I  once visited a friend on the other side of the world who had lived in Africa since the old days. We were sitting out on his terrace on the first evening, enjoying a very English gin and tonic and watching the setting sun, when I commented on how many flies where buzzing around threatening to get into the drinks. He said “You foreigners don’t understand. Let me tell you. You can tell how long an Englishman has been here by how he deals with a fly in his drink. Newcomers always shudder and throw away the drink and the fly. After they have been here for a few years, they take the fly out and continue drinking the gin and tonic. But you can always tell the people who have been here a long time. They pick out the fly and squeeze it into the glass so as not to waste any.”  Somehow that story made my drink less refreshing.

Have you noticed that every country has some disgusting special food that foreigners are forced to eat? It’s an initiation rite before strangers are allowed to enter the community. In my home province we have a good one. Tripe – cows stomach that is – which we offer raw, just pickled in vinegar. Very few newcomers pass that test. In China they have many – perhaps live monkey brain is the worst. In Japan I was served “drunken prawns” dipped in alcohol then eaten alive, with the instruction to hold both ends to stop them from wriggling.

Of course the Philippines has a world-class disgusting dish – balut. Explain to me, someone. How can a good Catholic country enjoy eating aborted duck?  Regularly at informal parties  I am challenged to eat balut. I always say “Yes, if everyone else will eat one first then I will follow.” So far there have always been one or two sane Filipinos present who have spared me.

Isn’t it an odd world that we live in?