J'AIME OCTOBER 2019

THE KALEDOSCOPIC STREETS OF
BANGKOK WERE THE SETTING
FOR JACK’S LATEST ENDEAVOUR
like, all sadistically egging me on in the tradition of I’m
A Celebrity, Clive James’ Endurance and that mental
Russian roulette scene in The Deer Hunter!
I’ve had a couple of steadying pints to overcome the
epic sense of revulsion I’ve been feeling since my wife
and daughter strong armed me into this repugnance
and I’ll admit it’s helping me, so, right, right, BIG
DEEP BREATH...
Aaaand in he goes!
Pincers enter first and I’m immediately chewing and
chomping like a desert island cannibal, trying to get it
over with as soon as.
The poor wee spider’s body crunches and shatters and
the pincers get stuck between my teeth, the dryness of
its remains stuck on my tongue and I am a tiny little bit
sick in my mouth which, mercifully, helps me swallow
most of it down though I do have to spit out that
wriggly venomous tail, I’m afraid - we all have limits.
It tastes bitter, as it has every right to, given it’s recent
demise. I mean who wouldn’t be?
This is not a fun experience, despite
the shrieks of delighted disgust from
my family and the assortment of
corpulent and degenerate onlookers.
But I soldier on. The worm next and
then the grasshopper. I chew and gnaw
ferociously and then I gag FFS! Am I
gonna spew properly now?! The crowd
holds its breath!
I.... no, no I hold it together and
stomach every nasty molecule of
those little critters. My nine-yearold
daughter is laughing hysterically
and the baying mob backslap and
congratulate me before shuffling off to
THAI STREET FOOD
PRESENTED A CHALLENGE
FOR JACK REGAN
sample Bangkok’s other delights,
nonchalantly abandoning me to
my bitter aftertaste.
It is not pleasant, no. I am
sucking and fingernailing tiny
limbs, tentacles and insect claws
out from between my teeth for
the next three hours but is it
the worst I’ve ever had? The
most foul and repugnant and
pigglywiggly vomitous taste I’ve
ever been forced to endure?
Frankly no. No, not by a bloody
long chalk.
First of all, I hail from Glasgow.
No, not your contemporary
delicious foodie heaven
gorgeousness and gorgeosity
combined Glasgow of today.
I’m talking about Glasgow
from the last century. And the
century before that. Gorbals era
Glasgow. So no, not by a long chalk, dear reader.
And my geography isn’t the half of it either.
Y’see I come from a long line of dreadful, OMGyou’ve-got-to-be-freakin-joking
repugnantly bad cooks.
The women specifically. My mother and all her sisters
were properly atrocious in the kitchen and, I believe,
making a point by being so wretchedly bad.
Their point being, The Kitchen Is Not Where We
Belong. Which is commendable in the extreme, from
a feminist, moral and sociological POV. But, from
gastronomic and nutritional POV it was bang out of
order!
Funny thing was, I didn’t realise how bad it had all been
until I went away to university aged 18 and lived in the
halls of residence there for a year.
Halls of residence grub, especially way back then,
was mass cooked institutional food like you’d have in
a hospital, a prison or y’know gulags and such like. It
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