantelope and overipe onions. It took some getting used to, but I enjoyed it. Each section, and the various layers within, revealed different flavors. Big grins broke out as we plundered the messy delicacy. Eventually we were satiated. The aftermath was almost akin to post coital bliss... we leaned back in a mellow afterglow, and the men broke out cigarettes and stared, quietly distracted, into the distance. I considered, but ultimately gave up on. communicating the similarities. Just as well, as these delicate matters can come off wrong in cross cultural situations.

Well, it's been fun.

2 Comments:

Blogger Terry said...

Durian image from:
http://www.senze.com/images/durian.jpg

11:48 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

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1:18 PM  

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