2015 March 21: Buffalo Curds and Walrus Meat

I've eaten a lot things I never thought I would eat.

In Pond Inlet I ate raw seal, raw frozen char, caribou jerky, narwhal, beluga, polar bear and aged walrus. To make aged walrus, catch your walrus at the floe edge in April. Butcher it and cut it into football sized pieces. Wrap the pieces of meat in the skin and tie it shut with the intestines after squeezing out all the offal. Bury the whole thing under a big pile of rocks so that animals can't get to it. Go back to get it in October. Eat frozen.

I didn't actually want to eat aged walrus, but when you are at a community feast and one of the oldest elders in the community offers you some, it would be very rude to turn it down. Besides, he looked like he was thoroughly enjoying himself, slicing off bite sized pieces as fast as he could and just wolfing them down, smiling and nodding his head and smacking his lips. How bad could it be, right? So, when he looked at me, sliced some off the hunk in front of him, and held it out to me on the tip of his knife, and said in halting English, "You want?", I couldn't say no. After watching me swallow it practically whole, the elder held his side as he laughed so hard that tears flowed freely down his face. With a smile, he leaned towards me and said, "You want more?" "No thanks," I replied, which sent him into further gales of laughter, and which led to him telling everyone that I had tried it, and which then led to everyone else offering me little bits of everything else that was being eaten. Hence, the seal (looks like beef, tastes like fish), char (dip it into soy sauce and it ain't half bad), caribou jerky (pretty good actually), and polar bear (looks like pork, but don't eat the liver). I passed on the seal eyeball and caribou fly larvae, though.

Amber didn't care much for some of the food in Pond, but one thing she loved was char. I could not feed that girl enough of this fish that is similar to salmon in colour and taste. I took her two best friends - Heather and Amina - and her to a feast one evening, and I could not cut up the char fast enough for the three of them! Two other ladies nearby and a man next to me starting tossing the three girls char as well. They could not get enough! Word soon got around just how much she loved char, and rarely more than a few days went by without someone knocking on my door with fresh frozen char for Amber.

Another evening, my parents had come to visit from Newfoundland. When Heather and Amber learned that we were having char for supper, they ran around the house yelling, "Yay! We're having char!" in English and Inuktitut. With supper ready, I called the girls down from the bedrooms, and they eagerly ran to the table, then stopped dead in their tracks. "What's that?" they asked, as they surveyed the gorgeously baked char with lemon and onions. "It's char," I replied. And both girls ran sobbing back to the bedroom because "You ruined it! You cooked it!"

And when Amber and I moved to Ontario, there was a seafood restaurant that she loved to visit because they served char. The first time we went there, they asked how she would like it cooked. "Raw and frozen," she replied. You have never seen such a strange face made by a waiter. "Is she serious?" he asked me in disbelief. "Oh, yes," I said, "She is quite serious." Every worker in the restaurant - and not a few patrons - hovered nearby to watch her eat her raw frozen fish with absolute gusto.

When I went to China with a group of teachers as part of a course at Brock University, we ate as a group. We sat around a large round table, and the hotel restaurant just brought us about twenty or more different dishes every day. Most people tried to figure out just what each dish was before eating it, but after the first few meals, I quickly learned that you don't ask, you just eat. Chicken stomach tastes like oyster mushrooms, but chewier. Duck tongues were pretty good except you have to be careful of the bone. Chicken feet are rather rubbery, but it's the way that you eat them that can be a little off-putting: hold the claw between thumb and first finger, put the foot in your mouth, and use your teeth to strip the bone as you pull it out. I almost ate scorpions, but was put off of the idea by the girl next to me saying, "It's pretty good except the legs are stuck in my teeth."

One day I found a real treat on the table - deep-fried caplin! I took the whole dish and finished them all myself. It was such a treat to get something directly from home.

In St. Pierre I had horse steak. Enough said.

Now that I am vegetarian, I eat lots of things that I never ate before, but none so exotic as my previous meat-filled adventures. Here in Sri Lanka I am trying all sorts of fruit and vegetables that are new to me.

And buffalo curds.

When Elanor and I went on a church ladies trip a few weeks ago, one of the men who came along asked me if I had tried buffalo curds yet. I had not. For more than five minutes he extolled the virtues of buffalo curds and honey, telling me how wonderful it is and how healthy it is.

When I say buffalo I mean water buffalo.

To make buffalo curd, first milk your water buffalo. Then, bring the milk to a boil and simmer for ten minutes. Remove from heat, cover and let cool. When cool, add a little plain pure yogurt, yogurt starter, or a little leftover from a previous batch. Put into clay pots, cover and let sit for ten hours. Eat soon, or refrigerate. To eat, add a little honey or brown sugar or jaggery or palm syrup or molasses.

Buffalo curd is sold in supermarkets and road side stands throughout Sri Lanka. When buying it, buy it early in the day if it is not refrigerated, and make sure it is white, not yellow. Yellow is old; white is fresh. But, if it is not in a clay pot, it is not considered real buffalo curd! 

Courtesy http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/09/what-is-sri-lankan-food-like-cuisine-guide-international-travel-curry-string-hoppers-coconut-sambal.html

You can make a reasonable facsimile by using pure unflavoured Greek yogurt, instead. Don't use the North Americanized versions of yogurt, though - most of them have been tainted with gelatin, sugars, flavours and colours. Astro makes a Balkan style yogurt that would also work. It's even better if you drain off any liquid from the top so that the yogurt is a little thicker - buffalo milk has twice the fat content of cow milk. Or, if you are really ambitious, you could substitute sheep milk and make it yourself from scratch!

