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Raw Eel

The Source

It was the first raw eel I’d ever eaten and frankly I didn’t know which end to tackle first. Actually, the eel was pickled, but to my Midwest beefsteak tastes, that spelled “raw.” Six feet long and with the circumference of a healthy tree trunk, the eel looked at me and dared my little group of Central Illinois travelers to dig in. It had been a long day touring the Rotorua region of New Zealand. Our hotel was owned by people of the Maori tribe and they had invited us to meet with them, watch a colorful dance show, and eat their eel. Just getting a place at the Kiwis’ table was an ordeal. We were asked to send our bravest warrior to the front of the room and he was given instructions, “Whatever you do, when the warriors come out, don't flinch. Don't run away. Stand stock still and you’ll earn the right to eat with them.” This sounded pretty scary to me so I picked Greg Schone, a tall lanky kid from Chapin to represent our American “tribe.” A shell-shocked Greg stood there while overly-muscled Maori tribesmen jumped out wearing loincloths, brandishing knives, and shouting in the poor kid’s face. I of course would have done this myself as group leader but since I also held our plane tickets I’d offered instead this sacrificial Triopia goat. Gimme a break..we had to have those tickets to get home. Greg stood there wide-eyed and somehow survived the shouting match, thus earning us the right to eat. Then they brought out the eel. One of the worst traits of travelers is the habit of insisting that everything abroad be identical to his home environment. The spoiled traveler wants his Italian bed to be like his own bed back in Jacksonville, he must awake at the same hours, and above all the food must be like “back home.” This of course makes for a miserable trip for both himself and his fellow travelers so I insist that my students at least sample the local cuisine. When the tree-trunk eel came out they all looked at me as if to say, “How far are you going to take this?” We were tired, there were no restaurants available, and our empty stomachs were pounding like Maori war drums. I set the example by bringing the first piece of eel to my lips. It didn’t even resemble the Buffalo or Carp at Meredosia’s Approach café. Think sour sardine. To their credit, most of my group followed my lead and gingerly nibbled the long ugly fish. It was either this or starve. Or so we thought. Just then the tribal leader (sixty years old, nearly nude, and buff as a linebacker) jumped onto the stage and announced the second course! Oh God, what now? It was a salad bar followed by prime rib, followed by a cornucopia of the finest produce in the Pacific Islands. The eel had been merely an unappetizing appetizer. Several cable TV channels now feature programs exploring the world of exotic food, but TV can never produce the smells..the tastes…the shock of consuming these morsels close-up and personal. The beet soup in Moscow with a fish head floating happily in the bowl…I kept turning the head over so it wouldn’t look at me. The fish was persistent and kept turning its left eye in my direction, watching me eat. ….The entire meal of raw fish in Finland slathered copiously with hot mustard. I grow suspect of any food which must be slathered to be consumed. ….New Zealand roast chicken that had been cooked by dipping it into a nearby boiling sulfur pit. (Amazingly, no taste of sulfur. The cook told me, “You cook with LP gas. It stinks. Do you smell it on your hamburger?”) ….Octopus legs that were still moving on the plate. The Caribbean cook insisted that they had been “cooked” using lime juice, but no one had told the octopus. I tried dipping them in my rum and coke to stop the wiggling but it only got them drunk. ….Vegemite. I’ve never met a soul outside of Australia who could stomach the stuff. Made from leftover brewer’s yeast, the dark-brown pasty stuff is an icon of the Australian breakfast table. I tried it once. In fact, I’ve tried it many times. Like caviar, I keep thinking that if millions of people love it I must be missing something, but it still tastes like metallic jelly. On the other hand, when Aussie schoolchildren were introduced to peanut butter they deemed the stuff inedible. Maybe you have to grow up among kangaroos. ….Jellied squid on the boardwalk in Brighton, England. I’d met an old friend and former tour guide who was showing me the joys of Great Britain’s famous resort town. We’d walked the length of the carnival-like midway sampling everything even remotely exotic as a part of my late-night tour. I could handle the snails, the cockles, and had decided that if you fried it I’d try it. Jellied squid are not fried. They’re not of this earth. And in my book, they’re not edible. Of course not all foreign fare is gut-wrenching. I think my all-time favorite snack is Fried Prawn on a Stick served on the streets of Sidney, Australia. They resemble an American corndog in shape and size, but oh the delight of eating what looks like a quarter pound of fried shrimp while cruising the Sidney harbor! Beats any eel hands down. Perhaps my most memorable foreign meal was on the Austrian/Czech Republic boarder. We’d booked through a tour company that I now avoid and our evening meal was to be consumed at what appeared to be a factory building in the middle of absolutely nowhere. After three days of eating schnitzel, we were again served schnitzel along with heaping towels of turnips, potatoes, onions, and a soup left over from the Cold War era. Our waitresses were frumpy fraus with headscarves who spoke no English and had never heard to tea, Coke, and had only a nodding acquaintance with the term “water.” It was a gastronomical train wreck and we were stuck there for the night. Then we saw the piano. Vintage 19th-century, out of tune, and gloriously loud. After a couple of lagers my brother took the stage, I manned the piano and we led our group in a Broadway sing-a-long that completely saved the evening. A sense of humor and a little music can save even the most tragic meal. I shall go on tasting and testing when on foreign turf and if my gastrointestinal system rebels a bit and sends me rushing to a Tokyo commode at two in the morning, then so be it. If you’re going to the circus you’ve got to smell the elephants.