THENASTYBITS (14 page)

CHINA
SYNDROME

finally. china.

I'd been nibbling around her edges for years, eating Chinese food in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taipei—and, of course, New York. But I'd never been to the mainland, to the Source. I'd been, to be honest, intimidated by the largeness and importance of the subject: the oldest, greatest, most influential and varied of the world's mother cuisines. Unlike other places I'd written about, China, with her eight distinct regional cuisines, seemed a subject for whom enthusiasm alone would not be enough. A certain . . . expertise, surely, would be required.

I needn't have worried. Few people on earth are as enthusiastic about food and eating as the Chinese. Show up with an open mind and an empty stomach, willing to try anything that comes your way, and enthusiasm is indeed enough. You will find yourself welcomed—and well fed—again and again, a passenger on a deliriously colorful joyride.

The old joke that the Chinese will eat anything inadvertently reveals what is best about them: There are few "good" ingredients and "bad" ingredients in China. There are the often expensive ingredients that are easy to cook, and the other stuff, the tongues, feet, and odd bits that take a little time—a few thousand years of trial and error—to figure out how to make good. Like any great culinary tradition, the driving engine is the need to transform the humble, the tough, the unlovely into the

ioz

delicate and sublime, or to figure out what was good about an ingredient all along.

In this way, it can be said that deep inside every good cook, be they French, Italian, or American, beats the heart of a Chinese. With this in mind, I recently ventured my first few little bites out of a very large country.

At Huang Cheng Lao Ma restaurant, in Chengdu, Szechuan's frenetically developing capital, a large cauldron of murky and bubbling palm oil sits center table: the notorious Szechuan hotpot. Bobbing on the roiling surface of the dark, viscous liquid is a logjam of tongue-scalding dried Szechuan chilies. Less noticeable, but just as plentiful, are a fistful of
hua jiao,
smaller, darker "flower" peppercorns. The dried chilies are pure burn. The peppercorns, though aromatic, are pure freeze. They numb the mouth, at times the whole face, as they go down (which explains why they are a popular remedy for toothache). My friend David, a Chengdu native, points at the spicy hellbroth with his chopsticks and says, "It gets stronger as it cooks."

He points across the large communal table at a family of locals gathered around a similar witches' brew. The mother is red faced and holds a fist to her chest. The father is mopping sweat from his neck. David grins and dips a slice of raw beef into the hotpot, swirling it around to cook for a few seconds before a secondary dunk in cooler oil, then pops it in his mouth.

"Diarrhea tomorrow," he promises.

"For me, or for you?" I ask, assuming that it's my delicate Western metabolism he's concerned about.

"Oh no. Everybody pays tomorrow," he laughs. "Still. We come back again. You'll see. It's addictive."

Plates of uncooked chicken, shrimps, sliced kidney, quail eggs, noodles, and vegetables arrive. Each will find their way in increments into the increasingly volcanic oil before disappearing down our throats. It's like a lethal fondue. We've ordered the strongest, "hottest" variety, in a town famous for its profligate way with peppers, and it hurts so good. The perfect mixture of pleasure and pain. I feel strangely in competition with David.

They say "never let them see you sweat," but it's way too late for that. We're both in full lather. David swallows another slice of kidney, rubs his solar plexus, and grimaces, and I feel—to my shame—gratified by his pain. I'm surviving Szechuan. I'm making it through this most incendiary of incendiary meals in the fire capital of the world. And I'm loving it. The effect of all the peppers is almost narcotic in its endorphin-producing qualities. In fact, early hotpot chefs were rumored to lace their concoctions with opium, to keep customers coming back. It wasn't necessary. Those who survive their initial exposure to the dish can't help but return to it, like a beautiful but bad girlfriend. (Later, when I return to the States, I'll secrete two kilos of those magical
hua jiao
in my luggage, wanting never to be separated from them again.)

The next day, at Chen Ma Po Dou Fu (which translates loosely to "Pockmarked Granny's Tofu"), I happily submit to another glorious if painful scourging and devour the restaurant's namesake dish: a bowl of meat and spice-stippled tofu awash in more palm oil, named for its likeness to its creator. I pick cautiously through a Szechuan chicken that is easily 80 percent dried chilies (one tries to pick around them) and 20 percent chicken, and, like so much of local fare, awash in yet more pepper-infused palm oil. As David said, even knowing my inevitable unpleasant gastroenterological destiny, I don't care. It's too good. My palate—if it doesn't burn out of my skull entirely—will never be the same again.

