As I have established before: food is very important to feeling at home to most Swedes. From the first time I moved abroad to Barcelona, via all over Norway to the U. K. with pit stops in Grenoble, Nijmegen and Roskilde/Copenhagen to end up in Tokyo and now finally in Singapore, the food has really been key to avoid feeling lost. As a dear old friend once put it:
‘I don’t want to have food that have had eyes’.
A typical veggie dish that we have started having almost every evening now: SALAD!!
Spain was no trouble at all, since we’re very custom to any Mediterranean food in Sweden. Norway was also fine and but it was then almost necessary to extend to have fish. However, after having ‘römme’ porridge (boiled crème fresh until it becomes similar to wall paper glue), sheep meat (boiled for hours on end, until it’s almost like rubber and smells like an old, wet cardigan) and swede mash (smells like bad armpits), I came up with an additional, very reasonable demand:
‘I don’t want food that will stick to the wall when thrown upon it, bounces back in my hand if dropped on the floor, or smells like it needed deodorant weeks ago’.
When I met Jonas after being in the U. K. for 6 h:s 10 years ago, the rule about stuff with eyes went in the pooper. I was still however very reluctant to have intestine food until we came to Norway together and had outstanding smoked reindeer heart. I also tried roasted cod fish tongue btw and it was delish, so nothing bad about our neighbor nation in that sense. I then changed my preferences, apart from of course fish (sushi, herring and lax), to:
‘I don't want anything raw’.
Would probably still be a bit hesitant to eat at floor 3..
When we left Europe for Asia and arrived in Tokyo, I needed to both change on the raw bit, but also include eyes in the food. It really freaked me out at first, but since I had told my Japanese colleagues that we actually make pudding out of pigs’ blood in Sweden and have it with jam, as well as having rotten fish that smells so bad you’re only allowed to eat it at a certain time of the year, I really had very little defense left. Therefore, I’ve had things like raw, slippery eel babies in cold salty sauce (it was the entire eel, with head and everything), raw octopus suction cups and raw, sliced horse meat. Neither of these were favorites, but refusing to taste does signal ‘spoilt baby brat’. Hence the rules had once again to be changed to:
‘I don't want anything alive’.
Raw shrimps with other selective raw fish: sashimi
Raw octopus suction cups in Tsukiji
Raw fish and caviar in a sahimi bento (food box) in Tsukiji
Regarding the raw things, and besides all the lovely kinds of fish for any kind of sushi and sashimi, the most interesting was probably the chicken sashimi = raw chicken. It’s mostly quickly turned skewers with wasabi, horse raddish and soy sauce on the side and you eat all the parts of the chicken. This includes the ass (not the asshole, just the ‘outside ass’ part), breasts, gristle (according to Wiki it’s: ‘tough cartilaginous, tendinous or fibrous matter’ mmm..), heart, liver (this is completely raw btw), wings, skin and for instance the ovaries with unhatched eggs inside. It sounds like ‘Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom’, but it’s actually really good.
Raw chicken ovaries with the unhatched eggs attached: chicken sahimi
More chicken sashimi, where the breast meat has quickly been turned over a grill and is raw in the middle, with the traditional wasabi
Moving to Singapore, made me even scrap the ‘nothing alive’ bit, since we discovered oysters. They have frequent oyster nights, when an oyster is basically S$1 (~5 SEK, 50 JPY, 0.5 Euro) and comes with garlic bread, Tabasco and lemon. I at first thought it was quite nasty spraying lemon on them, seeing how they curl up which is the typical sign of them being alive and I really thought they’d taste like cold, slimy snort from the ocean. But they were truly fantastic!
Gigantic Singaporean oyster
Jonas enjoying nice wine, oysters and the company ;)
There are also all kinds of things here which you’re apparently always supposed to buy alive, but then kill at home in your own kitchen. This way you’ll know it’s fresh. Especially shellfish like crabs, lobsters, prawns and muscles. We wanted to find sea crayfish for the party at Chateau de Thoréns but after looking for hours of something similar, I gave up. I then started checking out the crabs and smaller lobsters, who looked really nice. However, the whole idea of taking them home, boiling them to death in my popcorn pot, while manually pressing down the lid and hearing the animal fight for its life in there, made me want to casually throw up a little bit.
Alive slipper lobster for home cooking
Besides, I’m still scarred by my husband proudly presenting 40 (!!!) huge crabs after a perfectly nice Sunday at his parents. The idea was for us to cook them ourselves. Well into the night after hours of listening to the gurgling from the animals, having cooked ones in the bathtub and chasing after alive ones who tried to escape torture in my enormous soup pot, will forever be a dark patch in the Kalleback history.
In Singapore I’d be very surprised if we’ve seen even half so far however. There’s endless Malay and Chinese food like chicken feet soup (soup with whole chicken feet in it), chicken soup (soup and a whole chicken in it) or fish soup (soup and a whole fish in it), which I’ve deliberately tried to avoid so far. Another weird thing is the completely black chicken; it’s really black, even when it’s alive and I just think it looks truly bonkers. Might be good though.
Singaporean black chicken
I’ve tried the black eggs = fermented eggs = rotten eggs and they were no 10-pointer and I still have huge problems with eating insects unless they are covered in chocolate. At least these dishes are cooked and the animals are very dead.
To sum up, the old rules were basically:
- · Nothing with eyes + Jonas from Onsala → nothing raw
- · Nothing raw + Asia → nothing alive
- · Nothing alive + Singapore → bon appetite
However, I’m firmly stipulating the new rule:
I don't want any insects or feet in any form.
A bag of fish fins anyone?
And maybe also that all coriander should be banned from cooking in general. Seriously though, if you want your food to taste like Palmolive soap, why not just at least have the decency to add some Schwarzkopf shampoo. It’d surely be better for your guests’ hair.
Bloody coriander should be banned and it's really everywhere
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