The Goose is Cooked

photo credit

Silly toad, planning a meal of goose.

~Chinese proverb~

When I was in college, I shared an apartment with two students from Malaysia. They were devout Muslims who would impress me daily with their discipline, especially during the month of Ramadan, when they would fast between sunrise and sunset. They would rise at 4:00AM and cook a full meal to carry them through the day (and as med students, they did have busy days). When they would get home from school, they would cook supper without picking or snacking, then they would sit and wait for their digital clock to turn over to the exact minute of sundown before eating. My Lenten "efforts" to quit smoking were pretty weak by comparison.

Ramadan ends with the holiday Eid ul-Fitr, which celebrates the breaking of the fast. The girls cooked up a storm for a week prior to the Eid as they were hosting a party at our apartment. I arrived home from lectures at lunchtime on the day of the festival to find a pile of wee shoes by our door and the happy chatter of ladies celebrating together in the main room. I tried to sneak by to make my lunch, not wanting to get in the way of the party, but the group insisted I stay to eat with them. This group of about 15 women had cooked their best dishes. It was impossible to say no.

Now, my flatmates, Ina and Nora, had taught me some of the basics of Malay table etiquette such as how to eat with your hands so you don't look like a total buffoon, and which hand should never touch your food or plate. I entered the fray with a delicate confidence. The ladies steered me away from the food that they found insanely hot even for their palates and told me which foods to eat together. I think they expected the Western girl to combust with the spicy heat of some of the dishes, but I must say, I held my own.

So I ate. And ate. And ate. To this day, it remains one of the best meals in my life, but I could feel myself filling up. I begged for mercy, but Malay culture shares a trait that I grew up with in Irish culture: "no" is not an acceptable answer when you so clearly need to be fed. (Is anyone else quoting Mrs. Doyle from "Father Ted" right now?) The food kept coming. I kept eating, clearing my plate of every bite til I finally started hoping each serving would be my last. I knew I had never succeeded in saying no to my Great-Aunt Ellie, so I was probably pretty powerless in the face of 15 women in celebration mode, but I appealed to Nora. "Please, I'm full. I can't eat another bite." She gave me a long, skeptical look, and then, "Ok. You eat dessert. Then that's ok."

A week later, I was watching TV and eating dinner with a friend, who was another student from Malaysia (at the time, the Malaysian government was giving grants to med students to study in Ireland then come home to practice medicine). He was proudly cooking dinner as his mother had taught him before he left home to attend college abroad. He was also delighted to know that I knew how to eat with my hands, so I told him the Eid story. "Didn't you leave something on your plate?" Me: deer in headlights. Um, no; I cleaned my plate.

He explained my gaffe:

Cleaning your plate then refusing more food means you're still hungry, but the food was bad so you won't take any more.

To clarify:

I had insulted 15 women, my flatmates and their best friends, who had spent days preparing their best dishes for an important religious holiday. Good one. (Insert "take a Mulligan" golf joke here.)

I've lost touch with Ina and Nora, and the Watson Fellowship people didn't think that my proposal to go work with Muslim women in Malaysia after graduation had legs. (Ah, the peaceful golden days of the mid-1990's when we didn't know that a more comprehensive understanding of the Muslim world might come in handy. In those days, studying traditional fiddle music in Hungary was a snazzier proposal and had the winning bid. I'm not bitter, I'm just sayin' is all.) Still, as the American Thanksgiving holiday approaches, I remember spicy food and giggly conversation. I recall humbling lessons in Pacific Rim table etiquette. Mostly I remember celebration and community across cultures. That's a meal I'll gladly take more of.

What celebrations and life lessons have stuck with you?