This one, my friends, offers quite the detour from our usual theme, and was, all round, a dinner-for-the-books, which tested both our mettles and our pallets.
Q, like O, has only one country in it’s list: Qatar, which Bernhard and Dorottya have already had the first time round the alphabet. It’s cuisine is also rather similar to the Omani one which we have very recently had. So Dorottya, in a shocking and hugely uncharacteristic move, asked to throw the rules out the window, just this once, and do something completely original.
I’m not sure you appreciate how gobsmacking this is: Dorottya is easily the strictest, most by-the-book member of our little group, and hearing her openly suggest throwing the book out was… well, let me just say we all instantly agreed – mostly out of shock.
And how glad I am that we did! Because what she dreamed up and produced was nothing short of a masterpiece.
In a wild swerve from our usual geo-international theme, Dorottya made-real her imaginings of a post-apocalyptic scavenger menu: what she reckons we might resort to eating should society crumble, all agriculture and supply chains collapse, and we would have to hunt and gather what we can find around us. In other words: ROADKILL.
Yup, you read right. But let me pre-empt any visions you may entertain of a spartan, rough evening: that, it was not. We did eat outside in Dorrotya’s garden, to the light of candle-lanterns, but the table was laid with all the usual finery and comfort.
Assembled friends: Lianne, Dorottya, Bernhard, and me. (very sadly Idit had to sit this one out – as she was about to go on holiday and couldn’t risk contracting Covid-19 from us – who’d just come back from a few days in Bristol, which still reported rather high infection rates. Or she may have found an excuse to avoid eating roadkill…).
I imagine you’ve all heard that animal farming is becoming increasingly hard to sustain and justify, environmentally speaking. But we still need protein, cheap and plentiful, to feed our ever growing hoards. One possible solution for this is eating Bugs. Lots and lots of bugs. They are quick and cheap to grow, and provide an excellent – if somewhat unpalatable – source of good protein. In some cultures it’s considered a delicacy!
So for pre-dinner nibbles, Dorottya served Whole Fried Locust (basically grasshoppers), mixed with nuts in one bowl, and with Bombay Mix in another.
I must admit I felt a morbid anticipation to try these – a feeling shared by Dorottya, but absolutely not by Lianne and Bernhard; they were both visibly disgusted by the whole idea. So what we decided to do is to pop one in our mouths together, on the count of three, and wash them down with red wine (Lianne brought some really cool bottles – with a suitable creepy story!).
You know what? It wasn’t bad! The locusts’ texture was brittle and flaky, as you may expect, and they tasted vaguely like unsalted popcorn. If taken with a handful of other stuff (nuts / Bombay mix) and without looking, they were perfectly edible.
For starters Dorottya served what could, in truth, be classed as fine-dining: pigeon breasts, on a bed of endive, with walnuts and beetroot. They tasted very gamey – we all enjoyed it.
The mains was appropriately roasted on the grill in the garden. All I saw at this point were 5 smallish, marinated (headless) carcasses, laid spread-eagled on the grill. They had a familiar form I couldn’t quite identify… until Dorottya spilled the beans:
They were Squirrels. Yup, those cute, furry things we see scurrying up and down our trees. Ahhhh! The cuteness. Oh, the horror.
But when needs must… so we tucked in. And man, They were delicious. The squirrels tasted very gamey, a bit like offal, and the marinade was simple and complemented this flavour brilliantly.
We also had some bean and veg salad – but I can’t honestly say I remember it.
The photo wasn’t staged, btw – I tried to eat it with a knife & fork, but it was too fiddly – so I went full cave-woman and ate with hands and teeth; it was so satisfying, and evidently brought out the savage in me (Only me, mind you).
For dessert the bugs made another appearance – sort of. Dorottya baked brownies – with cricket flour instead of wheat, served with ice-cream and flowers from her garden. When we asked her what flowers they are, she only said “They’re supposed to be non-toxic – should be fine to eat’. Seriously. But we did – and all lived to tell the tale.
So there you have it – a post-apocalyptic scavenger dinner, with all the trimmings. And it was damn good.
Recipes to follow for the brave amongst you!
Until next time,
Arianna