The relatively friendly flavors of Beijing are a welcome change. And I concentrate, in the limited time I have, on what the capital city is best known for: duck. Duck so crispy, flavorful, juicy, and unctuous that it will ruin you for "Peking Duck" anywhere else. Li Qun Roast Duck Restaurant, located in an old
hutong
neighborhood near Tiananmen Square, is a crowded, ramshackle home turned eatery. Eager customers are squeezed around a central courtyard, jammed into small former bedrooms, their tables brimming with stacked plates of food. In the kitchen, the chef carefully positions head-on ducks over open peachwood flame in an ancient brick oven, turning them and moving them constantly to expertly crisp the skin. The meat is sliced and presented with the de rigueur pancakes, sliced scal-lion, and hoisin sauce—but it's better,
much
better, eaten straight and unadorned. In keeping with the mantra of "nothing potentially delicious shall go to waste," a plate of savory duck tongues and fork-tender duck feet arrives hot on the heels of the duck itself, all of it revelatory in its wonderfulness.

I could easily have spent my entire ten-day trip to China eating at—and writing about—one square block of restaurants, or a single strip of wet market, and never have scratched the surface. China is
big.
And one lifetime is not enough to fully or authoritatively explore her. But it appears increasingly likely that in future, more of us will have the opportunity to try. In modern China, there are construction cranes everywhere. Roads are widening, dams being built, hotels going up, Western businesses pouring in, along with dollars and more dollars. New street signs are in Mandarin and English, and China projects an impression that she's getting ready to fully assume her role of financial superpower. So, perhaps it's not necessary to go to China. She'll be coming to you.

NO
SHOES

Understand this: I always hated those articles, like the ones in
Vanity Fair,
featuring the Lifestyles of the Rich and Despotic, where some chicken-brained Hilton kiddie, shriveled Sukarno relative, or Scientologist movie star lets us into their swanky digs to show off their collection of expensive motorcars and Tiberius-inspired plumbing. I don't know why they really publish this stuff. Do the writers actually admire these no-accounts and wish us to emulate their wastrel behavior if we can? Or are the writers, in fact, hard-core Maoist provocateurs, hoping secretly to rouse us ordinary schlubs to a murderous rage with these glimpses into the profligate spending of capitalist grotesques?

That said, where I'm sitting right now is a rented villa on the Caribbean island of Saint Martin. Directly in front of me, through open French doors, is a coconut palm, gently straining in the breeze, its fronds brushing against a whitewashed balustrade. In the distance, green-covered mountains, a vast expanse of blue sea—so many shades of blue it looks like a child's crayon box (the jumbo collection)—and beyond, the hazy, distant shapes of the islands of Saint Eustatius and Saba sit on the horizon under puffs of white, gold, and purple clouds. A rooster crows somewhere. Birds cheep in the garden. The caretaker's dogs gnaw lazily on leftover bones outside the front door . . .

Jesus! I think I may have crossed the line into Terminal Michael Winner Syndrome. ". . . While Ricardo, the capable

maitre d'hotel, had urged me to dine in the grill room, I opted instead for Le Bateau Rouge, a charming brasserie by the port that Michael Caine had recommended on an earlier visit. I had the sole. And something white and starchy. I think it was a potato."

I've been in the West Indies for two months now, and for that entire time I have not once worn shoes or socks. I keep a pair of flip-flops in my rented Jeep, for when I have to pop into the market for some stinky cheese, or the local paper; but I have yet to eat even one meal in a restaurant that requires footwear of its guests. It has been my sole, overriding criteria for this vacation: I refuse to eat anywhere where shoes might be required.

In that wonderful, creamy, narcotized state of sunstroked semiconsciousness that comes from the drinking of alcoholic beverages in direct tropical sunlight, the idea of making it through multiple courses and a bottle of wine in a white-tablecloth restaurant, with its inevitable snail-paced service, does not tempt. I eat almost all my meals in barbecue shacks or
lolos,
little corrugated tin-roofed lean-tos with nearly identical menus of grilled chicken leg, barbecue ribs, grilled spiny lobster, spicy Creole boudin, conch sausage, grilled snapper, meat patties, johnny cakes, bullfoot soup, plantains, rice and pigeon peas, and beer. Cutlery is plastic, napkins—if any—are paper. Music is provided by a boom box tuned to the local station. Food arrives when it arrives, in no particular order. There are usually some insects involved, but the 10-percent DEET I'm slathered in keeps them from eating me alive. Stray dogs hover by the table, waiting for an unfinished chicken leg or spare rib bone. There are always ashtrays on every table.

I am very happ
⁷
here.

