Eating Mud Crabs in Kandahar: Stories of Food during Wartime by the World's Leading Correspondents (California Studies in Food and Culture Book 31)

These sometimes harrowing, frequently funny, and always riveting stories about food and eating under extreme conditions feature the diverse voices of journalists who have reported from dangerous conflict zones around the world during the past twenty years. A profile of the former chef to Kim Jong Il of North Korea describes Kim’s exacting standards for gourmet fare, which he gorges himself on while his country starves. A journalist becomes part of the inner circle of an IRA cell thanks to his drinking buddies. And a young, inexperienced female journalist shares mud crab in a foxhole with an equally young Hamid Karzai. Along with tales of deprivation and repression are stories of generosity and pleasure, sometimes overlapping. This memorable collection, introduced and edited by Matt McAllester, is seasoned by tragedy and violence, spiced with humor and good will, and fortified, in McAllester’s words, with "a little more humanity than we can usually slip into our newspapers and magazine stories." CONTENTS INTRODUCTION: THE NAME OF THE THIRD CHICKEN: Kosovo PART ONE. SURVIVAL RATIONS NIGHT LIGHT. EL SALVADOR AND HAITI A DIET FOR DICTATORS. NORTH KOREA SIEGE FOOD. BOSNIA MIRACULOUS HARVESTS. CHINA PART TWO. INSISTENT HOSTS HOW HARRY LOST HIS EAR. NORTHERN IRELAND WE IGHED DOWN BY A GOOD MEAL. GAZA AND ISRAEL THE PRICE OF ORANGES. PAKISTAN JEWELED RICE. IRAN THE OVERSIZE HELMSMAN OF AN UNDERSIZE COUNTRY. ISRAEL PART THREE. FOOD UNDER FIRE SAME-DAY COW. AFGHANISTAN EAU DE CADAVRE. SOMALIA AND RWANDA EATING MUD CRABS IN KANDAHAR. AFGHANISTAN MUNTHER CANNOT COOK YOUR TURKEY. IRAQ PART FOUR. BREAKING BREAD THE BEST MAN I EVER KNEW. GEORGIA DINNER WITH A JESTER. AFGHANISTAN MY LIFE IN PAGANS. OSSETIA THE HOUSE OF BREAD. BETHLEHEM BIOGRAPHIES ACKNOWLEDGMENTS