Some menu items raise so many pressing questions that I am compelled to order them.
I have encountered several provocatively indecipherable dishes lately. “Fried porkin baf.” “Steamed beef as real goat.” But none called out to me as this one did, in bright capital letters: GOAT MEAT DIPPED IN SLOTH.
My mind reeled. How exactly does one dip a goat into a sloth? Are sloths even found in Vietnam? What’s left after you shave a sloth?
Was this a typo? Perhaps sloth had arisen from a primordial broth? I was suspicious of so pat an explanation. It seemed oddly coincidental that a fairly extreme typographical error would yield yet another weird meat.
Maybe “sloth” referred to the deadly sin. Perhaps this was a dish made from indolent, ill-bred farm animals.
One order please, and don’t be sparing with the sloth.
The waiter brought to my table a plate heaped high with chunks of raw goat meat and a huge pot of boiling broth. The meat tasted slightly sour and gamey and not at all good.
I’m starting to wonder if maybe there is a reason these alternative meats aren’t found on more menus. (Wait for sound of hands slapping foreheads in reflexive “Duh!” motion.)
I don’t want to be a food chauvinist. Not so long ago, most Americans would have blanched at the thought of eating raw fish. And some genuinely delicious foods, such as ox tail, will probably never make major inroads into American restaurants.
On the other hand, the Vietnamese themselves aren’t exactly lining up for goat. The National Goat Council has utterly failed to make headway with its “The Other Pinkish Meat” campaign. In Vietnam, goat is most definitely not what’s for dinner. I intend to keep it that way.
