Revenge of the Feathered Fiends

In Bangkok, you cannot walk five meters without running into a food vendor. The food is cheap too. They have freshly squeezed orange juice, some would claim 100% juice without salt added to counter the asim. All kinds of inihaw--pusit both fresh and dried, beef and pork barbecue, fish, huge blue shrimps I could never eat, kebabs with fruit, all the familiar balls we know--they go for 5 or 6 baht.

And then there's chicken everything. One would think that in Thailand, chicken grew in trees. You pluck them out, clucking and all, chuck all the feathers out and then grill.



Imagine the chaos that ensued when the bird flu struck. Suddenly, people cannot eat anymore chickens. Chickens are evil. Chickens could kill you, as though the feathered fiends wielded daggers which slashed your intestines while you chewed on barbecue. Take that, they said, for frying and grilling us, for killing us softly and turning us into pinikpikan.

The revenge of the chickens is upon us. We can't eat them. So we turn to fruits. And squid. But oh, banana pancakes are nice.