Easy Eater

เขากินง่าย.  This is an expression that is often used to describe me to people who are meeting me for the first time.  It means, he’s an easy eater, i.e. I’ll basically eat whatever is put in front of me.  It’s not that I enjoy everything that is put in front of me, but since I’ve been here, I’ve made a conscious and consistent effort to eat whatever and whenever Thai people do.  I’ve done this because eating is so central to Thai culture (as it is to many others).  And as one of the most basic forms of social interaction, it’s about the best and easiest way to meet and get to know people.  As in many Asian cultures, the standard greeting is not “How’s it going?” but “Have you eaten yet?”  And if by chance you haven’t, you’ll invariably be invited to eat whatever the person has on hand, or if they don’t have anything on hand, they’ll often ask someone nearby if they have anything or offer to go get you something, especially if you’re a foreigner, which for Thais is a category of people who clearly cannot obtain (sufficient) nourishment on their own.

Thus far, in no particular order, I have eaten crocodile, frog, cricket, silk worm larvae, bee larvae, beetles, bugs that look suspiciously like giant cockroaches, fermented fish, organ meats of all kinds, liver, heart, lungs, intestines, usually of pig.  There’s a viscera noodle soup that you eat for breakfast that’s a specialty in Chantaburi.  And in many areas of Suphanburi province, where we had our training, one of the specialties is field mouse.  I sampled the former but not as of yet the latter.

(If you’re going to eat bugs, I recommend crickets as a good entry bug of choice.  They’re actually quite tasty.  The other bugs, I could take them or leave them.)

My neighbors and colleagues are consistently impressed with my ability to eat anything.  This extends to “foreign” food such as yoghurt, tuna salad, and dal.  And while they will eat any of the aforelisted Thai foods, some of them balk at things like pizza (too bland, or just too unfamiliar) or Indian curry (spicy, but again, unfamiliar).  In a sense, they’re just not adventurous eaters.  At least, like my Italian friends who are the same way, they have an excuse in that their native cuisine is so excellent and varied, there’s really no particular reason to try new things.  In this regard, I’m still baffled by the non-adventurous Germans and British people I’ve encountered.

The first full three months at school, I was asked on almost a daily basis what I had for breakfast. This often included the query, “toast?”  to which I invariably replied, “No”.  A few weeks ago, the teacher who had been in charge of furnishing and equipping my house, completely out of the blue, stopped me on my way home and presented me with a toaster.  I now sometimes eat toast for breakfast.  It’s a good thing I’m such an easy eater.