Hi dear Ladies of Hive! Hope you are all doing well! For this week's contest we got the choice of either:
1️⃣ What’s your favourite childhood memory/memories?
Or
2️⃣ What’s the weirdest food you’ve eaten and what was the experience like?
And I don't know how I have managed it but in my case, both of these combine perfectly. As during the creation of my favorite childhood memory I also ate the weirdest food in my life!
My memory
So just to give you a bit of background, I grew up in the Netherlands with a father who is a history teacher and who instilled a great love for historical things with me as well (in fact, I am now also a history teacher!) so when I was 12 and we got the chance to go to Egypt on a vacation it was amazing for both of us! I had never been outside of Europe and the idea to go see all these beautiful historical spots was great! The absolute highlight of course was seeing the Great Pyramids (please forgive the quality of the picture, in 2002 we still had to develop our pictures haha) This was still in the time when you could actually go inside the pyramids, which is no longer allowed because it damages them.
We had an amazing time, seeing a completely different culture, visiting all these beautiful historic place and I think it really awoke my passion for history, which has not died down since.
How does this connect to food?
Well, so part of this amazing trip was a boat tour in a Felucca (a traditional Egyptian sail boat) near Luxor in the south of Egypt.
We would sail around until sunset, enjoying all the lovely evening colors and some cooling down on the water at the end of the day. After the sun set we would have dinner on the boat. Sounds like a dream right? Now I am not a picky eater and don't really care much about what I eat so trying foods from different cultures is usually a success. However, this evening as I was eating random foods I didn't know and could not really identify on the dark boat I tasted something a bit odd. It had a texture unlike anything I had ever eaten before... I decided to ask the friendly Egyptian sailor what I was eating. We had some communication issue as both our English was poor, but he kept pointing at his head while making moo-sounds. I first thought he called me crazy or had perhaps himself gone coockoo haha but then it dawned on me... I was eating the brain of some cow like animal...
I have since learned that multiple countries eat brain, cow or otherwise. But I have to say for me I wouldn't really order it again. I think the texture threw me off the most. I did finish what I was eating, as I was always told not to be impolite but I think that was my last brain meal ever...
So there we are, a combination of my best childhood memory and the strangest thing I have ever eaten! I look forward to your stories and hope you have a great weekend! I would like to invite @maylenasland to have a look in this group. And as always thanks for hosting @kaerpediem.