September 14

Last night we went to a Chinese Banquet. Several of Mark’s work associates were there as well as the owner of a company that Mark’s company does business with and his engineers. I was invited as a courtesy since I was in town. Everyone treated me as an honored guest even though I was an interloper.
The banquet was held in a large private party room in one of Taipei’s largest and most luxurious hotels. It was set up with a large round table that probably could seat 15 to 20 people covered in gold colored linens. In the center was a lazy-susan turntable, also covered in gold fabric. Its purpose soon became clear to me as the dishes were placed on the turntable and passed instead of passing from person to person. It made a lot of sense to me as people could help themselves to what food they wanted without interrupting the flow of the conversation.
For more than 3 hours the delicacies flowed freely. The first set of dishes included Chinese “eggs”. Mark referred to them as 1000 year old eggs but only they only looked old. The whites of the hard boiled eggs were a translucent dark brown and the yolks were a dark olive green. They had been adorned with another dark green colored garnish. Well, it didn’t look like anything I had ever eaten or served but I was the first guest to be served food and it was the first dish put on the table. What would I do? I knew that I didn’t have to eat the food, no one would be upset but there were 12 smiling faces looking at me expectantly, so I took an egg. Mark later said that he could just see a look of determination come over my face. The hardest part was getting the slippery thing to my mouth without flinging it across the room. I succeeded, popping it into my mouth. It tasted fine, like a spicy pickled egg. It had the correct texture of a hard boiled egg. And the best part was that everyone ignored my eating habits pretty much for the rest of the evening. I only got occasional comments like, “So spicy food doesn’t bother you then.”
Most of the food was excellent. Some things I don’t eat in the US either, like duck because I don’t like the greasy taste. There were all variety of meats, beef, pork, chicken, duck, grilled fish, stewed fish, shell fish, all prepared in different dishes. Nothing except the grilled fish came unadorned. There were dumplings, pastries and noodles. There was rice available but few asked for any. I didn’t want rice because I had never eaten so much as it was. It was like a super-sized Thanksgiving but I only took a taste of each dish. Finally, came the soup and Mark told me that meant dinner was nearly over. Then came the two desserts. Neither was particularly sweet but I am not a big sweets eater anyway.
I was so full that walking to the car seemed like real work. I was sure that I would have nightmares all night because of all the different things I had eaten, well at least an upset stomach. None of that happened. I fell asleep almost immediately when we returned to the hotel and slept peacefully.
I feel like a conquered a worthy foe last night.