Tastes Like Chicken

The TUSEF office, specifically P'Kee-the lady who has helped me arrange all of my travel and troubleshooting, treated me to my first real Bangkok meal. After a scheduled meeting to sign the final paperwork and to talk about business matters, P'Kee offered to take me across the street to a local market where I could pick out some lunch. I happily obliged, looking forward to sampling some street food. We played pedestrian frogger on the busy South Sathorn Rd, a major traffic way in the city, and dipped under awnings into a small but diverse market. P'Kee directed me to to her preferred vender where she ordered a fish ball soup laden with fresh sprouts, thai basil, chilies and egg noodles. The street cook spooned the noodles and fish into one thin plastic bag and the broth into another, wrapping them both together in a similar manner to how one would expect pet fish to be transported. How extraordinarily efficient. Perfectly portable without bulky waste.

As we were exiting the market, I heard the tell-tale rumble of what could only be a juicer. I looked over to find a stall piled high with fresh produce and a lady making freshly squeezed, custom ordered juice. Holy mother of juicing. This was the holy grail. P'Kee noticed my fascination and asked if I would like a glass. I hesitated but she enthusiastically chirped, “Yes, yes we should get some. My favorite is carrot-beet-pineapple-apple. I’ll get you one”. I nearly melted into a puddle at the mere thought. The juice goddess behind the counter quickly processed about 10 fat carrots, a divinely purple beet, a quarter of a pineapple, and 2 fairly homely looking apples (and by homely I mean natural, non-waxed, might have been pulled from your backyard... possibly the best compliment an apple could receive). The resulting juice was a deep, royal orange and was served up into two 16oz containers. P'Kee and I grabbed matching straws and sipped. Incredible would be an understatement. “Do you like?” she asked. Was this even a question? I smiled broadly and complimented her fruit/veggie choice. I hesitantly asked her the price, assuming that this was a special treat. She told me that my lunch had cost just under $2. What? Wait? Repeat. “The soup and the juice were two dollars each?” I inquired again. P'Kee laughed, “No, no, no. The soup was a 30 baht and the juice was 35 baht.” I tabulated in my head and arrived at the conclusion that, in fact, my entire meal was less than two dollars despite the fact that it was fresh, nutrient dense, and very nearly made in front of me. Holy Moly. This is my kind of city.

It led me to compare it to a two dollar take-out lunch in the states. Wait, is there such a thing? Why yes, there is, and it is complete and utter shit. Pardon the language but let’s be honest. Two dollars will buy you two items off a dollar menu at your choice of a variety of fast food chains. And, for lack of a better word, that food is poison. High fructose corn syrup, countless preservatives, processed meat, hydrogenated oil, and a general lack of anything remotely good for you. Sure, one could get a tea-cup sized salad and a baked potato. But, be honest, very few do. I’m not saying I am some food purist. I’ve eaten my fair share of crap food and knowingly devoured pounds of items that I knew to be filled with all of the above. I try to do as well as I can and some days are better than others. But, for the sake of comparison, it is interesting to me that a country that many people consider ‘third world’ at worst and ‘unsophisticated’ at best has readily available, affordable, and nutritious food. It makes you wonder why some countries *cough, United States, cough* still subsidize the fast food industry which is, without a shadow of doubt, slowly killing its population and, in the process, inflating health care costs and ramping up fossil fuel consumption. Sure, there is fast food here. But a BigMac will set you back 180 baht without a drink or fries. Thais eat there, but for most people it if not an affordable, everyday option. What a novel concept. Instead, there is, what would be in America, a posh juice bar at every corner, except without the $6 price tag and high nosed clientele. Absolutely brilliant.

But, for all this talk about pure and good-for-you food, I have to admit I ate a chicken foot. (Note the hypocrisy and my utter awareness of it.) Trust me, it wasn’t my choice. Here is how it went down:

We all had brought out eats back to the small meeting room and were using office plate-ware. There was lots of small talk and I was highly concentrated on ‘eating properly’... only using my spoon, slurping my noodles just enough to give an air of satisfaction without sounding utterly ridiculous, and a host of other interesting eating manners. Then, out of the blue, this kind gentleman offers me a taste of his lunch. My mind races and arrives at the thai manners point that you DO NOT deny anything that is offered to you. ‘Why, certainly” I said “This is all so tasty”. Famous. Last. Words.

He fished around in his bowl of dark broth and out comes an entire chicken foot. Oh, no. No, no, no, no. I might be an adventurous eater but this was pushing it. There were still toenails for goodness sake. I gulped. He placed it daintily on a side plate, smiled wide, and slid it towards me. I managed to slap on a feeble smile and inquired how one goes about eating it. A quick lesson and I was ready to go. I cut out the inner two toes, an easier task then I expected, and placed them in my mouth. I suppressed the urge to gag. Sucking the meat off the bone, I then ejected each knuckle, one by one, onto the spoon and then into the trash bag on the table. It was the consistently of buttery, boiled calamari but with a distinctive, gamey, chickeny flavor and an indisputable texture of chicken skin. All in all, I managed to finish the thing without actually gagging... even following his lead and sucking the marrow out of the leg bone. Mission accomplished. The kindly gentleman laughed and smiled. I will never know if it was a conscious test of my manners on his part. I doubt it was with the sincerity with which it was offered BUT it was an indisputable test of my gastronomic endurance. Life Goal 1414: Eat a chicken foot is checked off the list.