📙 Part 2: Describe a time when you tried a new food for the first time

This episode's vocabulary

Appetizing (adj.) - interesting or attractive, esp. because you think it will be good to eat.

Prohibit (verb) - to officially stop something from being done by making rules or laws that do not allow it.

Close approximation - close to something.

Gut (noun) - a way of deciding what should be done or what is right, that is based on how someone feels rather than thinking about reasons.

Be taken aback - to be very shocked or surprised.

Sensibility (noun) - the ability to feel and react to something.

Delicacy (noun) - something especially rare or expensive that is good to eat.

-

Questions and Answers

M: Rory, yum, yum, yum, yum. Are you ready?

R: I am.

M: Fire away, baby.

R: So I suppose I should talk about the time when I accidentally ate dog. This was while I was staying in Wa, which is a town and indeed the name of the township in northern Ghana. That's a country on the west coast of Africa. It's sort of, it's on the coast and it's just south of Burkina Faso. Um, and there, in this particular township there are quite a lot of dogs, which are kept for this purpose. Or I discovered later that they can just grab one off the street and butcher it in a wet market, which doesn't sound particularly appetizing. A wet market, by the way, is just it's a place where animals are kept and they're butchered there as opposed to being butchered or slaughtered in a separate place and then brought to the butchers. It all happens at once. Sometimes it happens in front of the customer. I'm glad it didn't happen in front of me. Anyway, I first had it at a restaurant after I ordered something from a menu. I wasn't actually particularly paying attention since I can eat just about everything. And I was speaking to a friend at the time, but the waiting staff seemed impressed with whatever I'd done, so I thought I'd made the right call anyway. I thought whatever I ordered tasted good. So I talked to the chef and the waiting staff there and I said. Wow, I knew you guys were Muslim because it's a Muslim majority area in the country, the south is more Christian, the north is more Muslim. And Muslims don't really eat dogs. In fact, I think it's prohibited. And so I said, and I didn't think they eat pork either. And so I said, I wasn't expecting such good pork here. But this is great. And and I had no idea what I'd eaten, but it was a close approximation to pork. So I just went with my gut and the chef stood there, like, you do know that you just ate dog, right? And I was very surprised, to say the least. I wasn't ill or anything. But at the thought of this. Like I say, I was quite taken aback, I suppose. It was pretty good if heavily seasoned with spices. And I think like other sort of leaves and things that are used to season foods there. But if I had known what I'd ordered, I think I would have chosen something different just because it's kind of a shock to the Western sensibilities. However, I got over it. And indeed, I tried it again a couple of times after that. And at my leaving party when I left Ghana. So what started out as a primary experience or the first time wasn't the last by far.

M: And what about your friends? Have they ever had it?

R: Oh, my friends in Africa have.

M: Yeah. Did they like it?

R: Um, well, yeah, they cook it, not regularly, but it's considered a delicacy.

M: Thank you for your surprising answer.

-