food memoir.

i read a lot about food, food politics, agricultural policy, food history. shocking, i am sure.

this week, i read shark's fin and sichuan pepper by fuschia dunlop. (and, by this week, i mean, 3 days.) i tend not to review all of these books and articles and essays. i want to tell you, though, that this book was so special. dunlop begins in the sichuan province, in chengdu. luckily, there is a map in the front of the book; i had to repeatedly reference it. the food there is spicy, oil, crunchy, full of items americans tend to look down upon: intestines, bugs, eyeballs, and the like.

it was a magical read. i was ready to eat all of it. an omnivore was lurking inside of me. i felt crazy and i could not stop reading through the positive qualities of msg, of mao tse-tung's favorite dishes, of the stories of kitchens and street food. dunlop also is the first foreigner to attend the region's top cooking school. she eventually travels to hunan and ends the memoir with an unfortunate discussion on the perils of chinese food products today.

but, i am ready to eat something outside my comfort zone.
well, maybe.

shark: in my mouth, not the water.

so, i ate shark.

i know, i know, i've been a vegetarian for more than half of my life, more than 16 years. not a bite of anything not vegetarian. not even close.

i think a lot about food: where it comes from, how it was transported, how it was prepared. obviously. i have a blog about it. BUT, i also love to travel, and i have been thinking a lot about being a good traveler and how much of that is based on eating the foods of other cultures. a friend of a friend ate eyeball in mali. it was supposedly an honor to have it offered to you. i have been to france many winters in a row and have never had foie gras on christmas eve, which is seemingly a tradition. this is really the tip of the iceberg. there are many, many places i want to visit, and it's not always easy to be a vegetarian. sometimes, i think it's just downright rude, like it's stuck-up, like i think the rules should be bent for me, which i don't.

in trinidad and tobago, it was quite easy to eat vegetarian food. there's a huge indian influence, and everything from roti to doubles is already made for vegetarians.

on the beach in maracas bay, the dish to eat is called bake-n-shark. the bread is the "bake." it's a deep-fried batter that's not actually greasy. the shark is also fried, and also not greasy. there are a variety of sauces to add to your sandwich, from ketchup and mustard to curries and pepper and garlic sauces.
i decided i had to try it. i mean, when else could i get a fried shark sandwich?


it definitely wasn't the best thing i've ever had, but i feel good about the decision to eat it. i am also unsure of the kind of shark, but i like to believe it was a great white.