The Vietnamese will eat anything and everything, except - for the moment - chicken.
I have already mentioned raw duck’s blood pudding and snakewine. Andrew Pham in Catfish and Mandala describes a cocktail made by cutting the heart out of a live cobra and dropping it in alcohol, to chug while the heart is still beating.
They eat dogs. They eat cats. They eat duck embryos. They simmer the cocoons of silkworms to loosen and draw off the raw fiber and, waste not want not, they eat the half-formed moths. They feed coffee beans to a particular species of weasel and collect them, undigested, from its excrement, insisting that a subtle biological process has perfected the flavor.
And somewhere along the way they serve some of the best food in the world. One hundred years of French colonial rule has produced the world’s only indigenous East-West ‘fusion’ cuisine.
My favorite meals in Vietnam:
In a house on the banks of the Mekong, elephant fish, gently fried, which we wrapped with starfruit, pineapple, and cucumber in rice paper pancakes.
Everywhere, wonderful milkshakes; but, most unexpected, an avocado milkshake in Hanoi.
Pastries in Hanoi: fluffy white chocolate charlottes and chocolate mousse, a dollar apiece.
Salmon wrapped in bacon, baked and served over grilled, thin-sliced potatoes.
Pork stewed in coconut juice.
In Halong Bay, tomatoes stuffed with tofu and grilled until they tasted of caramel.
In Can Tho, lightly battered squid.
In Tay Ninh, spring rolls stuffed with spiced pork, double-wrapped in rice paper, and fried once for each layer. And fried dough-balls, like doughnuts, but stuffed with shrimp.
That’s without listing most of the national or regional favorites, like pho bo, bun cha, cao lau, cha ca, or fish cooked in a claypot or steamed in banana leaves.
And we haven’t even been able to eat chicken or duck. Most of Vietnam’s poultry has been slaughtered to contain the spread of avian flu. The government may be offering enough compensation to farmers for each carcass to induce them to fake an outbreak. This and tourist prudence has taken birds and usually eggs off the menu at most restaurants, even though there is no risk of infection from cooked meat and supermarkets are screening for the virus.
With no new reported infections in most provinces for three weeks, the government is about to declare victory.
A few days ago Msr. Gastel, the charming French proprietor of Hanoi’s Cafe des Arts, asked us "do you accept the eggs?", as if proposing marriage. Yes we said, and happily ordered our first omelette in weeks.
Postscript: poor country + food-lovers = security tags on extra virgin olive oil. Or should that be chastity belts?
