Top 5 - Excessive Feasts

1. Tsaagan Saar in Mongolia - My experience with steamed Mongolian dumplings (buuz) and boiled mutton reached a breaking point during the lunar new year celebrations. I came home one evening to mutton simmering away in a pot (a foul smell), ate the steamed mutton dumplings filled with extra fat that night, dumplings again the next morning, again three hours later, and again two hours after that. By 4pm, it was nap time. I don't think I have touched a mutton dumpling since.

2. Dinner in Chandigarh - A friend invited me to her co-worker's house for dinner. Not five minutes after walking in the door, sweet lassi (yoghurt drink) was forced upon us. Then the sweets came. Two types. So sweet I wanted to vomit. Then dinner came. Five different dishes, rice, and bread. More lassi. After dinner, more sweets. It was so hot outside I could hardly eat to begin with. Why the sweets came at the beginning, I will never. What I can say is that I didn't move for six hours after eating.

3. Christmas in Poland - Nine courses, all including mushrooms or fish. I put on a clinic in festive eating. Rumour has it that people end up in the hospital on Christmas Eve simply because they ate too much.

4. Slurping Molokheya in Egypt - This one wasn't so much about me eating a lot, but rather a heroic individual named Osama drinking a whole bowl of molokheya. For those that don't know, it's a green sauce possessing the consistency of saliva. For those that know (and are not Egyptian), you can imagine how legendary this is. Helwa, ya Osama!

5. Any Azeri Wedding - Here is the formula for determining how much food to order: 1. Assume that each person can eat five times their own body weight. 2. Count the number of guests. 3. Double that figure and order food for that many. You can imagine the rest.