Like I said, I have eaten many things I never thought I would eat. Homemade water buffalo curds is one of those things that never even crossed my mind!

But, boy, it sure was yummy!

Sixty-Four Degrees

To pick up where we left off last time....

We got our Suburban fixed (well, sort of - Dad reports today that it's not running again), got everything packed, and headed for St. John's for the night on Wednesday. The two little dogs knew something was up, as they both refused to leave my side during the trip. The snow started coming on as we finished up some last minute items. And the baleful look of my Shih-Poo as Mom and Dad pulled away from the hotel broke my heart. They drove our truck back to their place in a wintry blast all the way to Whitbourne, where it suddenly turned into a beautiful evening for a drive. Poor little Essie (my first dog, named Essex after my first new car, a Dodge SX) cried all Thursday because he missed his momma.

With yet another snowstorm forecast for Thursday morning, we were relieved to see clear skies when we awoke at 5 am to go to the airport. As we walked into the lobby a scant thirty minutes later, the heavens opened and we were in whiteout conditions. By the time we got to the airport, just five minutes later, all incoming flights had been cancelled, and our flight was scheduled to be the last one to leave.

And leave we did! Although, admittedly, it was more than a little disconcerting to be in 70 km / hour winds, with snow whipping everywhere at -31 C, and snowplows clearing the runway in front of the plane as we took off!

With all of the opposition we had faced while getting ready for this adventure, it was no surprise to be given this one last kick as we left for warmer climes.

In the meantime, my husband (who claims to be an introvert and anti-social) happily spent an hour at the gate chatting with former Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Beaton Tulk about politics, books, the oil industry, finance, Kevin King's back country cabin, Mr. Tulk's 76 year old house that he and his wife bought and restored in Musgravetown, and my first-cousin-once-removed Eli who is a good friend of his and whom Steve spent a day this past summer helping to put up a fence around a cemetery where many of my ancestors are buried - part of yet another cemetery restoration project envisioned by my great-uncle Sim who is celebrating his 91st birthday today! Our many hours long stop-over in Newark also saw my husband happily chatting away with the guys at the pizza stand in the airport food court - in Spanish, Sinhala, and Tamil.

The flight from Newark to Mumbai was an uneventful but long fourteen hours. It was rather strange in some ways, because we left on Thursday, but were flying east, so we had an extremely short day and landed in Mumbai shortly before midnight on Friday. It did give one pause for thought as we flew over Afghanistan, grateful to be flying at over 30 000 feet. But the sunset high in the air over Pakistan was truly spectacular - there is no word to describe the colour of where the saffron and cobalt of a Middle Eastern sunset meet as the sun is just sinking below the horizon. And one doesn't often hear this about airline food...but it was incredible. Curried chickpea wraps for snacking, some sort of crunchy grain salad and cauliflower curry for supper, mini samosas with sweet chutney and curried sago for breakfast.

The airport in Mumbai was incredible - the terminal has been completely renovated and now doubles as one of the pre-eminent museums in India, with 3 kms of exhibits! And, unlike American, Canadian, and other Western airports, photography is encouraged. With ancient and modern arts and crafts, frescoes, and archeological displays, it is truly breathtaking.

While wandering around and exploring all there was to see, I happened to stroll down a side hall in search of 'the facilities'. As I passed by a huge open double-door leading to a florescent sterile tube shaped corridor that apparently runs around the entire outside perimeter of the shopping, duty-free, and display area, I caught a glimpse of a large man with Asian features being held and forcibly removed of his jacket and backpack by three security officers. Needless to say, I did not stick around to see how this ended.

A couple of hours later we were on the final leg of our journey - Mumbai to Colombo - where again, the airline food was delicious - a spiced pancake with a vegetable korma and fruit salad (the one thing I did not like was a piece of fruit found in the fruit salad which tasted the way I imagine socks that have been worn for far too long in old hiking boots would taste), and Moong Dal for snacking. (This treat reminded me of a student I once taught who was supposed to be autistic and had been placed in my hard-to-serve regional autistic program. While trying to find some way to reach him, I visited him and his family at their home, where I discovered that he was a very different person at home than at school. While he obviously did have some intellectual delay, he could communicate just fine with his family, showed all sorts of social skills that he did not display at school, and did not have many of the repetitive behaviours that were his hallmark while in the classroom. After speaking at length with his huge extended family, I determined that the boy could not speak or understand English, but spoke Urdu at a child's level, and that Dal was his favourite food. I started bringing Dal to school to share with him whenever he became agitated, and miraculously, many of his autistic behaviours disappeared, and he was later moved to a program that better fit his needs as an ESL learner with intellectual delay, rather than an autistic program.)

At 5 am we landed, and quickly made our way through customs and immigration, found our driver (named Walleterad), and marveled at the beauty of a Sri Lankan early morning in 33 degree weather.

Of course, there was a mix-up at the hotel where we were supposed to be staying (are you surprised? given the nature of our trip to this point, we certainly weren't!) and our reservation had been lost. The owner of the hotel was very apologetic, especially after he learned that I am Canadian. He lived in Calgary for several years and loves Canada, but it was too cold for him although his wife loves it! First they lived in England, but it was too expensive, then Arizona where he loved the weather but it was a terrible place to raise children, then on to Calgary which was great for his children and he even considered buying some farmland, before deciding to move back to Sri Lanka, "the most beautiful and best place in the world!"

Fortunately, however, his son and daughter-in-law or daughter and son-in-law (it was a little confusing to follow) own a hotel across the street from his establishment, and Steve quickly arranged for us to stay there.

And so, here we are - from a North Atlantic blizzard to Sri Lankan humidity. And only 64 degrees change in the temperature!