A taste of the 193 course menu

Dear readers,

A couple of months ago, a friend sent me a link about an event taking place in London - a world record attempt on the longest tasting menu. The menu included 193 dishes from all over the world and was hosted by a food company called Unearthed. This sounded incredible and when I saw that they sold tickets for a 1 hour sitting of the event, I was determined to become a part of it!

 

                                     Table setting

The first set of tickets had sold out almost immediately. I was told that more would be released on a particular date. So I sat poised over the computer and fortunately managed to get 2 tickets!

 

The one hour sitting included 7 taster courses. Firstly we were given Kansiye - a traditional hearty beef stew with peanut butter from Guinea.

                            Kansiye from Guinea

The next stop was Thailand with the classic Pad Thai, served with a lemon wedge and some ground peanuts.

                         Pad Thai from Thailand
 

Two courses were served in the form of drinks; Rose Water Cordial from Turkmenistan and Otai - a watermelon, pineapple and coconut drink from Tonga. The Rose Water Cordial was aromatic and refreshing. The Otai really surprised us. We had never tried coconut and watermelon together before but the combination is delicious! This was a favourite of ours and we hope to recreate it sometime, with a drop of rum maybe...

 Rose Water Cordial from Turkmenistan

The next food course was Koshari from Egypt - an eccentric dish of macaroni pasta served with an exotic sauce of rice and lentils. To be honest, we thought that this one was pretty bland and didn't enjoy it so much.

                             Koshari from Egypt

The clock was ticking and we had 20 minutes left. We were given the last two dishes, both of which were desserts; Tama from Palau - a deep fried vanilla ball, and Frozen Durian from Malaysia. The vanilla ball seemed quite similar to a doughnut. Durian is known to be an acquired taste. To me, it tasted like slimy, garlic-spiked fruit. I don't think that I'll be in a hurry to eat durian again! But it was certainly an experience to try it!

                      Otai from Tonga

Our hour was then up and we had to leave for the next sitting of guests. During the meal, there were also some Uneartherd food products out for tasting including Bratwurst, Spanish omellete, chilli and lime prawn skewers, Proscuitto Crudo and Pear and Almond tart, to take us to a few more countries while we were in there!

 Tama from Palau and Frozen Durian from Malaysia

Overall, it was a very interesting evening, having sampled a variety of dishes from around the world. Some were more unusual than others. It would have been a dream to be part of the production of such an exciting event, and, of course, I would have loved to have tasted all of the 193 dishes.