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A Brit circles the world . . . one meal at a time
In the introduction to his book Eat My Globe, Simon Majumdar admits: “Quite simply, I adore food. I also love people who are as passionate about growing, preparing, and talking about food as I am about eating it.” Though blessed with a great apartment and a good career in publishing, the 45-year-old Londoner decided to follow a dream he’d once jotted down on a slip of paper: “Go Everywhere, Eat Everything.” He reckoned he had just enough money to travel for a year and change. So in April 2007, Majumdar began a gastronome’s journey that would take him to 31 countries and provide him with hundreds of different meals, from the sublime to the nauseating. The following excerpt relates an encounter during his first visit to Tokyo.
Donald Miralle/Getty Images
After the initial tour briefing with our guide, Yuka, the assorted throng headed out together for a local supper. I had other plans. I was going to eat like a sumo. The Ryogoku area of Tokyo is best known as the Sumo district. It includes a large stadium that’s surrounded by stores selling everything that a stable of sporting fatties could need. Just as retiring soccer players used to open pubs, so retiring sumo often open restaurants specializing in chanko nabe, the sumo stew responsible for building up the wrestlers’ impressive girth.
A subway ride later, I was opposite the Edo-Tokyo museum and peering clueless through the windows of restaurants in search of chanko. They don't give you much help. The restaurants are dark, and the sliding doors prevent you peering in, so all but the most inquisitive might pass them by. One place looked promising, however, and, recognizing the Japanese lettering for chanko that Yuka had written on a scrap of paper, I slid back the door and stepped hesitantly inside. A rather severe-looking man came over shouting something entirely incomprehensible to me. It sounded rather fearsome, but I was determined.
“Chanko?” I said hopefully.
“Chanko?” he replied, as if it was the first time he had ever encountered the word.
“Chanko,” I nodded.
“Chanko?” he countered again, with not the slightest sign that he knew what I was talking about.
This could have gone on for some time, particularly as it never crossed my mind to show him the piece of paper Yuka had given me. One other table was occupied by a family, and the father came over to see what the commotion was. He looked at me quizzically, so I repeated the only word I knew: “Chanko.”
He turned to the owner and said, “Chanko.”
“Ah, chanko,” replied the owner as if the scales had fallen from his eyes.
“Chanko, chanko, chanko,” he said, a few times more, smiling as if the word were getting good to him. Then he gestured for me to take off my shoes and pointed to a table in the corner. He brought over a menu all in Japanese and pointed to three lines of lettering with the word chanko. He obviously just loved saying that word now. You could hardly stop him.
Not being able to read the menu, I just pointed at random and sat back, hoping for the best. An elderly lady appeared with a large cooking pot filled with broth and a burner, on the side of which were some oversized cooking chopsticks and a ladle. She left off and reappeared with a plate the size of a satellite dish filled with seafood, fish, and a mound of white cabbage and began to place them into the pot of broth, cabbage on top, before leaving it to cook slowly. Returning, she began to serve me, filling my bowl with a little of the soup and a small amount of each of the ingredients.
It is little surprise that sumo are so huge, eating like this every day. I barely made a dent in the pot and the elderly woman looked most disapprovingly when, after about half an hour, I gave up, chanko sweat pouring from my brow. It is really meant to be shared by at least two people, which is reflected both in the size of the meal and the price. As I left, the owner, whose pictures of his sumo heyday lined the walls, gave me a cheery wave, a thumbs-up, and a hearty goodbye, saying, “Chanko.
Travel Fare
Simon Majumdar didn’t waste time counting the miles — or calories — on his culinary quest.
1. Lunch with Kiti (a.k.a.
the Prinsessa) in Finland
Menu: Ducks braised in cream, rolled
herring, elk carpaccio, poached salmon, chanterelle mushrooms served three ways, new potatoes, and apple cake
2. A meal with Claude Tayag
in the Philippines
Menu: Paco fern salad with pickled quail eggs, seafood stew with guava and prawns, fried hito fish wrapped in mustard leaves, kare kare (beef-and-oxtail stew), deep-fried pork belly, rice, and a dessert of sweet corn kernels in caribou milk
3. Thanksgiving in Santa
Cruz, California
Menu: Roast turkey, mashed potatoes, creamy dips, cheeses, smoked
hams, sauces, cakes, and pies—
“a three-Zantac meal”
4. The buffet at Rebung in
Kuala Lumpur
Menu: Banana flower salad, eggplant
in fiery sambal, fresh fish grilled on banana leaves, and chicken and beef
in fiery sauces
5. Lunch at Goomtee Estate,
Darjeeling, India
Menu: Tibetan steamed dumplings, fresh salads, Bengali dal, rice, and vegetables battered in chickpea flour and fried
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