Location: Home > food > What is your most memorable meal?
What is your most memorable meal?Posted Jan 6th 2007 3:03PM by Jonathan M. ForesterFiled under: Lunch, Breakfast, Dinner, Restaurants, Raves & ReviewsWe are at that time of year where we look backwards and forwards and we think about life. A few days ago Nicole asked which the best restaurants you ate at last year were. Well, I want to inquire as to your most memorable meal. I would love to hear your stories about what is memorable for you. For me there have been quite a few really memorable meals. Some were in fancy restaurants, others at luxurious resorts, a lot were at unknown, tiny, hole in the wall places, some were out in the wilderness when I worked as a wilderness guide, and quite a few were home cooked. For many what is memorable was the menu, with others it was the location, some because of incidents, good and bad, and a few for the company I was with. So you tell me, what was your most memorable dining experience?As for me, well you'll have to read on to find out.One of my most memorable dining experiences wasn't just one meal but a whole weeks worth that I had while on safari in the Ruaha in Tanzania, Africa not too long ago. I'll tell you about one that jumps out but I need to cover some background info to set the scene. The Ruaha National Park is not as accessible as most of the parks and areas used for safari in Africa like the Serengeti. It is located in the remote wilderness and has severely limited numbers of permits for people to go there, and only two small lodges for people to stay at. It is an enormous area, around the same size as the Serengeti, but instead of dealing with fifty thousand others out on safari, you only have a few dozen people instead. The Ruaha is one of the largest and wildest National Parks in the world, and one of the finest in Africa. It's a flashback to what safari and Africa was like generations ago. I stayed at the Mwagusi Safari Camp which is the best in the region. Ernest Hemingway's son, the writer John Hemingway, stayed at Mwagusi and once wrote that the camp is designed as a "boys fantasy of independence" along the lines of a traditional old-style African safari experience. While there are a few dirt roads through the park, not many go outside the area. All supplies have to be flown in by small plane, a several hour flight from the nearest town.The Ruaha is one of the few places where you can legally do walking safaris, as opposed to driving ones. Legally, although not necessarily safely. Walking through the wilderness in Africa can be quite dangerous, to say the least. One needs to have armed rangers with you at all times so you can make it to the end of the day alive and safe.We spent an amazing day of safari, hiking and driving with the armed park rangers and seeing the most incredible wildlife. Teasing yellow baboons, vervet monkeys, blue monkeys, spotted monkeys, black faced monkeys, epualetted fruit bats, dormice, crested porcupine, bush rats, grass rats, side striped jackals, black backed jackals, ratel or the honey badger, Egyptian mongoose, banded mongoose, white tailed mongoose, striped hyena, spotted hyena, African civet, leopards, lions, fleet footed cheetah, rock hyrax which are also called dassie, elephants, zebra, hippos, warthogs, giraffe, bushbuck, kudu, the tiny dik dik, gazelle, impala, hippopotamus, Nile and African crocodiles, and what is considered the most dangerous animal to man in Africa, the Cape buffalo. Just a few days earlier a Cape buffalo had attacked a Range Rover and destroyed it, and was going after the passengers before it was put down. (I heard later that it was very tasty, if a little tough.) As for birds, I have them checked off on a list but they number in the hundreds, just way too many to write about. Those were just some of what we saw that day and I think it was a very large portion of the 80 types of animals and 480 types of birds that reside in the Ruaha. Over the course of a week I experienced seeing, and meeting, most of them.After a long and exhausting day we got back to our camp. It was the strangest juxtaposition of beautiful with rustic. Our rooms were hand built cottages called banda, with a luxuriousness that has to be experienced, being so far out back in the outback. Boiling hot water had been carried by hand in large buckets from the well house a ¼ mile away, and then lugged up rickety ladders to fill roof top tanks. Just so that we could take steamy showers to get off the dust and grime of the 100°F days. The showers were basically outside except for a timber and thatch roof and some fine netting for walls to keep away the bugs. I enjoyed watching the sun set while immersed in the warmth of the water as the day cooled off rapidly. I have seen sunsets all over the world, but the best, no holds barred are in Africa. I dressed comfortably in a white silk shirt and linen slacks and was handed a tall flute of a crisp sparkling wine to sip as I was escorted to diner by a guide holding an old fashioned oil lantern. It was a five minute walk to the Sand River, a dry river bed of beautiful creamy yellow sand, as fine and soft as baby powder. Several feet under the sand runs the actual river for most of the year, with the water running on the surface only during the wet season.In the middle of this river bed over a hundred yards wide, was a long table set formally with a deep red tablecloth, silver cutlery, and crystal glassware. It was lit by white and cream candles and surrounded by tall torches and lanterns planted in the sand. They flickered in the mild cool breeze, so different from the hot wind of earlier that day. Settings were laid out for all 8 of us guests, as well as the owners and the management. It was both elegant and astounding to see this out in the wilderness of Africa and I felt like someone from a novel or movie. (I wish I had taken a photo but my camera was back in my banda. I did find one online that someone else took while staying at Mwagusi Safari Camp.)Off in the growing darkness you could see the occasional glow of animals eyes reflecting yellow and green. You could barely make out the forms of giraffes, lions, jackals, and elephants. Even more difficult to make out was the muffled sounds of their progress along the far side of the river bed, a highway for the local wildlife. Who would think that something as large as an elephant could walk without a sound. Or that at night giraffes look like distorted and ungainly spiders, picking their way carefully through the moonlight.We were served sun-downers, cocktails to wash the last of the dust from our mouths. I was offered a gin on the rocks, made with one of my favorites, Hendricks gin from Scotland. I found out that it had been dug out of a private stash especially for me, after a long discussion on gin I had with the owner the day before. Presented in a finely cut glass with invisibly clear ice made from the local spring water, it was adorned with an unusual, local pickled vegetable as a garnish, that set off the juniper, rose petal, and cucumber notes of the gin splendidly. After mingling with the seven other guests and the camp owners I was seated at the table. A fine semi-dry white wine was poured for the first course, a soup made from local fish caught a few hours earlier. Then the main courses of game and poultry, exotic and delicious; served with several impeccable wines, reds and dry rose, the perfect accompaniment for each dish. Between dishes we had a palate cleansing citrus sorbet and other light items to refresh us. After the meal several cheeses and tawny port were offered, followed by several tarts, pastries, and fruits; with a complex desert wine from South Africa to finish. Our party finally retired to a tall and open sided, grass thatched pavilion back in the main complex. There we relaxed on couches in front of a fire, chatting and listening to nature while sipping assorted spirits. While this may not have been the best meal I ever had, it was in the top ten, and definitely the most memorable. Hmmm, or at least close to it. Of course there was that formal kaiseki crab dinner of over 40 courses served in Osaka, Japan. There I was accompanied by my good friend Valerie from San Diego, a beautiful, intelligent, and talented, marine biologist; as well as world class ballroom dancer. Or the time...
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