Unappetized in Translation
This morning, a Vietnamese friend came over and invited me to breakfast. I was a bit under the weather, tired from being up until 3:00 AM writing for a client. I felt like eating eggs and toast and drinking a tank of coffee.
I suggested, "How about Western food?" Envisioning eating a large, white plate of fluffy eggs with a silver fork while on the garden patio at the Goethe (German Cultural) Institute. My friend's answer: a definitive, "No. How about leech soup?" We walk on for a moment, while I process how to respond. My inner thoughts go from "don't be a wimp" to "absolutely not" to "I wonder if I could get the leeches on the side."
We walk up a small alley, and sit down at one of the usual white tile-floored and fluorescent-light-lit hole-in-the-walls. My friend barks out the food order as we pass the front prep area, and settle at one of four plastic tables in the back. Two bowls are dropped in front of us within seconds. Plus, I have a plastic side-plate of what appear to be a tangle of battered, deep fried "leeches".
"Hmmm. They don't smell fishy. I'll try a couple," I think to myself. So I put five or six into the clear broth full of vegetables. Quite tasty. Crunchy oustide, gummy inside. Yummi, Gummi Leeches. We finished up and walked back to my home, just around the corner. “I just ate leech!” I felt kind of proud of being extra-adventurous today.
Later, at my house, another friend who is Vietnamese-American and my breakfast friend I were talking. I proudly announced I ate baby leeches for breakfast. “Leeches?! People don't eat leech in Vietnam.”
“Oh sure they do, I had them for breakfast. They are little deep-fried fried black things about the size of a green-bean,” I replied.
He started laughing uncontrollably and corrected the translation of my breakfast friend, “You had fried baby EEL!” I was disappointed and relieved all at once. But then, baby eel? Ew! For those not used to eating Sushi in the west, eel and leech are in the same bucket of beyond-gross foods. For me, at least now, I am used to eating large eel from eating tons of BBQ eel in sushi, and medium eel in Saigon, and now, I think I could eat leech if it were served, just because I ate a whole plate of them already today.
Comments
I love my sushi - but baby eel? Ew... I don't think so. Anyway - leeches sounds much more intrepid.
Posted by: Fiona | February 16, 2006 07:24 AM
Your story's so funny. But I think the "leach" you ate was really "loach". Some people use them as fake eels. Some restaurateurs tell me that they serve eels but I know they sometimes have just loaches.
Posted by: Pham Quoc Vinh | June 18, 2007 11:04 AM