Have You Tried This Before?

I’ve noticed that many (if not most) of my most enjoyable meals are preceded by a waiter or waitress trying their best to dissuade me from ordering them.

Bún Nước Lèo Sóc Trăng at Sóc Trăng Restaurant: “This soup…a little bit stink.” (while holding nose)

Bún Mắm Nước Lèo Bạc Liêu at Thanh Mai: “Even some Vietnamese people don’t like it.”

Bún Mít Mắm Nêm at Ngự Bình: “This dish, I think, not for you.”

Oc Len Xao Dua at C&C Express: “Uh, you know snail, right?!”

Hột Vịt Lộn at Hột Vịt Lộn Long An : “Egg with BABY.” (Direct, meaningful eye contact.)

Thịt Heo Luộc Cuốn Tôm Chua at Huế Ơi: “The shrimp is fermented! Pickled. If you don’t like it I will replace it for you.” (Later, watching me take – and enjoy – each bite: “Is it OK? I will replace it with something else!”)

Ốc Lá Lốt at Chả Ốc Gia Huy: “You know… we have grilled pork too.”

Lest you think it’s just Vietnamese places warning me about fish sauce, anchovy paste, or some iteration of fermented sea creature:

Udang Sambal Petai at Mutiara: “Have you had this before? Maybe you shouldn’t.” (After pressing for more information: “When you go to the bathroom it will smell.”)

Shirako at Ohshima: “Do you know shirako? I will tell you what it is after you eat it.”

Preserved Egg With Eggplant and Chili at Xi An Tasty: “So, this egg purple and green…”

Spicy Fish Paste Curry at Yoma Myanmar: “Not fish… fish paste. Not the same.”

Etc., etc.

This is embarrassing to admit, but before I gave it careful thought, this type of thing used to really offend me. I felt discriminated against as a white person (I KNOW, but I was in my twenties) and that it wasn’t fair that everyone assumed my tastebuds would prefer all the mainstream, bland menu items. I’m so misunderstood. Why must people judge my tastebuds by the color of my skin? I would lament as I added way too much purple shrimp paste to my baby clam salad just to prove a point to the waitress (who was not watching and did not care).

Finally, I came to the simple realization that everyone just wants the people they feed to like the food they feed them. That’s why my family used to try so hard to cook for my vegetarian ex-boyfriend despite a) not agreeing with his dietary choices and b) him preferring to just eat cereal anyway. They wanted his tastebuds (even though they thought that his tastebuds were stupid) to enjoy themselves. They wanted him to feel cared for and considered.

No restaurant wants to shock a new customer out of her presumed comfort zone with a brined, weeks-dried green and purple mushy gelatinous egg, and have her throw up or scream or cry and make a scene. Obviously. But it also doesn’t want the customer to suffer in silence or even be quietly unpleasantly surprised with all the weirdness happening in her mouth. They just want her to enjoy her food. And assuming that a white customer is going to be unfamiliar with – and perhaps offended by – fermented shrimp paste or fish testicles or duck fetuses or snails is not at all unreasonable.

It’s great that I have become more tolerant of people treating me with human decency and all, but I still need to examine my affinity for trying the oddest-looking thing on the menu just because it’s the oddest-looking thing on the menu. There are some things I just plain straight-up actually love, like fish/shrimp/anchovy paste, cod testicles, and betel leaves, but there are other things, like duck fetuses and the slimy or rubbery types of snails (i.e. most of them), that I eat just because they’re not something I’d normally eat. In the best case scenario, this can be traced to my natural affinity for novelty. In the worst-case scenario, it reeks of exoticism, appropriation, and other fancy ways of describing individuals from dominant cultures being insensitive, bumbling jerks.

Realistically, it’s probably somewhere in the middle. I do believe that many of us narrow our experiences unnecessarily. When it comes to food, that tendency can cause harm. Only being open to eating certain parts of the animal, for example, leads to massive, widespread waste, with animals being killed for a mere fraction of their flesh. (Shark fin soup comes to mind here, as well as male baby chicks being slaughtered at birth.) Being open to all that is edible reduces waste and invites diversity of crops – which in turn provides them with some protection against pests/disease/natural disaster.

So maybe my insistence on trying the most unfamiliar thing on the menu is a little questionable on the cultural sensitivity scale, but the intention behind it is pure. Let’s hope the justification isn’t just a post-hoc scramble.