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THE RELUCTANT GOURMET

Exotic tastes

PHOTO: SLOW FOOD ARCHIVES

INDULGE In the pleasures of eating good food

Eat an emu? After coming beak to nose with one of the more nasty representatives of the emu dynasty, I’d rather eat my hat. (Reebok. Pink. Goes great with my new running shoes. Just in case you need the whole picture.) It’s a good thing I had those pink running shoes on, in hindsight. I had been absent-mindedly rambling around the Melbourne zoo when I heard a furtive little emu cough. I turned and froze with terror. Emu and I were beak to nose. Apparently he wanders about the zoo, sneaking up on unsuspecting visitors for fun. He stared. I smiled apologetically. He deliberated on which of my ears to bite first. I politely pointed out the chubby chimpanzees. He squinted. I ran.

Eat an emu? You’ve got to be kidding. They look like they’ll make quick notes on your appearance, send it out via some creepy ornithological Blackberry system and, before you know it, organize rabid gangs of their feathered flightless friends grunting threateningly at your door.

Yet, it makes sense to eat an emu. Or a kangaroo. Or an alligator. (Try a barbequed emu, alligator tail steak sirloin, kangaroo pie.) Increasingly, a section of the world’s environmentalists are urging people to expand their food horizons for the sake of diversity. This way species that are threatened because they are so popular on the table, like the blue finned tuna fish, get a break. And, lesser known species get farmed more.

Unfortunately, it sometimes translates into a whole new form of food snobbery: Who ate what. With snotty gourmets trying to outdo each other, it’s inevitable that you sometimes end up being in the middle of a situation as outrageous as the movie, “The Freshman” (1990) in which Mathew Broderick ends up babysitting a komodo dragon for a ridiculous gourmet club where exotic and endangered animals are served for dinner.

In a classic case of truth being stranger than fiction, the National Geographic recently reported on how a rare quail from the Philippines was photographed for the first time before being sold as food at a poultry market. This button quail, known solely through drawings based on dated museum specimens collected several decades ago, might just have been the last of its species!

Slow Food, an influential, inspirational worldwide organisation that promotes sustainable eating is gearing up for its dramatic 2009 edition of ‘Slow Fish’, which will be held between April 17 and 20 in Genoa, Italy. Elisa Virgillito, of Slow Food, talks of how Slow Fish promotes responsible fish consumption, which keeps in mind the health of sea and fresh water ecosystems.

Of course, it’s not easy to change ingrained food habits. Which is why Eliza says that this year they even have “an expert who can accompany visitors around the fish market, assisting them to discover the wide variety of the fish available and to point out lesser-known species that are also highly tasty.”

The movement succeeds because they focus on the pleasures of eating good food, instead of using emotional blackmail to get their message across. So, to stop people from eating blue fin tuna and swordfish, both of which are over-fished, they are gathering talented chefs and food artisans to demonstrate recipes with lesser-known species like palamita (Atlantic bonito), blue whiting or scabbard fish, which taste as good, if not better, and often cost less too.

Since Slow Food focuses on eating local, representatives from around the world will be talking about local flavours made with ingredients that have never seen the inside of a plane. Italy will be showcasing sandwiches made from butter and Monterosso anchovies, marinated horse mackerel, grilled cuttlefish with purple asparagus and the finest farmed mussels with extra-virgin olive oil. From Spain, the region of Galicia, which has used seaweed in its cooking for centuries, will exhibit a kaleidoscope of recipes featuring seaweed.

We certainly live in a weird and wonderful world. So keep an open mind. And if you can dodge the bad-tempered emu gang, perhaps you’ll enjoy a gorgonzola stuffed emu roast or — here’s a surprise — emu kebabs.

shonali@thehindu.co.in

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