Dining with Fingers

I enjoy dining with my fingers and I enjoy Indonesian, Indian and Malay cuisines where I can use my fingers to eat. I find that fingers enhance the taste of food.

This has been endorsed by the KFC slogan, “It’s finger lickin’ good”. What do you think?

My younger sister-in-law treated me to dinner at a popular Indian restaurant in Vermont when I was in Melbourne. Everyone was dining with a fork and a spoon. When my platter of chicken vindaloo, lamb massalla and briyaani came, I tucked into it in earnest with my fingers. It was one of the most delicious Indian meals I had ever tasted.

I guess using my fingers for dining was a faux pas at the restaurant. A few of the diners must have frowned upon my doing it. However, they would have enjoyed the meal more if they had used their fingers, too.

ltbs

Eating briyaani with a fork and spoon is like making love through an interpreter.

Jawaharlal Nehru

Can You Take This Meat?

A friend who lives in Hong Kong has never been to mainland China. He refuses to do so as he says that you would never know what you would be eating there.

At a particular dinner in Korla, Xinjiang, China, I found a platter of cold meat to my liking and so I turned the lazy Susan to get the meat most of the time. I was relishing it very much.

Our lady host noticed this and said, "I'm glad you’re enjoying donkey meat. It's one of our delicacies".

Hearing this, I could feel a sudden queasiness in my stomach as I had never had donkey meat before. I lost appetite completely! However, I realized that it would be quite rude of me to stop eating it as it was our host’s way of showing her hospitality by offering that delicacy, so I reluctantly continue eating it, but ever so slowly!

ltbs

You shall eat the fruit of the labour of your hands;

you shall be happy, and it shall be well with you. 

Psalms 128:2