I was lucky enough to be paid for many years to travel to places most Brits will never get to. There was work involved, but far more interestingly there was contact with different cultures and cuisines. Far more interestingly.
My favourite memories of those times are of Indonesia, where I worked with the wonderful Agus Sutono (sadly I lost contact when my job change coincided with his rapid departure from the country during one of its regular anti-Chinese spells). The food was a revelation, from street fare to very posh places. Common to both was satay, probably the flavour that I most associate with the country. Last weekend, in need of a quickly made starter, the freezer yielded jumbo prawns, and a quick scan of the fridge prompted the idea of trying to replicate a simple satay sauce to go with them. It proved easy and delicious.
Defrosted prawns were fried in sesame oil, with the juice and zest of a lime added along with two tablespoons of unsweetened smooth peanut butter and a dash or two of soy sauce. The cooking took at most three minutes, as was generally the case with roadside places where we'd stop for a lunchtime bite. The flavour took me straight back to Jakarta, Medan and Surabaya. It was a hit with the Dear Leader too, may her enemies perish in intriguing ways.
I never cease to be amazed at how easily memory is triggered by taste, but was my enjoyment of those prawns greater because of it, or the same as DL and SC experienced? There is no objective measure of enjoyment, but I tend to think that having a backstory on a dish or a flavour adds to the pleasure - unless that backstory is of the Dear Leader and the French oysters variety, that with hindsight can only be seen as an attempt by filthy foreign powers to nip her nascent dictatorship in the bud.
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