Chicken Salt
It looked like being another humdrum Sunday afternoon. The Colac races had been abandoned after the first leg of the quaddy, I didn’t fancy anything at Pakenham and that urge to have some tucker was starting to appear. The chicken legs were frozen so a trip out to the kitchen and the air fryer was needed to start the defrosting process. The view from the kitchen was at its best and 15 minutes at 150 was dialed in to get those chooks legs to a cookable state.
15 minutes later I was back in the kitchen and received an invite from the landlord, Mr. Hung, to join him and his guests for lunch. Why not I thought. Seasoned the chicken legs, half cooked and sliced some spuds and collected the pineapple from the fridge and headed toward the dinner table.
I had an “a ha” moment and grabbed the chicken salt. That could be their treat for the day. If only they would try it.
Some of my senior Viet Namese friends, particularly those from the rural areas, will not try anything new. Their trepidation is greater when the new thing to try is introduced by Johnny Foreigner. Anyway, let’s have a stab at it.
Hung knows me well, my beer had been in his fridge for a couple of hours while the other guests were happy with their hot beer and a hunk of ice, large enough to stop a mini titanic, placed in the glass. Guest number one was the marine motor repair man while guest numbers 2 & 3 were an elderly chap and his (grand)son. There was a huge chunk of beef on the BBQ and the usual pair of scissors on the table to cut the beef. Those scissors are something I will never get au fait with. Still, once you have tried to eat a slab of beef with chop sticks you understand why. Knives anyone.
Hung explained to me that the elderly gentleman was the local dentist and the (grand)son was his transport as he was getting to old to ride his bike. Just then, the next and final guest arrived and I was told he was the assistant to the motor mechanic. No name was given but as he was smoking the Jet brand of cigarettes I would just refer to him as Benny.
The sliced spuds had been placed in alfoil and shoved in the BBQ coals to finish cooking, 5 minutes should be enough. After taking them from the coals, I distributed the slices equally and introduced the chicken salt. The dentist, looked at the potatoes as if I had put a dog turd on his plate while the others got stuck right in. Mechanic number one had already consumed 30% of his body weight in beef so I knew he would eat the dentists potatoes, even if they were dog turds. However, I still had some magic up my sleeve, the chicken salt and it was my last chance to sway the dentist. Could the chicken salt be the trick I needed? I handed over the chicken salt and indicated to get some height with the container and shake vigorously. I took over and doing my best real chef impersonation, applied the chicken salt a bit more than moderately.
Yes, the chicken salt had weaved its magic, the dentist was transformed into the new Luke Nguyen, shaking that chicken salt like his life depended on it. Spuds gone, beef gone and even the BBQ’ed pineapple gone. The dentist had also found his voice and I was his new best friend. I thought to myself that if he was transformed so quickly that I would do the right thing myself and book in for a check up with the local village dentist. I didn’t have to let him do any real dental work, I wasn’t that convinced. I approached Hung to do the translation and ask the dentist how to make an appointment.
I have known Hung for over 3 years, the entire time I was his guest at the Homestay and I had never seen him laugh so much. After he had picked himself up off the ground and reseated himself, he explained to me that the old bloke was not in fact a dentist but what he had tried to explain to me earlier was that the scissors on the table were there mainly for the benefit of the old dude as he had weak teeth and his beef had to be cut into very small pieces.
But, he could find me a dentist if I wanted one.