Something old, something new, something tangy, something...slippery

One of my favourite things about Oxford is how international a community it is. My close-knit group of friends alone represent Africa, Australasia, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North America. I clearly need to make a concerted effort with the lovely Central and South Americans around!

If our pot luck dinners had a representative chef it would more likely be Marcus Samuelsson than Julia Child or Gordon Ramsay.

Our friends enrich our lives every day, challenging us, helping us to see ourselves as we are, making us all better people. One of the best things, though, is gathering around a table of food cooked by friends or for friends and tucking in to something new and different and--whether you like the taste or not--made with much love.

What is also truly exciting and wonderful is receiving gifts of food from other parts of the world, offering the opportunity to taste something that I truly would never have been exposed to otherwise. When I returned to the UK from the December holiday I was graced with two such tokens!

N. was kind enough to bring back a hefty bag of FaFa Fruit Bar from Tehran, which is something like a giant sheet of fruit leather. Being something of a connoisseur of fruit leather from those early days of after-school snacks and last-minute pick-me-ups surrounding sports matches, I was overjoyed to be presented with such a bounty of it.

The paper closure to the enormous plastic bag containing the snack shows cartoon characters, each more happy about their respective apple, plum, apricot, red currant (I think), cherry and tamarind paste (unsure, here also...) than the other.

N. informed us that, just as one might find in the States, the product comes in a variety of flavours, but that the sour was the best. Even without having tasted the others, I would have to agree. The tar-coloured stuff tastes great! It's also oddly addictive. The sourness is not too intense, just enough so that I find myself tearing just one more bit off as I'm writing this.

The package also claims that it is 'A Bound Between Children & Fruits'. I cannot read or speak Farsi, and I can barely hold on to a second language, so I truly mean no disrespect when I say that I think this a highly amusing incidence that brings to mind images of siblings braiding lengths of fruit leather into ropes with which to tie each other up.

My second gift of food came from another friend, N., this one from Nanjing. The day after she arrived back from China she came into the kitchen sheepishly asking me if I liked duck. N. has witnessed many of my culinary exploits over this year, and has been the subject of much intense questioning and pestering by yours truly. Most of the time, I am the hovering nag asking about the origins of [insert Chinese cooking technique, vegetable, spice, sauce, herb here] while she's trying to relax and cook up something simple and scrumptious for dinner.

I said I loved duck, knowing that Nanjing is famous for its duck dishes. She then presented me with two shrink-wrapped, bright green packages the size of my palm. 'This is Duck?', I thought. There, on the package was a Sanrio Pekkle duck look-alike, sporting a bib and surrounded by flying chili peppers.


N. stood there while I gingerly tore away the top and a mini duck wing began to emerge, covered in a tough, slippery aspic the colour of weak tea. I have had few Andrew Zimmern/Anthony Bourdain moments in my life, but I was coming to the realisation that this might be one of them.

I took a brave, large bite into what looked like the most fleshy part. The gelatinous outer coating was, in fact, a tasty, highly salty combination of flavours that the package lists as its ingredients:
fresh duck's wings, table salt, soy sauce, onion, ginger, anise, pepper, chilioil, Colored ground pepper. The jury is still out on what 'Colored' ground pepper means, exactly, but I have to admit that the, if slightly sinewy, chewy, meat was good.

N. explained to me that her mom had stuffed the sleeves of her sweaters with the packets, all containing various duck parts and flavours; she sweetly offered me a heart packet, but I bashfully declined. So these are the Chinese equivalent to the Hershey's chocolate Kisses I used to find in my suitcase upon arrival, back in my college dorm room! She said that these were snacks that people in Nanjing eat when watching TV or just hanging out.

This packet also had an amusing phrase or two: 'The last English alphabet after production Date. Indicate production location.' It's like a CakeWreck moment of the Nanjing processed duck industry.

All of this is to say that these small tokens mean a lot. Mouthfuls of new, different things open our eyes, make us more aware of how others live and eat, and we are the better for having experienced them, just as we are better people for the friends and family around us. Next time I'm saying 'yes' to the heart!