Gastronomical Changes, pt 2

In part 1 of this two-part blog post I talked a little bit about some of the foods that fall away from the diet of a western person who moves to South East Asia. Now I'll cover some of the foods that you may not have eaten much at home (or at all) but now eat frequently. 

• Okra & Morning Glory. I'm sure everyone has heard of okra before, it's grown and eaten in some parts of the United States, such as the Gulf Coast. I had heard of it before moving here, but to my knowledge hadn't ever eaten it. My first week here I was at an outdoor BBQ place with a few new friends and there was a strange green vegetable I'd never seen before. It's a fibrous chute similar to celery but inside it was sectional like a grapefruit or an orange. I haven't had it outside of a soup or BBQ'd but okra is one of my favorite new vegetables that I've had since moving here. Morning Glory aka water spinach is another tasty vegetable that was new to me. Essentially it's a long stemmed spinach with smaller leaves, but boy is it tasty and healthy as well. 

• Soups. Ok, everyone knows what pho is. But have you had bun bo hue? Or banh rieu? What about hu tieu? At any restaurant in Vietnam you have various options for your soup slurping pleasure, and if none of these soups are your thing there are plenty more to try. Most places also provide you with a cup of cabbage soup with your meal if you're eating a non-soup dish. Of course soup isn't a new thing to me or anyone else, but the extent to which you end up incorporating soup into your day to day diet is definitely different. 

• Seafood. Now hold on just one minute. I'm from the Pacific Northwest, we INVENTED seafood! I know, but Vietnam really takes the title when it comes to how much seafood is a part of the national diet. Back in the US there are a lot of people who don't like seafood (we call them "mentally insane") and thus never eat the great crab and fish that is available. Here it's inescapable, especially for someone who can't read Vietnamese. The diversity of the seafood that's eaten here blows away the US; they eat octopus, fish, crab, snails, clams, eel, jellyfish, and the king of seafood in Vietnam... shrimp. I swear the amount of shrimp that's eaten here would make Forrest and Bubba proud. 

• Durian, Jackfruit, and Dragonfruit. Durian is one of the most controversial fruits in the world, or at least as controversial as a fruit can be. It's incredibly odorous, to the extent that it has been banned from being eaten on the subway in Singapore. I've eaten durian ice cream and it was a strange but not totally unpleasant taste. Jackfruit is a delicious and nutrient-rich fruit that is a total pain in the ass to collect. They come in these little pods within the larger fruit that you need to tear out of the membrane, pulling them out is like shucking corn, if corn was the size of a clove of garlic and slippery. 

Jackfruit

• Dragonfruit is, I would say, the best fruit that's ever graced our green Earth. There are two variations, one that's bright purple/pink and one that is white with black seeds. Both are delicious, and the skin is cool looking to boot. It's the consistency of watermelon but with a fairly mild taste.

Dragonfruit

So there you have a few examples of foods that you'll eat more if you come to Vietnam. There are other examples of course, such as the amount of vegetarian dishes that are available (it is a Buddhist nation after all). I eat way more rice than I ever had before, more noodles and less bread, more fish and much more pork. They say that the Asian diets are healthier than most western diets; I think to a large extent that is true. There are more vegetables here and less refined sugars and processed foods. 

Make sure to keep an eye out for my next blog post which will discuss... something else.