The best meal overseas
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The best meal overseas was the subject of a question John Kiriakou said he wished he had read in advance, "Serious question. Top five best meals you've had abroad?", and which he answered from memory, in order.

First

The winner came from the Islamabad guest house. Kiriakou began to name the cook and stopped himself: "This kid I I know I almost said his name. There's this kid, Pakistani kid, who was working there, and he was the cook."

The dish is described as the product of half a day's work. "And he would spend half the day shaving beef really thin and mixing it with this myriad of spices and then hot green chili peppers over rice that he cooked with chicken stock." Kiriakou's own reaction, decades later, is part of the answer: "Oh my god, my mouth is watering just thinking about it."

What he draws out of it is the disproportion between effort and ingredients: "As simple as that was that was the best meal I ever had overseas."

Second

The second is Japanese and depends on immediacy. "I'll tell you my other meals the freshest sushi I ever had in my life was in was in Tokyo where you walk up to this ice tray and pick the fish that you want and it's still flapping around and the octopus is like trying to crawl off the ice. I'm like that octopus puss is going to be right here in 10 minutes."

Third, fourth and fifth

Kiriakou gives the remaining three places to one Greek day rather than three meals. "But three, four and five have to be in Greece on what is called Kathara Deftera clean Monday it's the first day of Lent for Orthodox Christians and so traditionally you cook all the Lenten foods."

He states the rule that shapes the table: "So there's no meat, there's nothing with a spine or nothing that bleeds. You can't eat during Lent." The constraint is what he admires: "So I mean you become very creative. You can make lentils a hundred different ways with a hundred different flavors. Uh and you can use you know mushroom stock or vegetable stock. It's incredible."

The one he did not expect

The list does not end abroad. Kiriakou's last entry is one he flags as improbable, "crazy as it sounds one of the best meals I ever had I made myself in prison", and it is the dandelion salad he assembled in the yard at Loretto from foraged greens, commissary olive oil and a bag of chicken.

See also

- The Islamabad guest house
- The Dandelion Salad
- Kiriakou on Greek and Cypriot food
- There is no such thing as bad food in Athens
