During my visits to so many countries I have had varied kinds of meals that included different meats. I have eaten camel meat in Egypt. I also ate there for the first time on a roadside stand, lamb meat slices roasted on a rotating disk (Shawarma) with a special bread cut and filled in the middle with a bean or peanut paste. I had also eaten roasted pigeon which is a great Egyptian delicacy on a boat trip over River Nile.

My eating of unusual kinds of meat started in Paris many years ago. Until then I had eaten only mutton, chicken and fish. I went to Paris to attend a newspaper festival. There I discovered ‘frog legs with cognac’ was a great treat as well as boiled oyster with lemon juice that you simply put in your mouth, suck and swallow. A great drink that goes nicely with a French meal of exotic meats and assorted cheese was Cointreau, made from orange peels.

Boiled tongue sliced into thin layers is a great delicacy with the Russians. It is second to Beluga Sturgeon Caviar. The Ukrainians have their borsch with meat balls and special bread. The Bulgarians make a great meat kabab in an elongated shape with plenty of garlic. If you eat too many of these you may have to take a bath in the winter to offset the body heat it generates. It goes well with Mastika, a drink made from saunf or anis. In Hungary gulyás or goulash which is neither a soup nor a stew made out of various types of meat is very popular. It goes along with Hungarian tokaji wine or Bikavér (bull’s blood red wine).

In Vietnam, I had eaten prawn papad and sticky rice with a special type of boiled pork meat with herbs. In Cambodia where I was a state guest being the head of an International Organisation of Journalists delegation, I was put up in one of the Palaces of Prince Sihanouk. There the food was really royal with wonderful taste and included the French bread Croissant with thinly sliced pork strips grilled on slow fire.

Germans love something called eisbein and saur kraut, boiled knee of a pig with red cabbage soaked in vinegar. It goes well with Schnapps (a very strong type of Gin with fruity flavour).  But I liked what the Germans call bulette, a sort of round hamburger made with potato and cheese with mincemeat and egg. There is another meat preparation usually eaten in the evening which is simply raw mincemeat with an egg yolk on top. You eat it cold with rye bread.

In Romania I was treated with a very potent drink Chuika with “Sarmale” (pickled cabbage leaves stuffed with a mix of minced meats). In Prague (Czech Republic) I went to an underground cave restaurant where I had a wonderful Czech dish called svíčková na smetaně, sirloin in cream sauce, with Pilsner beer. In Belgrade, then Yugoslavia, I ate pljskavica (a type of patty), ćevapi (grilled minced meat) and šnicla ( a type of schnitzel) together with plum brandy šljivovica (slivovitz).  In Finland I had roasted meat of a Reindeer together with Finlandia Vodka (a very potent drink with 80% alcohol) and Lakka (a sort of Cloud Berry liqueur).

In Havana I went to a very old restaurant Bodeguita del Medio in the old part of the city which was patronised by famous author Ernest Hemingway. Here I had an unbelievable dish, a huge lobster, almost two feet in length with its claws. The waiter provided a set of pliers to crack its pincer-like claws and a cutter to cut its shell. The lobster meat was washed down with glasses of daiquiris (Cuban white rum with sugar and plenty of ice), a drink invented by the author himself.

Nearer to home, in Afghanistan, I had very tasty roasted meat of lamb in different forms of kababs and khameerbob (a type of pasta). In Sri Lanka, I had some Burgher (Dutch settler) type of meat with a special curd laced with Palm honey. I also enjoyed the famous crab curry but it was a bit spicy. In Pakistan, I had lots of dumba (lamb) meat but no drinks.

The strangest meat I had was in South Africa. I had gone to Johannesburg to attend the inauguration of the ANC government at Pretoria. Several thousand guests were there from all parts of the world. The food was a lavish spread with all sorts of drinks. There was something like a pilaf and believe it or not, a Crocodile meat curry. I was told that the South Africans consider it to be a great delicacy. I had a portion and found it quite spicy but tasty.

Another strange meat I had eaten was that of a Yak in Mongolia. The Yak meat is cut into big pieces with bones and is usually boiled with salt, and when it is ready you hold one of the bones in one hand, put the meat under your teeth and use a sharp knife to cut a portion from it. If your nose is too big, there is always the danger of the sharp knife slicing off a piece of your nose as well.

HORSE MEAT ON THE SILK ROAD

I had the opportunity to drive on the Old Silk Road and make a halt on a mountain top in Kyrgyzstan. From there one could see waves of many undulating mountains and meadows for miles around.

There was some sort of a mela going on there and we stopped to have a look. This was obviously one of the exchange points for traders who were still carrying on their age-old trade. It was cold and windy. But people who had gathered there did not seem to mind it at all.

Besides going around the mela, where many things were being sold or exchanged, we also visited a massive tent of one of the trader groups. The peculiarity of the tent was that it was open at the top. Some sort of a celebration was going on in the tent and people were sitting around a roaring fire. A spiked full horse was being slowly rotated and roasted on the fire, and of course bottles of vodka was being gulped down.

We were invited to come in and sit down with the revelling gentry. There were plenty of sharp knives on plates near the rotating horse. You just take one and cut a piece of the roasting horse and wash it down with a swig of vodka. Like others, I also took a knife and sliced off a piece of horse meat. The meat was a bit tough but easily chewable and finally there was the vodka to help it go down. There was also some bread that was neither like a loaf nor a tandoori. It was quite salty but tasty. I do not know how many pieces of meat I ate as I got drunk soon.

HALF-BURNT CHICKEN

Another unique experience I had was in the Keonjhar mining area of Orissa. I was coming on an ore-laden truck. The engine suddenly stopped in the middle of a thick forest. The driver tried his best but could not restart it. We were stranded. It was a dark night. We were hungry and there was nothing to eat. Then suddenly at a distance, we saw a flickering light. We decided to leave the truck and locate the source of the light. After walking for about half a mile, we saw a small hamlet of some tribals. They were all sleeping. And one single lantern was burning in a hut.

We went there and shouted. An old wizened man came out and asked what we were there for. We explained to him in broken Mundari that we were hungry, but he also had nothing to offer us. Suddenly we heard a couple of chickens cackling. We suggested to the old man that he sell one of the chickens to us. He agreed and lit a fire for us; we killed it and took out its feathers. Then we simply roasted it on fire. There was no salt available but we managed to somehow eat the chicken and satiate our hunger. We gave the old man ten rupees but he would not take it as we were his uninvited guests!

I can only conclude by saying that the innovative mind of man can make food dishes out of almost anything. Tastes vary but the basic aim of providing nutrition through different types of food remain unchanged. From being a hunter-gatherer, man has changed a lot and so has his food habits, especially of meat and its preparation.