My husband and I are planning a trip to Malaysia this summer, the country of my birth. We'll be going with my parents, and it will be one long food orgy at hawker stalls and little hole-in-the-wall places, and we'll relish every minute of it. But during a bleak January in Ohio, a land full of sun, white sand beaches, jungle and spicy food that simultaneously assaults and delights every single tastebud you own seems very far away. This is why I picked up Anik See's A Taste for Adventure: A Culinary Odyssey Around the World.


Where are we going?

I love travel narratives because they allow me to see and experience wonderful new things without leaving home. This is not to say that I won't ever do these things in person, of course. Travel narratives just give me an idea of what I might like to add to my lists of Places to Visit and Things to Eat. I especially enjoy accounts of unusual destinations, and the author certainly goes off the beaten path in her search for new experiences.

Anik is a Canadian who works for a TV food show called The Urban Peasant. While the salary isn't luxurious, the schedule (3 months filming, 3 months vacation) is great for the extended travel she loves. The author has been published in other travel anthologies, but this is her first book and it's quite a doozy. We start in Malaysia and Singapore, then move to Patagonia, Thailand, Georgia, Turkey and Armenia, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico and end in her home of British Columbia. Each chapter is a separate account of a different trip, and can be easily read individually or out of order as there is no real connecting chronology.


What works

I primarily picked up the book for its chapter on Southeast Asian countries, and was not disappointed. Anik is a seasoned traveler, but she only speaks a smattering of the language and gets by on mostly hand gestures, smiles and lots of goodwill. She doesn't just go to look at sites--in fact, there's very little of actual specific sightseeing in this book. Anik talks to people, she somehow gets them to show her their personal view of the country and its food, she gets inside home kitchens and watches people prepare the food they eat everyday.

I loved her description of being taught to make roti, the buttery, flaky bread made with ghee (a type of clarified butter) and murtabak, a version of roti stuffed with savory fillings like ground beef, garlic, shallots, chilies, ginger and mint. I drooled over her daily forays to the laksa stalls for laksa lemak, a spicy seafood noodle soup rich with coconut milk.

Anik's other trips are equally enchanting and certainly a culinary temptation for any foodie. She eats asado, spiced grilled meat over an open fire in Patagonia, green papaya salad in Thailand, khacapuri, a cheese-filled bread in Georgia, Turkish baklava, Chiliean empanadas, saffron rice in Iran, homemade pozole, a pork and hominy stew in Mexico, and the list goes on. As an extra bonus, each chapter has a few recipes at the end for the food she's eaten!

A big part of what's so endearing about her travels is that they're very low key. She doesn't stay in fancy hotels or eat in fancy restaurants. Anik is usually traveling on foot, bus or most often, on a bike, she's often alone (a fact which astounds many people she meets) and she's often found eating in small neighborhood places, peoples' homes and occasionally by the side of the road. She's got a knack for making friends, and people seem very inclined to show her a more intimate aspect of their culture--food, music and local customs. This philosophy reminds me very much of Rick Steves, a well-known travel guru with a popular series of European travel shows on PBS. Neither of them allow expensive trappings to get between them and the country they want to see, and both believe in traveling light, with many personal contacts rather than doing the usual tourist trap rounds.


What doesn't work

The only thing I found questionable was mostly due to the cynic in me. Are people really that nice? I mean, Anik speaks very often of people going out of their way to help her. She gets invited into peoples' homes despite the fact she's a total stranger, in Georgia especially she speaks of people in remote villages running up to bestow gifts of food and drink upon her and her boyfriend, who sometimes accompanies her on these trips. They're both often literally bombarded with offerings, more than they can carry on bikes, and the sheer warmth and hospitality Anik reported amazed me.

It's not that I think all people are horrible, and I'm sure Anik's open-mindedness, eagerness to try new things and general polite exterior win her many new friends. People in the countries she visited have probably met their share of travelers who demand to know where the nearest McDonalds is in Thailand and gripe that there aren't any Coke products in Armenian villages. People like Anik must be very refreshing indeed, and I certainly find her to be so. But the cynic in me won't be quieted, I have to wonder if she's exaggerating just a teensy bit. Perhaps I haven't been as open as Anik is. Perhaps I haven't gone far enough off the beaten path. Either way, I know that my doubt is going to make me try all the harder on my next trip.


Recommendations

I find it difficult to believe any armchair traveler wouldn't enjoy this book. The writing is simple and not overly flowery, but still striking. She lets experiences speak for themselves, like on her description of a late night train ride from Bangkok to the Malaysian border:

"By three in the morning, the whole train is famished, despite the fact that not a single hour has gone by when any of us have not put something in our mouths; it is the kind of ravenous hunger that comes from a day of constant grazing and a sudden late-night alertness. The flavour of an elegantly charred chicken leg at dawn cannot be put into words. Gradually, the sun's rays begin to lick the bottoms of low-lying clouds and sweep through the glistening rice paddies on either side of the train, and I fall asleep to the sounds of children clapping and smacking their lips."

My main wish is that each chapter could (and should) be a book in itself, there is so much to tell and share. I really enjoyed her fresh, uncomplicated and uncomplaining perspectives of travel, and like all good travel books, it made me long to be up out of my chair and away.




Recommended: Yes