Around the World in 80 Dinners - Bill Jamison [141]
Our meals in France and China illustrated another kind of strength generally lacking in our country, the devoted respect for a classic tradition. In Hong Kong, Provence, and Nice, and at our incredible TV-show banquet in Chaozhou, the best dishes reflected treasured regional tastes that resonated with a sophisticated, contemporary understanding of the core concepts. With a solid grounding in their roots, the chefs refined the old to make it brightly new. In the United States, perhaps only New Orleans possesses a range of fine restaurants with a similar commitment to honoring and honing a venerated local heritage. In most of the land, Americans are so nervous about food and obsessed with this month’s health fad that little or nothing from grandmother’s table appeals.
Even in the realm of fast food, where we supposedly lead the world for good or bad, we’ve got lots to learn from street-stand cooks in Singapore, Thailand, Brazil, and other nations, who make and serve their specialties as quickly and efficiently as any eatery in the United States but also offer astonishing levels of flavor and complexity. Despite the well-intentioned preachments of the Slow Food folks, speed is not culinary enemy number one. The big problem is the forgotten joy of eating sensuously and the human fulfillment of sharing that with others.
Neither of us had thought before in quite these terms about travel. We simply assumed that we travel, therefore we eat, and we should make the most of the eating opportunities. The three-month trip changed the correlation in our minds in a subtle but significant way. Now it seems to us that we eat, therefore we must travel to enjoy the pleasure as fully and passionately as possible.
That would be true wherever we live, in the United States, Australia, France, Singapore, or anywhere else. It’s not because you can’t get good food at home—you just have to be more selective in some places than others—but you can’t get all of it in any one spot. Robert Frost once described poetry as “a way of taking life by the throat.” So are some kinds of travel.
A few months after our return, friends come to dinner at our house and bring Cheryl a hostess gift of beautiful small cacti in a strikingly colored ceramic pot. She takes one look at the container and says, “I know this seems rude, but I’ve got to look at the brand name on the bottom of the pot.” She does and smiles instantly. “I thought it looked familiar. This Norcal line comes from our friends’ factory in Chaozhou, China, where we saw similar pieces.”
Cheryl makes northern Thai khao soi for dinner, and while feasting on it, we tell our friends about other great food we had on the journey, refreshing our excitement about the whole experience. Bill wakes early the next morning, as usual, boots his computer, and logs onto the Internet to check our frequent-flier miles. He doesn’t say anything about it to Cheryl until the evening, when we’re looking together for a place to put our cherished new pot.
“You remember how we started thinking about our trip four years before we went?”
“Yeah, when we realized that we had enough reward miles to begin planning something special.”
“Well, I figured out this morning that we’re in a similar place now, mainly because of miles we earned from credit-card charges on the trip. And it’s four years from our twenty-fifth anniversary. What do you think?”
“Let’s do it again!”
About the Authors
CHERYL and BILL JAMISON are the authors of more than a dozen cookbooks and travel guides. They appear regularly on television, and are frequent