Abbie Kozolchyk
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Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
Vegetarians in a foreign country (or, How not to eat meat in Thailand)
"Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans...are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit." -- Anthony Bourdain
The Traveler's Code of Conduct -- a body of oral law etched indelibly into the collective nomadic consciousness -- is very clear on matters of food: However unfamiliar, unappetizing and/or squirmy, nothing a host serves may be turned down. Especially when you're a stranger in a strange land. To violate this rule is to violate one of the most ancient and sacred precepts of hospitality -- and to reveal simultaneous provincialism and schmuckiness of the highest order.
Here, then, is one schmuck's tale.
I became a vegetarian 25 years ago, during a 10th-grade biology lab, when my designated dissectee turned out to be the pigeon that broke the camel's back. Deceased animals placed before me, whether as meals or science projects, had long since induced guilt and a gag reflex. And for some reason, with this one squab au jus de formaldehyde, I was done.
But alas, some 20 years later, my hosts on Yao Yai didn't get the memo.
The Traveler's Code of Conduct -- a body of oral law etched indelibly into the collective nomadic consciousness -- is very clear on matters of food: However unfamiliar, unappetizing and/or squirmy, nothing a host serves may be turned down. Especially when you're a stranger in a strange land. To violate this rule is to violate one of the most ancient and sacred precepts of hospitality -- and to reveal simultaneous provincialism and schmuckiness of the highest order.
Here, then, is one schmuck's tale.
I became a vegetarian 25 years ago, during a 10th-grade biology lab, when my designated dissectee turned out to be the pigeon that broke the camel's back. Deceased animals placed before me, whether as meals or science projects, had long since induced guilt and a gag reflex. And for some reason, with this one squab au jus de formaldehyde, I was done.
But alas, some 20 years later, my hosts on Yao Yai didn't get the memo.
