Hunger is the Best Spice
I was trekking east of Kathmandu with hopes of getting a good look at Mt. Everest. I felt that my backpacker’s budget didn’t allow the luxury of a guide, so when I found a map at the government tourist office, frugality and an over confidence in my abilities, won out over common sense, and I struck out alone. Before long, I joined a group of Sherpas who were on their way back to their village. I walked and climbed with them in the thin air, on narrow paths carved out of the mountain sides, sharing their food and resting with them in the evenings.
After a few days, my sturdy and hospitable companions took a route to the north and pointed out a trail in the direction of Everest, as it turned out, the same one that the legendary Edmond Hillary took twenty years earlier on his way to conquer the mountain. After a few hours, the trail ended abruptly on the edge of a deep ravine. The damaged rope bridge that spanned it hung vertically, swinging in the wind and banging against the opposite wall, forcing me to take an alternative route. I had difficulty finding my way in the rocky terrain. It was getting dark, a fall or twisted ankle could be fatal, and as the landscape became increasingly desolate, I admitted to myself that I was lost and had no idea where the nearest village was and would have to spend the night in the open.
It took two days to circumvent the gorge. I walked and climbed, in what I sensed was the right direction, and spent the nights curled up in my sleeping bag under a canopy of stars that seemed so close that I could reach out and touch them. I woke with the rising sun, the first light of dawn illuminating the snow-covered peaks in the distance. I couldn’t fully appreciate the beauty though, because the growling of my empty stomach reminded me of the fact that I was lost and hungry, and no one knew where I was.
On the third day of my wandering, with a little luck and a lot of determination, I came to the village that was my goal. As a reward, I got a view of the world’s highest mountain, silhouetted against a cloudless sky, its jagged, snow-covered peak standing among its majestic neighbors. But just then, all I could really think of was food, and what I appreciated much more was my first meal in three days. Hunger is the best spice, and that meal is etched into my culinary memory.
Sitting by an open hearth with a Sherpa family that took in trekkers, I ate fresh potatoes roasted in the fragrant coals of a juniper wood fire with cottage cheese fermented from jak milk, slices of grilled porcini mushrooms, sprinkled with chili and salt, and a spicy curry made from lentils and barley, eaten with roti, an unleavened wheat bread. After the meal, I drank Nepalese tea, seasoned with salt and jak butter.
It was a dinner worthy of a Michelin star.
In 1953, Edmond Hillary and his Sherpa companion, Tenzing Norgay, were the first climbers to successfully reach the summit of Mount Everest, The world’s highest mountain.