The Voice of the Adventurous Eaters

Writing about exotic food is not an easy task at all. Eating them probably makes it even harder. While I was looking for blogs about these bizarre food culture, I came across these two "Adventurous Eaters", a husband and wife team who went to different parts of China in search of new and exotic food. The blog has not been updated for more than a year, I assume they haven't been able to visit China again after April 2008, yet the voice of their posts does speak a lot about their persona. Marsha, the wife of the family, does most of the blog writing, and in most of the entries, she presents a really interesting thoughts on these bizarre and exotic food.

Marsha, her husband and her kids (which I think some of them are adopted from China) are no ordinary family. In one of her entries, "The King of Fruits," she made eating bizarre food an everyday thing.

"I had double cooked sliced pork stomach and steamed green beans with ground pork. Mason got pork dumplings and crispy tofu. The kids got....fried rice. Yep, we went all the way to chinatown for authentic chinese and they got fried rice that you can get anywhere."

What? What is wrong with her? The woman is complaining about her kids choosing fried rice over pork stomach. When I was reading, I couldn't help but wonder what kind of character she is. Just from these few lines, I can already tell she loves being extraordinary in terms of her choice of food. She is, as the title of the blog suggests, adventurous and willing to look for every single opportunity to try new and bizarre food.

Marsha also expresses a lot of emotions throughout her blogs. In this same entry, she wants to tell her readers how stinky durian (also known as the king of fruits) really is as she capitalizes certain words as follow:

"WOW! That's the stinkiest thing I've ever smell in my LIFE!"

The excellent use of capitalization once again highlights Marsha's excitement and surprise.

Courtesy of EatingAsia.com

In another entry named "China 07 Guangzhou is Adventurous Eating Paradise," Marsha reveals her inner thought when being asked if she wants to have dog meat.

"Doggy, woof woof, doggy [...] if I was going to be crossing an imaginary line. Would people think I was a monster? Would they hate me? Would I lose friends? Certainly I would no longer be welcomed at a PETA meeting."

Again, as a reader, I can see more of the author, as if she is speaking to me as a person, not a virtual communicator. We don't only see Marsha as an adventurous eater, at the same time, through these subtle textual cues, we also know what she was thinking when coming across with these tough decisions. As a reader, it makes the blog post even more interesting to read on as it characterizes the entry and provokes curiosity.

Lastly, I also noticed that she quotes one line separately from the other paragraphs:

"He stayed and watched them chop the snake's head off, skin it, and drain the blood."

Why did she do that? I feel like it does not only emphasize the brutality of killing the animals, it also reflects Marsha's persona as a blogger. The way she says it makes her (and her husband) more of an adventurous eater. Just by looking at this line, she is not afraid of describing the killing of the snake in an elaborate fashion. She is brave, bold, and indeed very adventurous when it comes to eating these exotic food in China.

In general, "Adventurous Eater" reflects very much of its author's personality. The title fits the persona of Marsha very well. By using these textual and visual cues, the blogger's voice is stood out, and it made the experience of reading the blog more enjoyable and pleasurable.