When your life has been one big travelogue, in my case, over 100 countries visited courtesy of Uncle Sam, what do you really remember when the ships are tied to the pier, the planes are grounded, and the wheels finally stop turning?
Was it that “near miss” in Vietnam? That typhoon in the South Pacific that took my buddy when he went to dump trash? Maybe that dark-eyed girl in Athens who proposed to me in a pastry shop? No, I think it was really that bouillabaisse in Marseille, that paella and sangria in Barcelona, that couscous in Casablanca, or even that “balut” in Manila. If I have a claim to fame, it’s that I ate my way around the world. After my lifetime of Navy travel, people often ask, “What was your favorite country overseas?” The second question, invariable, is, “What was your favorite food?” That’s when I sit back, close my eyes, and remember. What often comes to my mind?
Well, certainly not the balut. Balut is a fertilized developing egg embryo that is boiled or steamed and eaten from the shell. It is commonly sold as street food in the Philippines, Cambodia, and Vietnam. The length of incubation before the egg is cooked generally ranges between two or three weeks, according to local preference. I couldn’t go there.
Some people confuse balut with “century” eggs that you can find in Chinese cities like Hong Kong, but they were too nasty for even a person like me, who will generally eat anything. In case you don’t know, a “century” egg is a duck egg that has been covered in a pot containing a mixture of clay and wood ash and left for at least six weeks. At this point, the contents of the egg have turned black and taken on a gelatinous texture, with a smell somewhere between ripe blue cheese and ammonia.
While this “delicacy” has been loved by many Chinese epicureans for hundreds of years, I always preferred the “dim sum” (literally means “touch the heart”) dishes featured in Hong Kong’s famous floating restaurants. There are over 1,000 different dim sum dishes, originating in the different regions of China, although most restaurants only offered a few dozen choices. Variations on the simple steamed dumpling were always my favorite. I haven’t been to Hong Kong since the Beijing take-over, so I don’t even know if the floating restaurants, whose main patrons were foreigners, have been allowed to remain open. One thing I always liked about the cheaper Asian restaurants was that they featured plastic or wax images of their food on display in their window. There might be a language barrier, but you could always point at what you want.
As far as the Philippines, I was all in for the “pansit,” which is a general term referring to various traditional noodle dishes in Filipino cuisine. I attended a wedding in a Manila barrio, just down the street from the famous pipe organ made entirely of bamboo, and the celebration menu included many types of pansit, including some featuring what we in the Navy would refer to as “mystery meat” if it were sold by street venders. You also can’t go wrong with Filipino pork adobe, which is basically slices of pork cooked in soy sauce.
The meal I remember most in the Philippines, however, was probably the simplest. My ship was in port for a few days, and my wife and mother-in-law flew over from Hattiesburg to visit me. We had been gone for about six months. We rode the “Philippine Rabbit” (local bus line) from Subic up to Manila and stayed one night at the famous Manila Hotel, the same one where General Douglas McArthur kept his girlfriend after he “returned” to the Philippines in World War II.
My memorable meal was at breakfast when we all had orange juice, smoked fish and fresh mango. It might have seemed so “special” because we had been “eating out of cans” for months on the ship. Even on modern Navy ships, with their high operational tempo, fresh fruit and vegetables are often scarce. When I was a kid on my first ship in the Mediterranean, I remember getting “sick as a dog” after over-eating “purloined” (stolen) fresh food. I was on a working party, at sea, unloading materials from a supply ship that came alongside, when they began to send over bunches of ripe bananas and cartons of cold, fresh milk. When the officers were not looking, we had a party. What else could we have done?
Speaking of Casablanca, other than I never saw Humphrey Bogart or visited Rick’s Café, what I really remember is my first visit there. It must have been about 1961. The captain of my ship was height-challenged, about five feet tall, had a Napoleon complex, tended to jump up and down, but was a good guy. He was so short that he could barely see over the railings around the wings of the bridge.
It was very foggy that morning; we had a tight schedule, as many dignitaries were waiting on the pier to welcome us to Morocco. For whatever reason, the Old Man misjudged his approach to the pier, and came in too fast to back down and stop. We must have knocked down at least fifty feet of the wooden pier, with boards flying everywhere. I was just a lowly sound-powered phone talker standing on the bridge, but even I could see what was going to happen.
We were being welcomed by some important Moroccan bureaucrats, French officials, the Royal Moroccan Drum and Bugle Corps, and by a contingent of the French Foreign Legion, lined up in a smart formation. As we came in too fast, and they realized what was happening, pandemonium ensued. Legionnaires kepis flew off their heads; bugles dropped to the deck; drums rolled down the pier. Everyone ran for their lives. Luckily, nothing was really hurt but the Old Man’s considerable pride. I doubt he even reported it to his boss.
There’s so much else that comes to mind – so many meals and so little time. My XO and I liked the curry we had in a Karachi, Pakistan, restaurant one time so much that we went next door, to a stall selling curry powder by the pound, and bought 25 pounds each of the variety we’d eaten in the restaurant. I cooked with it for years until it began to get moldy. That XO was a trip. He said that curry “wasn’t any good unless it was hot enough to make you cry.”
In Korea, I learned to love bulgogi, or the Korean barbeque, which is traditionally cooked by restaurant patrons over individual charcoal fires. I also acquired a taste for kimchee, the ubiquitous fermented cabbage which graces most Korean tables. I went on a tour of a kimchee factory in Pusan, and wasn’t so sure after I saw the workers, wearing rubber hip boots, stomping around in the vats of cabbage and brine. In New York City a few weeks ago, I noticed in the newspaper that “nouveau Korean cuisine” is all the rage. I hope it’s not like the restaurants in Korea proper where they douse everything in that rotten, horrible smelling fish sauce.
