Paul Theroux - The Tao of Travel - Enlightenments from Lives on the Road

July 7—Rather weak and sickish this morning, and all about a piece of bread.

— John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (1916)

Congolese Monkey Stew, Batetela Style

MY FRIEND DOUG Kelly, a widely traveled Foreign Service officer, served in the Peace Corps in Tshumbe, central Congo, in the 1980s. Over the course of two years there, he frequently observed the Batetela people prepare and eat monkey. Most of the Batetela inhabit an area in the Sankuru district of Kasai Oriental province. Their language, Otetela, is considered very difficult to learn by other Congolese. In fact, it is often referred to as " le Chinois du Congo. "

The Batetela are fortunate in that their homeland is still relatively rich in wildlife. The most common wild game, and thus the cheapest, is monkey. Following is the recipe for a repast of monkey cooked a la Batetela, as Doug Kelly describes it in a letter to me:

Take a dead monkey and hack it up. Keep the hands intact, but you can slice the rest of the carcass any way you want. Don't leave the pieces too big, because they will take longer to cook and you want to eat it soon because you are hungry.

Place the hacked-up pieces, including the intact hands, in a pot of boiling water and boil away. Don't add any spices, because you don't have any, and don't use too much water, because you're going to want to drink the watery "gravy" and you want it to have a lot of undiluted monkey taste.

After the monkey has been boiled for quite a while, take it out of the water and serve it on a bed of rice or millet. (Note: The Batetela are the only people who grow rice in Congo. The Arabs taught them how in the nineteenth century, when the Batetela were raiding tribes to the south and selling the captives into slavery to the Arabs. Millet is the traditional Batetela grain and is still raised in the dry season. Other Congolese tribes prefer manioc, or "fu fu.") Pour some of the monkey-water gravy on the rice or millet. Eat the whole concoction with your hands, or a spoon if you feel formality is necessary.

Now comes the good part. Serve the intact hands to your guests. A monkey hand resting on a plate looks like pretty upscale dining, at least if you are sitting in a mud hut in Sankuru. If you are the favored guest, eat the whole hand — the Batetela never leave any bones when they are eating meat, unless it's a particularly big pig femur or something equivalent. For monkeys, ducks, and chickens, it's everything down the hatch. You are encouraged to gnaw the monkey knuckles, removing the meat before cracking them open with your teeth and sucking out the marrow. Yum.

Sampling Fried Sago Beetle in New Guinea

Stef cooked a dinner of fried catfish, along with a healthy portion of sago beetle. The larvae were fried brown in the pan. They were crisp and sort of fishy tasting on the outside, probably because they had been sauteed in fish oil. Inside, the larvae were the color and consistency of custard. They were unlike anything I had ever eaten before, and the closest I can come to describing the taste is to say creamy snail.

—Tim Cahill, Pass the Butterworms (1997)

Dog Meat in Asia

THE SMELL OF a skinned, sinewy dog, hung by its hind legs in a Chinese butcher shop, can been detected from many feet away. So their term "fragrant meat" is related to the sort of euphemism that identifies a garbage truck as a honey wagon. In the literal-minded Philippines the dish is unambiguously called dog stew (aso adobo), and the key ingredient in the Korean soup boshintang is always understood to be dog meat. Dogs are eaten in many parts of Asia and the high Arctic, and have been a staple in much of the Pacific: Captain James Cook mentioned that a dish of Tahitian dog was almost as tasty as lamb. It is only the Western prohibition against pet-eating that horrifies us, but the edible dog is never a pet.

While it is generally known by educated travelers that the Cantonese (and, for that matter, Dongbei Ren; that is, northeastern Chinese) love dog meat, it is not as well known that (1) it is seasonal — dog meat is considered warming for the blood, so is overwhelmingly eaten in the winter; and (2) a dog is considered good to eat only if its fur is black or, in a pinch, dark brown. I've never been given a good explanation for the second requirement, although it seems to be linked to the first, seasonal reason for eating dog meat — dogs with dark fur have the highest warming quality. I don't know what this theory is based on, but it's real — a Cantonese would be shocked if you suggested he eat a white poodle, and it would confirm his belief that you are, after all, a barbarian.

In Shenyang, in eastern China, the walls of the U.S. consulate are occasionally scaled by asylum seekers from North Korea, which is not far away. These refugees, weakened by their escape ordeal, often ask to be restored to health by the Chinese equivalent of fortifying chicken soup, which is dog-meat soup (xiang rou tang). Since the canteen in the consulate did not offer dog-meat soup, a consular official would send for takeout: "There are innumerable restaurants in Shenyang, as throughout the northeast of China, that do fine dog-meat soup," I was told by my informant. And he added, "To make dog-meat soup, simply chop up a dog with dark fur and boil the hunks of meat, with the bone in, in water flavored with green onions, red chilies, and soybean paste. You can also throw in noodles to make a heartier soup."

From the Eskimo Cookbook of Shishmaref, Alaska

IN 1952, IN order to raise money for the Alaska Crippled Children's Association, the students of Shishmaref Day School compiled a small cookbook. Shishmaref is on Sarichef Island in the Chukchi Sea — Russia is ninety-five miles to the west. Lately the island has been seriously threatened and impoverished by the effects of climate change. The students, living the traditional Inupiaq life, from foraging and fishing households, contributed recipes that were favorites at home, and sold the small booklet for fifty cents. Here are a few dishes.

WILLOW MEATS

Inside of barkbirch [birchbark] there is something that is yellowish. That is called the meat of the willows. They are very good to eat. People eat it with sugar and seal oil. First clean off the barkbirch from the meat of the willow. There is also soft green barkbirch inside of outside barkbirch. Never eat green stuff on willows. (Augustine Tocktoo)

PTARMIGAN

Take the feathers off the ptarmigan. Cut the meat and wash so they wont have dirt or feathers on. Put in a pot with water and salt. Sometimes some people make soup on it, I think they like them best without soup. (Pauline Tocktoo)

PTARMIGAN SMALL INTESTINE

Cook the small intestines about five seconds in boiling water. Old men and women always want to eat them. (Alma Nayokpuk)

SEALS' BARE FEET (SEAL FLIPPERS)

Put the seal's bare feet into a cooking pan. Cover them with blubber and keep in a hot place until the fur comes off. Then it is time to eat the seal's bare feet. You can cook them or eat them without cooking. (Pauline Tocktoo)

BEAR FEET (EE-TEE-YAIT')

Most of the people like the bear feet better than the meat. We cook them well, add salt. Four feet would take about one teaspoon salt. Take them out of the pot and let them get cool. Eat them with seal oil. (Nellie Okpowruk)

IN THE LOBBY OF THE SPEKE HOTEL IN KAMPALA, Uganda, in 1967, I saw a bushy-haired man holding a stenographic notebook and smiling wolfishly at a diplomat, demanding to know why he was killing people in Biafra. That was my first encounter with the foreign correspondent Mort Rosenblum. We were both covering the Nigeria-Biafra peace talks. I was a teacher at Makerere University but also moonlighting as the Time-Life stringer in Uganda. Mort was then the Associated Press bureau chief in Leopoldville (later Kinshasa), Congo. We have remained close friends ever since. I have marveled at his life as a traveler, writing home from the field.