This book, subtitled Adventures of a Food Tourist in Laos, manages to be many things -- a travel narrative filled with descriptions of landscapes and people, a cookery book with many recipes for Laotian dishes and, finally, a polemical plea for better and more authentic standards in world cuisine.
Du Pont de Bie is naturally equipped for her "food tourist" role. Raised in Paris, the self-styled gastronomic capital of the world, and with an adventurous appetite for esoteric flavors, she embarks on her visit to the East with an eager spirit.
It's nonetheless true that the most exquisite and the most repulsive food items are frequent bed-fellows, and Laotian cuisine is a case in point. Besides grubs and assorted insects (including the eponymous ant eggs), all manner of offal -- arteries, lungs and raw blood -- combine with ginger,
chillies, garlic and coriander to create a memorable gastronomic experience for her in many an
apparently enjoyable dish.
The author's sympathy and respect for the people of Laos (chiefly for their joyful attitude and generosity of spirit) is what distinguishes her account of their plight. Having been on the receiving end of the most intensive bombing ever experienced anywhere in the world, the Laotians still face the threat of unexploded mines in prodigious numbers, as well as China's
aspirations to build six further
hydroelectric dams along the Mekong river, in defiance of neighboring countries' concerns for the likely ecological damage.
Laos' landscapes are here displayed as rich in waterfalls, flora and fauna. A diversity of fish splash through the author's feet in its rivers, while myriad species of butterfly circle in clouds overhead, giving the reader a strong sense of a paradise regained. Natacha du Pont de Bie is at her most potent when conveying her wonder at this beauty. On her way to Luang
Prabang, she observes: "Even with a hangover, everything they say about the enchantment of Luang Prabang is true. The gauzy tranquility of the place puts a languid drift into your step and causes you to forget to breathe. As the silvery haze that envelops the town softens your vision, a diaphanous cloak of dreamy carelessness descends upon you and you just have to give in to it.
While the Laotians remain a source of admiration and constant surprise, the company of fellow Western tourists quickly prompts irritation. The author sees these as bent on hedonism at the expense of courtesy to their hosts and her disenchantment becomes
increasingly militant. After an
unsatisfactory evening in a sub-standard cafe with some Australian backpackers, for instance, her fury rises to a diatribe against blinkered tourist attitudes, leading on to a plea for better standards in world food.
"The cafes had sold out," she writes. "They were all serving the same limited menu of poor quality dishes to people passing through, too lazy to care. Sadly, I see it
happening all the time, all over the world."
Bemoaning our acceptance of preprepared food pumped with chemicals, she surmises that "it now takes more time, effort and money to eat locally grown real food than purchase processed pap from abroad. In the name of choice we end up eating cattle fodder, dressed up to look enticing, exotic and international, while our own traditional produce and recipes quietly die out."
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