America tends to keep food on the margins, sequestered in restaurants and dining rooms. Unusually strong cooking smells outside of the kitchen are not particularly welcome. Food purchases tend to be made in organized markets, with items packed individually. Any unusual smell is, again, not welcome.
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| Street fare in Yangon, Myanmar |
Asia is simply not like this. Food is a much more integral part of life, often quite literally spilling into the street. A stroll down any Southeast Asian city street will probably include ladies selling fresh fruits and vegetables, while older men often roast meats. Any number of “street foods” can be found, from pad thai in Bangkok to Pho Ga in Hanoi; Mohinga in Yangon to Soto Ayam in Surabaya. Piles of fish jostle for their place, fresh from the sea or the rivers. A cow or goat being butchered in full view of potential customers is welcome. Tables and small stools crowd the sidewalk, along with patrons (and their motorbikes). The lines between traffic, pedestrians, and commerce that are so starkly drawn in most western cultures, are virtually non-existent in Southeast Asia. The lines between food sales, preparation, and consumption also blur.
A world sanitized of cooking smell is unthinkable. Fresh-cut fruits, pungent fermented and dried fish products, and aromatic herbs all compete. In Vietnam, where so many dishes involve serving noodles in broth, the scent of strong, rich beef and chicken broth is never far away, often boiling away in ingenious mobile contraptions on the street, spiked with the tang of fermented fish sauce and enlivened by fresh herbs and lime.
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| A soup seller near the port of Yangon |
The other element that is ever present in Vietnam is coffee, and not just any coffee. Deep, rich, mocha-like coffee that at times can take on an almost muddy consistency, enriched and thinned by rich milk. Served hot or, more often, over ice, this treat wins you over.
One of the things I love about all of this is that food is intensely real. There’s no avoiding the fact that chicken soup requires the death of a chicken. Fruits and vegetables seem to fly rapidly from their natural just-out-of-the-ground state to some cooked wonder by way of a few seconds of well-timed knife work by a lady perched on a street corner. The processes, reality, and — at times — disturbing nature of food are out there for all to see — and enjoy.
