Sheep’s Eyes and OctoPodia?!?

Exotic foods are a veritable minefield, I’ve learned the hard way. First, the definition of the word “exotic” is often misleading. For some reason, people tend to immediately connect it with the Orient, or tropical islands, or the Third World, and not necessarily in that order.

It never strikes them that us “designated exotic” types might find them equally so. For example, I’m from India and I live in Indonesia. This, I have found, makes me double-whammy-exotic to, for instance, a Scandinavian. To me, swallowing live eels is exotic. (I know they do that someplace, don’t they?!) And I don’t mean in a fun, haha kind of way either. Something live, slithering down your oesophagus?!? ackkkk! ( See what I mean?)

“Exotic” simply means “from another land; not native to the place where found”. It comes from the Greek “exo”, meaning “there”. And “there” as we all know, is definitely not “here”.

"There" is foreign, alien and unfamiliar and sometimes downright scary. Also intriguingly different, possibly mysterious and often exciting. And yes, “strange” and “odd” often have walk-on parts somewhere in the overall picture.

I’d like to believe I’m adventurous enough to try (nearly!) anything once…as long as it doesn’t move, look me in the eye or talk back to me. But the persona that believes this, generally manages to go missing when, say, a plate of sheep’s eyes is plunked on the table. Or a baby octopus with all its little suckers on display, attached to all 8 podia, attached to the head.

I have a whole bunch of "exotic" bad food stories, but there are still a lot of countries on my “tovisitsometimesoon” list so naturally, I would not like to go into too much detail here. Who knows who I might offend, and I certainly don't want to be denied a visa. So those stories will just have to wait until I’ve beenthere, donethat!