It's easy to point at a culture of the past and say, "Oh my goodness, they ate what?" The point of reference here is our own. For today's Tuesday Trivia, let's step into the mindsets of bemused travelers and cooks throughout history. What foods did they encounter that they considered weird?
Next week: Rites of Passage
In 1854, during his second visit to Japan, and as part of the negotiations to open up relations between the United States and Japan, Commodore Perry threw a banquet on board his ship for the Japanese officials, which apparently went quite well. ie. everyone drank a lot.
In return, the Japanese side followed up with their own banquet. They had the event catered by the finest restaurant in Edo, and from the description it sounds like it would make today's Western connoisseurs of Japanese cuisine water at the mouth. But this was long before anyone in the West would appreciate Japanese delicacies.
William M. Steele narrates the story in his book: Alternative Narratives in Modern Japanese History (pp. 127-129) in the essay: 'The Emperor's New Food.'
The Americans recognized the politeness of the Japanese, but were not impressed by the quantity of food served or with its taste. As the Narrative concludes, "the entertainments of the Japanese; generally; while full of hospitality; left but an unfavorable impression of their skill in cookery." According to another account, the hosts served
"the choicest Japanese. food, which the burly American sailors thought ... the leanest hors d'oeuvres course and hungrily awaited the appearance of succeeding plates, which never appeared, so that they had no chance for a hearty use of the knives and forks they had ready in their pockets."
And here's the Japanese depiction of the banquet and the disappointed burly sailors:
http://www.colle-vill.com/kurofune/exhibition/imgs/kur_exh_det012_pi_001.jpg
In one sense, we know a lot about garum, the fermented fish sauce that was a staple of the Roman diet. It's production and distribution leave important and visible marks on the archaeological record--we know, for example, that it was mass produced in large "factories" along the Spanish cost and sold in Rome in great quantities. We know the sorts of pots it was sold and traded in and how popular it was in different regions.
But we don't really now what it actually was. It was produced by some sort of fermentation process of fish (such as anchovies) and it had a high salt content, but the basic question of whether it was a sauce (like the fish sauces found in SE Asia) or a paste (such as used in parts of modern Catalonia) is a bit of an open question. It is also a bit unclear whether it tastes good--obviously the Romans loved it, but reactions to modern recreations are varied, to say the least.
This may be a simple question, and perhaps one that has been answered before, but what is the history of gefilte fish? I went to a Pesach service/dinner at my temple last year, and as a prospective convert was politely.... unimpressed, to say the least. Given the name it sounds Ashkenazic in origin but is there a story as to why gefilte fish came about?
