Sitting in Coco Loco, a pleasant Santiago restaurant, and trying their caldillo de congrio, that is conger eel casserole, one of poet Pablo Neruda’s favourite dishes – see his Odas Elementales – I thought perhaps it might be fun to write about strange or surprising meals I have had when travelling in the last few years.
I remember once reading – in a John LeCarre novel I think – about a mysterious Moscow cafe called Traktir. So when Brook Horowitz, one of our partners in Russia, and his talented piano teacher wife took me for coffee at a place called Traktir, I was intrigued – would it be like the place in the book? Dark corners with spies whispering and putting poison in each other’s vodka? When I mentioned to Brook how thrilling all this was, he laughed at me and pointed out that Traktir is the local word for pub….
In Buenos Aires last year to lecture at a CSR course run by partner Christian Tiscornia of Amartya, I was invited for a parrillada or open air barbecue in the country by Christian and his family. The lunch, mentioned briefly in an earlier blog, was under magnificent trees and huge sides of beef cooked slowly over a vast open wood fire. Long tables had been set up, with places for thirty or more guests.
But as the day wore on, there were never more than fifteen or so at the table. However, the composition of the group changed constantly as new people came, got some steak and sat down, and others left. Friends, local workers and possibly total strangers drifted in and out to enjoy the day. By dusk the meat was finished, as was the wine, so we headed very carefully back into Buenos Aires knowing we had had an extraordinary time.
Tokyo Partner Makoto Fujii invited me once to the town of Kumamoto on Kyushu Island, where he had his summer home. I was privileged to be taken to a local park where the park Director asked us to join him for tea in the formal tea house in the gardens. Nervous about protocol and not upsetting my hosts, I was anxious to learn from Makoto-san what the right way to hold the saucer and the cup should be. He demonstrated and of course it was common sense – just don’t drop the things. So I managed to acquit myself acceptably and incidentally enjoyed the tea.
On a trip to the Baltic States I went once with Andrew Tesorier, the British Ambassador to Latvia, and a couple of his staff to visit an old Russian Orthodox sect deep in the countryside. The sect members’ forebears had rejected Peter the Great’s revision of the Church’s liturgy, and faced with repression for their unrepentant stance, had fled to neighbouring countries, including Latvia, where they felt free to worship as they wished.
On arrival at their village we were treated by the hosts, all in traditional dress, and all quite elderly, to an impromptu outdoor concert of balalaika music and Russian songs. We then had lunch in the old stone bakehouse which had been there since the first migration. And I must say, unkind thought, so had the bread.
I was most impressed by the Ambassador, as he switched fluently from English into Russian into Latvian and back into English.
In Shanghai , meeting for dinner with the Director of the Shanghai Volunteer Association and local British consultant John Burton, who had arranged the meeting, we were upstairs in a very local restaurant – no other Gwailo besides John and myself. Nibbling at a very tasty dish of small pieces of spicy meat, I asked John what it was.
“Toad” he replied.
Finally, some personal awards: best hotel breakfast anywhere is at the Swissotel in Quito; biggest steaks anywhere are in Guayaquil; poshest circles are in Santiago where I have been invited to drinks or lunch at the Polo Club, the Golf Club and the Country Club; and best oysters back home in the UK in Whitstable.
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