Quoting Michael Loo to Nancy Backus <=-

know what the contents of the can are...

Like the Gerber baby food jars [...] the horror of primitive
peoples on seeing these labels is mythological, though.

A true story from my friend Simon Bao years ago, one that has
undoubtedly been repeated by others more than once ...

"For a young Vietnamese refugee who has just arrived in the USA,
life here can be so new and marvelous and bewildering. He needs a
guide. So my godbrother and "Si Phu" became godbrother also to Tam
and Tien.

One of the things every new arrival needs is a guided tour and
explanation of an American food market. In Tam's case, the only
"supermarkets" within walking distance were one small and nasty
"Food Value" market, and a Latino mercado that sold meats and some
Caribbean fruits and vegetables. My godbrother gave them a full
color, fully illustrated, bilingual Picture Dictionary that had
several pages and scenarios devoted just to shopping in an American supermarket.

For a new arrival, an American supermarket is a bewildering place
Most food products are unfamiliar, many are unimagined, and some
can't even be translated. I know they spent a lot of time in the
meat section, reviewing unfamiliar cuts of beef and pork, the
confusing pricing and weight labels, the sad and inexplicable ways
that chickens are sold. (Too young, and without some of the best
and most useful parts.) I know Tam would have been warned to avoid
anything claiming to be "Seafood" there. There was no fresh fish or
seafood of any kind, but there were nasty frozen things no newcomer
would know what to do with.

Canned foods always required special, in-depth explanations. Most
of the time, there were too many different words on the front of a
label, and most weren't even in the dictionary. The trick, then as
now, is that canned foods have a picture on the label that is the
clue to what's inside. Even without understanding the words, the
picture tells you that it is a can of beans, peas, corn, etc. Canned
sardines, showing both the fish and the fish sitting in tomato
sauce.

It was on a Saturday, about 2 weeks after Tam and Tien arrived in
the US that Tam invited my godbrother to stay for lunch.

Tam set out a bowl of something my godbrother did not recognize.
Some kind of brown meat dish. Chunks of meat in sauce. My god-
brother did not recognize the brown meat dish. And, he says, it
tasted more like a bland American food than a Vietnamese food. No
trace of fish sauce or ginger, no touch of lemongrass or chile
pepper, little or no garlic. Tam had sprinkled some sliced scallion
on top of the meat but that was the only vaguely Vietnamese thing
about it. It looked very much like meat that had been slow-braised
in a Vietnamese caramel sauce, a Thit Kho dish, but there was no
sweetness. And no bones, the meat was boneless and extremely
tender.

My godbrother wondered if this was some "Frenchified" dish, some
Vietnamese adaptation of a French stew that perhaps Tam's mother had
learned somewhere, so he asked Tam what kind of meat it was.

"Dog. It's so delicious, yes."

Phhhhtttt. My godbrother insists he was drinking from a glass of
water at that moment, and he choked and water came out his nose. Our
Si Phu asked Tam to repeat that, and Tam again said that the meat
was dog. And that it was very delicious. This time, there was no
mistaking the words "Thit Cho" (dog meat).

The reason for my godbrother's instant alarm was not that he
objected to eating dog meat. The reason was, as everyone is
supposed to know, Vietnamese MUST NOT EAT DOG IN AMERICA! It does
not matter how much dog one ate back in Vietnam or how much one
loves some nicely grilled "Thit Cho," one simply never again eats
dog once one arrives in the USA.

I know my godbrother instantly regretted that he had overlooked this
detail, he hadn't told Tam & Tien, emphasized it, or reminded them.
He assumed this fact had been stated and restated for them during
"cultural orientations" in the refugee camp.

There was dread in my godbrother's heart. He was going to have to
ask Tam where he got the dog, and he feared the answer. There were
the rumors. Unsubstantiated reports. Hearsay. Talk of Vietnamese
here and Vietnamese there who had taken a stray dog. Dogs that
disappeared from neighborhoods. Nothing ever proven anywhere, but
rumors that were common enough to have been repeated by Americans
themselves.


Cheers

Jim


... Sidecar, daiquiri, margarita basic template: spirit, orange, citrus

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