Back in the days when trucks used to exhibit at The Motor Show, during one two-week stint, a group of about 20 of us headed into Birmingham's Chinatown one night for dinner. If you're ever in a large party, rather than pick from the menu, the simplest method is to grab the maitre d' and tell him to just bring food, working to a set price per head (£30 excluding drinks in this case). Although me and another guy did order a special with our dim sum.

All these plates started arriving and everyone was tucking in, when a steamer basket arrived in front of Mike & I. The lids were lifted and there stood four steamed duck's feet. As we were tucking in one lad, Nigel, kept looking over at us. When I asked if everything was OK, he asked if they were really duck's feet. When I nodded the affirmative, he expressed his disgust at our cruelty for eating the feet of a duck. I still don't know whether he had this picture of footless ducks, hobbling around a farmyard on crutches.

On holiday in Kenya in 1990, I went walkabout around Malindi one afternoon. I walked into a breeze-block hut, about the size of a domestic garage, that had "BAR" scrawled on the side of it. By the light of the single 40 watt bulb, dangling from the middle of the ceiling, I could just make out the bar and the concrete reinforcing wire that separated it from the clientele. I ordered my bottle of Tusker. As I sipped my beer I heard a voice from the corner calling me over and there sat one of the fattest Kenyan's I'd ever seen. A wandered across and sat at the chair he indicated. He asked if I would join him for lunch, so I agreed. He jabbered something in Swahili and shortly one of his daughters appeared with two plates and two forks. One plate held a steaming pile of boiled rice, the other meat in a sauce. I could see there were definitely three different meats and the sauce was lightly curried. When we'd finished he started laughing and when I asked why the laughter, he responded with: "do you like snake, crocodile & monkey?" I'm still not sure if they were what he said but they were deliciously tender and beautifully cooked.

The one food I'm glad my self-preservation system kicked-in on and I managed to avoid was kokoretsi. I don't eat offal and this thing was a goat-guts overload.

Back in the days when trucks used to exhibit at The Motor Show, during one two-week stint, a group of about 20 of us headed into Birmingham's Chinatown one night for dinner. If you're ever in a large party, rather than pick from the menu, the simplest method is to grab the maitre d' and tell him to just bring food, working to a set price per head (£30 excluding drinks in this case). Although me and another guy did order a special with our dim sum.

All these plates started arriving and everyone was tucking in, when a steamer basket arrived in front of Mike & I. The lids were lifted and there stood four steamed duck's feet. As we were tucking in one lad, Nigel, kept looking over at us. When I asked if everything was OK, he asked if they were really duck's feet. When I nodded the affirmative, he expressed his disgust at our cruelty for eating the feet of a duck. I still don't know whether he had this picture of footless ducks, hobbling around a farmyard on crutches.

On holiday in Kenya in 1990, I went walkabout around Malindi one afternoon. I walked into a breeze-block hut, about the size of a domestic garage, that had "BAR" scrawled on the side of it. By the light of the single 40 watt bulb, dangling from the middle of the ceiling, I could just make out the bar and the concrete reinforcing wire that separated it from the clientele. I ordered my bottle of Tusker. As I sipped my beer I heard a voice from the corner calling me over and there sat one of the fattest Kenyan's I'd ever seen. A wandered across and sat at the chair he indicated. He asked if I would join him for lunch, so I agreed. He jabbered something in Swahili and shortly one of his daughters appeared with two plates and two forks. One plate held a steaming pile of boiled rice, the other meat in a sauce. I could see there were definitely three different meats and the sauce was lightly curried. When we'd finished he started laughing and when I asked why the laughter, he responded with: "do you like snake, crocodile & monkey?" I'm still not sure if they were what he said but they were deliciously tender and beautifully cooked.

The one food I'm glad my self-preservation system kicked-in on and I managed to avoid was kokoretsi. I don't eat offal and this thing was a goat-guts overload.

Quite like the sound of that.

Quite like the sound of that.