Largely, I am happy because while I eat, there is sand between my toes—great pillows of it, large-grained, pebbly, with bits of surf-smoothed shell mixed in; or fine-grained, white, and powdery. On the rare occasions when the establishment has a floor, it's either smooth, cool terra-cotta tile, or the weatherbeaten planks of an imperceptibly swaying dock, all very pleasurable, as if by brushing my toes constantly and directly against the surface of the earth, I tap into some primitive vein of perfect happiness.

Food tastes better without shoes, I have come to believe.

And I am considering testing my theory at a yet-to-be determined two- or three-star fine-dining establishment on my next trip to London. Surely my good friend Gordon would not eject me from his wonderful restaurant at Hospital Road if I showed up shoeless in Hawaiian shirt and cut-off jeans, would he? Not when I explain that my outfit has been strategically designed to enjoy his artistry to the fullest degree possible. Undistracted by underwear riding up in my crack, or the pinch of garters, I shall surely discover heretofore overlooked dimensions of his fine works. I'll cite historical precedent, if need be, to keep the maitre d' from hurling me through the door: the Romans, for instance, who ate in the prone position, raised up on an elbow, dressed in comfortable garb)—a toga thingie, easily pulled up mid-meal so as to allow a friend or paid companion to more easily fondle one's genitals between courses. Who understood the elements of a good meal, or a good party, better than those kooky caesars? Who can deny the desirability of experiencing pure flavor, texture, and culinary technique free from the constraints and intrusions of restrictive modern garb? It's an insult to the chef, isn't it? Like trying to eat in a straitjacket or fuck through a shower curtain.

I don't know.

Maybe I'd better pack one pair of Hush Puppies. Just in case.

THE
LOVE
BOAT

tomorrow, there will be
blender drinks and citron presses and fluffy towels by the pool. Smiling attendants will cool us with chilled white washcloths and spray our overheated, sun-browned flesh with refrigerated mist. The
New York Times
—or the newspaper of our choice—will be waiting in our mailboxes when we wake, our names printed on each page, and if we like, there will be tea and cakes, aromatherapy, a massage. We will glance at each other briefly, wordlessly, across the cigar room or the library or the whirlpool and know that we have made it, that we have put aside the cares of the world, that we have only to rest, to read, to play, to sleep—and that when we wake, we shall be in another time zone, another country.

But tonight, seventy-six very rich people are pressed deep deep deep into their custom-made Italian sheets, squeezed down into their mattresses by the rise and fall of the rooms around them— then lifted, as if weightless, momentarily above their beds—then pressed down again. The vast living rooms, dining areas, foyers, bedrooms, and marble-appointed bathrooms that surround them tilt and sway, climb and dive as their floating condominiums negotiate force-seven near-gale-force winds and high seas of eighteen- to twenty-seven-foot swells. Mashed and elevated ever so gently in their beds, most surely sleep. The ship does not protest. No groans or squeaks or creaking beams. She handles like a brand new Mercedes 600—large, yes, but
solid,
and smelling of new wood and new money. Through the airtight, soundproof sliding doors to our long outdoor private verandas, the wind and surf, the crash of waves against the hull are barely audible. The rat-tat-tat of raindrops on our outdoor Jacuzzis goes unheard.

I'm making osso buco and wild mushroom-black truffle risotto. I'm chopping orange gremolata for garnish in my spacious and well-equipped kitchen as the floor pitches and rolls and threatens to deposit me face-first in the simmering pot of veal shanks on my spanking new, four-burner range top. A load of laundry hums behind me. The dishwasher does its business beneath a long expanse of counter, and when I toss a few herb stems, orange scraps, and vegetable trippings into the food disposal, it devours them without complaint. Tasteful but efficient railings keep my saucepots, plates, and glassware in place while I pick and weave unsteadily to the refrigerator, where a vichyssoise cools beside a constantly restocked supply of imported beer and juices. In the sleek, comfortable Danish Modern bedroom, my wife watches a film from the double bed. In the large, well-appointed living room, on an enormous flat-screen TV set among book-lined shelves, a CNN anchor drones on about a world that seems, right now, very far away. A bottle of champagne chills in a silver ice bucket on the suitable-for-six dining room table.

But I don't think I'll be drinking it tonight.

Welcome to the world of ResidenSea—or
The World,
as our remarkable vessel is named—644.2 feet long, with 106 private residences and fifty-nine rental apartments and studios. Not a cruise ship. Not a mega-yacht. She is, as the literature proudly states, "a floating resort community of like-minded persons who will settle for nothing but the very best," the "ne plus ultra of voyaging," a self-sufficient neighborhood of luxury homes "at sea continuously circumnavigating the globe."

In short, it's a big, swank, ridiculously well-fitted-out boat on which rich people can buy their own homes, dropping in or jetting off as they see fit as it wanders from continent to continent.

no