Comfort Food - Pork Rashers

One of the things that amazed me when I first arrived in Southeast Asia some thirty years ago was the similarity between here and the sub-culture of my upbringing in America. There was, for example, the great respect accorded to elders here just like in my community at home. Or the games I saw children playing being almost identical to those games I played as a child back home.

The similarities on the economic front were also very obvious to me. In my day, parents frequently left their children behind in small villages and towns to seek employment opportunity in the big city. I, for example, spent the first four years of my life with my maternal grandmother on a farm in North Carolina while my parents worked in New York City; only joining them when I started school.

Like the great migration to Bangkok here, hundreds of thousands of poor people from rural areas in the US migrated to big cities looking for opportunities. And yet, unemployment remained high and those who were fortunate enough to have employment often lived from paycheck to paycheck, not unlike today.

The food I found in the markets of Southeast Asia also amazed me for much of it was identical or similar to the foods from home. From sweet tubers to green leaf vegetables to pig's feet and intestines, my trips to the markets here were often a nostalgic return to the kitchens of my boyhood. And, like here, rice and chilies were staple foods in our community.

Both here and there, these are fundamentally cultures of survival. With respect to food, one aspect of survival is that nothing is ever wasted. Whatever can be eaten will be eaten and that which cannot be eaten will somehow be recycled to produce more food.

As a tribute to these cultures of survival, this week's Friday Special will be pork rashers (bellies) with collard greens and rice. This is a variation of a dish made by both my mother and grandmother and resembles several dishes found in this region using almost the same ingredients. Ours is made using strips of pork bellies roasted in a tomato-based sauce flavored with molasses and honey.

While it is true that this just happens to be my personal comfort food, it is my hope that you will enjoy it as much as I do and perhaps even adopt it as your own comfort food.

Here's to eating low on the hog!