lost in translation

WoodMoose

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so the grilled cheese thread made me think of an incident during my military career.

in 1985 we were doing some work and training with the Thai army and stayed for a bit of time in Lop Buri (north of Bangkok a ways).
normally we ate at the local market or with the Thais in their mess hall, but one of our guys got the idea to hire a local to cook "American type chow".
so he explained to her what he wanted and she said it would take a few days to lay in supplies etc.

on opening day, my team went down to her kitchen (she set her grill up next to a sitting area with overhead cover) for lunch. She had a chalkboard menu that our guy who coordinated it set up - had a couple of items but what I remember was roasted chicken and hamburger.

I ordered roasted chicken as that is what they cooked a lot in the market, and you could get 1/2 a chicken, roasted, for a buck.
bunch of guys on the team ordered hamburgers cause I guess they were craving some traditional mess hall lunch.

my chicken came out just like I was at the market, half a bird cut up with dipping sauce .
then the hamburgers came out and the guys were all smiles.

I watched one - first he took off the top bun, then the big ol' tomato, then the leaf of lettuce to get a view of the meat.

I started laughing and he looked sick.

it was a 2 inch by 2 inch square of supper thin HAM!!! The lady was like "what, it's a HAMburger".

nearly 40 years later and it still makes me laugh.

and I was so glad I order the thai market chicken!
 
so the grilled cheese thread made me think of an incident during my military career.

in 1985 we were doing some work and training with the Thai army and stayed for a bit of time in Lop Buri (north of Bangkok a ways).
normally we ate at the local market or with the Thais in their mess hall, but one of our guys got the idea to hire a local to cook "American type chow".
so he explained to her what he wanted and she said it would take a few days to lay in supplies etc.

on opening day, my team went down to her kitchen (she set her grill up next to a sitting area with overhead cover) for lunch. She had a chalkboard menu that our guy who coordinated it set up - had a couple of items but what I remember was roasted chicken and hamburger.

I ordered roasted chicken as that is what they cooked a lot in the market, and you could get 1/2 a chicken, roasted, for a buck.
bunch of guys on the team ordered hamburgers cause I guess they were craving some traditional mess hall lunch.

my chicken came out just like I was at the market, half a bird cut up with dipping sauce .
then the hamburgers came out and the guys were all smiles.

I watched one - first he took off the top bun, then the big ol' tomato, then the leaf of lettuce to get a view of the meat.

I started laughing and he looked sick.

it was a 2 inch by 2 inch square of supper thin HAM!!! The lady was like "what, it's a HAMburger".

nearly 40 years later and it still makes me laugh.

and I was so glad I order the thai market chicken!
I patronized the market and street vendors quite a bit too, though we were prohibited from doing so by the military for fear we'd all get sick. We coined a name for them, referring to them as "Howard Johnsons".
 
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