I also loved the street food in places like Singapore, although the street sellers are being crowded and legislated out by the effects of urban renewal. The best food in Singapore, however, was always at the old Raffles Hotel, a holdover from British colonial days, where the last tiger was killed in the lobby around 1900, and where you could still see bullet holes in the walls from the Japanese occupation in 1941. It was famous for its “Long Bar,” supposedly the longest in Asia, and the home of its signature cocktail, the “Singapore Sling” (gin, citrus, sweetener, and soda, although there are many variations). The Long Bar was one of the favorite haunts of the famous English writer, Somerset Maugh, during the 1930s. In the early 1960s, he had a beautiful chateau on Cap Ferrat, which was visible from my ship when we anchored off Nice, France. Since I read his books (“Of Human Bondage” (1915), “The Moon and Sixpence” (1919), etc.), I often thought about showing up at his door, but never got up the courage.
If you pin me down, I guess my favorite country is France, and my favorite food is French.
Paris is my favorite city. Back in the day, I could run to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Today, I take the elevator. Of course, the change in my ascent took place over about sixty years of gradual decline. Other than the blow to my pride, the worst thing about taking the elevator is standing in the long line of smokers puffing away on those harsh, unfiltered French cigarettes. Statistically, only about 5% more Frenchmen smoke than Americans, but they seem to be attracted to the Eiffel Tower.
It’s understandable, as the tower is a worldwide symbol for France and things French. Assembled in1889 as part of the country’s “Exposition Universelle,” it was designed by Gustave Eiffel, who also designed the interior framework of the Statue of Liberty in New York City harbor. It’s 1772 steps to the top observation platform which, unfortunately, seems to be closed most of the time. If you can get there on a clear day, you have a panoramic view of about 37 miles. Supposedly, when Adolf Hitler arrived in Occupied Paris during World War II for his one visit to the tower, the French Resistance deactivated the elevators, forcing him to walk up the steps.
I only managed an occasional visit to Paris during the three years I lived in France, spending most of my time on the Mediterranean coast, from the Italian border as far west as Toulon, where one of my ships spend six months in a French Navy shipyard. That was my first introduction to French food as our galley was down, and we ate with the French sailors ashore. It was in their chow hall that I fell in love with my favorite sandwich: a cold, sliced and salted, hard-boiled egg on a buttered croissant. We also had steak and eggs for breakfast most mornings. The French know how to eat. During that time, the quaint little villages along the Riviera, now expensive, tony resorts, were populated with working fishermen, and the dockside mom and pop restaurants featured the catch of the day and not much else. I learned two valuable lessons about eating early on in France: “simple” is usually better and eat with the blue-collar locals - stay out of the tourist traps.
I still faithfully study the French language on the computer every day. In fact, I went back to Villefranche sur Mer for a month-long language immersion school a few years ago, and I held my own in class. I must admit, however, that the highlight of my school day was the noon meal, prepared in-house by the school’s chef. The only downside was that the instructors sat at the student’s tables and quizzed us about the French news of the day. No English was ever permitted on the premises.
About that girl in the Greek pastry shop. True story. When I told my buddies on the ship about it, they accused me of being drunk. Whenever we pulled into a Greek port, the Old Man would always get on the loudspeaker and warn the crew about drinking the Greek’s favorite alcoholic beverage, ouzo. Clear in color, it’s made from grapes and has a strong anise taste. To be called “ouzu,” by Greek law, the alcohol content must be at least 50 percent. The captain would always say: “Stay away from it! It’s too strong! They feed it to their children, but you can’t handle it! It will make you lame, blind, and crazy!” So, naturally, what’s the first thing the sailors would order in the first bar they hit ashore? Ouzu. And, sure enough. It made many of them lame, blind, and crazy. You didn’t want to have Shore Patrol or especially the quarterdeck watch when everyone started coming back to the ship, because it was something to see.
I never fit the stereotype of a rambunctious, drinking sailor. I wanted to become an officer, so I kept my nose clean, stayed out of bars, and minded my own business. I guess I was a nerd. Anyway, when I was about 18, I walked into a pastry shop in downtown Athens, and it seemed to cause an uproar with the girls, about my age, behind the counter. You always had to wear your uniform ashore in those days (“Crackerjacks”). No one had civilian clothes except officers. Finally, one of them, the dark-eyed one, came to my table, where I was eating my pastry and, giggling, handed me a note, and then ran back behind the counter. I didn’t know what to think, so I looked at it for a minute, and then opened it to read, in a girl’s careful handwriting: “Will you marry me?” I didn’t know what to say; so I quietly finished my pastry, smiled at the girls, and left. Reflecting later, I decided it was probably about the only English they knew, and just their way of saying “hello.”
Believe it or not, I had a very similar experience a year or so later at a dance in Beirut, Lebanon, put on for embassy kids by the American Embassy. About twenty of us sailors who were considered to be “trustworthy” were “volunteered” to attend the dance held at the American University.
Looking back, one can’t help but miss those quieter, simpler days – when pretty girls felt free to pass innocent notes; when sailors could wear their uniforms ashore in foreign ports without fear of being killed by terrorists; when you could be “sent” to a dance because you had a reputation as a “good” guy and could be trusted not to act a fool. Let’s do it again.
Light a candle for me.
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Benny Hornsby of Oak Grove is a retired U.S. Navy captain. Visit his website, bennyhornsby.com, or email him: villefranche60@yahoo.com.
