Gates - In the Danger Zone

CONTENTS

Award-winning food writer Stefan Gates has travelled the world to investigate how people cook, eat and survive in extreme conditions for the acclaimed BBC television series Cooking in the Danger Zone. He drank radioactive wine with babushkas in Chernobyl, ate fat-tailed sheep with Taliban warlords in Afghanistan, yaks penis with Chinese Communists, civet cat with the Karen rebels deep in the Burmese jungle and rotting walrus with the Inuit of the Canadian Arctic.

In this book Stefan takes us on an extraordinary personal journey as he tries to understand a world in crisis, and meets people caught up in war, poverty and environmental disasters. This behind-the-scenes account is hugely entertaining and thought provoking, blending war and food, ethics and emotions, comedy and tragedy.

Stefan Gates is a writer and broadcaster who first introduced the nation to the wilder side of gastronomy in BBC2s Full on Food. His book Gastronaut won a Gourmand World Cookbook Award and was shortlisted for a Guild of Food Writers Award. He spent two years travelling the world writing and filming Cooking in the Danger Zone.

Stefan has worked as a journalist, scriptwriter and TV producer. He lives in London with his wife, two daughters and a fridge full of weird food.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the authors and publishers rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

Epub ISBN: 9781407022024

Version 1.0

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This book is published to accompany the BBC television series Cooking in the Danger Zone.

Published in 2008 by BBC Books, an imprint of Ebury Publishing.

A Random House Group Company

Copyright Stefan Gates 2008

Stefan Gates has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9781846072642

BANG! AN EXPLOSION temporarily blinds me. I see a guy sprawled up ahead, covered in blood and screaming hysterically in Arabic, part of his leg blown off. My heart beats out of control as I realize that Im slap-bang in the middle of a minefield. F**k. Theres a place and a time for swearing, and its here and now. F**k, f**k, f**k.

It hasnt been the best of days: Ive already been caught in a mortar bombardment, robbed at gunpoint and administered first aid to two blood-drenched women at the scene of a horrific car crash. To tell the truth, Im no longer just scared, Im really f**ked-off and scared, which is a rubbish combination. Im immobilized by The Fear, an involuntary contraction of both sphincter and brain power. I search my memory for someone to blame for sending me to a place this absurdly dangerous, but its my own stupid fault. My kids will have to say, Daddy died writing a cookery book, as their mates suppress their giggles. I miss my kids. I miss my wife. I miss my cat. I miss my coffee machine. I despise myself for being here at all. Im just a weedy, bookish food writer from north London I wasnt built for war zones.

The adrenalin recedes and I let out a deep sigh. Im in a pyrotechnic minefield in Herefordshire and the screaming Arab jumps to his feet, right as rain, and berates me in a broad Welsh accent for failing to notice the obvious signs of mines. He watches me go through the motions of sticking my penknife in the ground at an angle as we play-act getting out of this sodding mud. Needless to say, I am now thoroughly humiliated and not a little miserable.

Im on a gruesome course called How to Survive Hostile Environments, which is supposed to prepare me for visiting Category 1 conflict zones like Afghanistan and rebel-held Burma. Ive spent the morning with roughty-toughty ex-paras being pistol-whipped and bundled into car boots and watching scratchy videos of people having their fingers cut off by kidnappers. I am now feeling nervous, exhausted, nihilistic and, for some reason, a tad misanthropic. What have I got myself into?

I am about to embark on the craziest project of my life: two years of travelling to the worlds most dangerous and complicated countries, using food to understand a world in crisis. Ive always believed that food is a window onto emotion, morality and society, but I suspect that it can also reveal the intimate reality of how big issues like war, disaster, religious conflict and hunger have a tangible effect on real people.

We rarely see more than a shallow, macro view of the world and its big issues: we see Afghans on the news, screaming and bloodied in front of burning cars; Palestinians burning flags; refugees mournful and powerless. These people are often stripped of their personality and dignity by the needs of the media. I want to meet, talk and live with ordinary people in extraordinary situations to try to understand the world a little better. Perhaps if I sit down to eat with them Ill find them more like me.

But five days before I leave for Afghanistan, The Fear returns. Im in the middle of presenting a chirpy TV series called Food Uncut, which couldnt be more different from the project Im about to start. The coming two years will be a cycle of two weeks avoiding bullets in the most godforsaken hellholes of the world, followed by two weeks in this cosy TV studio reading autocues and making cheeky banter, then back to the godforsaken hellholes again. Im hoping its a way of staying sane.

Anyway, here I am, about to reveal Whats Hot and Whats Not in the World of Food this Week (marmalade with gold flakes is in, but Asda wet fish is out), when I get an urgent telephone call from my executive producer Will Daws. His voice is unusually sombre.

I dont know how to say this, Stef, but the BBC high-risk security team has intelligence that 38 would-be suicide bombers have just entered Afghanistan from Pakistan. On top of that, theres a specific group thats actively looking for a Western hostage and things are pretty hairy. Its entirely up to you. If you want to pull out, you can. Have a think about it and call me back.

So an already crazy idea has become even crazier, and I stumble through the rest of the days filming barely paying attention to my script. That night I sit down with my wife Georgia and break the news to her. Actually, Im ashamed to say that I dont give her all the details in fact, Ive largely played down the danger of the whole project, so I just say that things are looking a bit rum out in Persia, but not to worry because Ill be fine. I feel terrible. Ive only just come to terms with the prospect of spending two weeks of every month away from her and my two daughters. And now this.