TIMES have changed and so have culinary habits of people, whether in their own environs or during travel.

There were times, though, when reservations on cleanliness and hygiene used to be major concerns; and then there was the factor of the acquired taste which, if disturbed, did become a source of concern as did religious requirements on what to eat or not to touch certain products.

Dietetic concerns were a major worry for the touring teams in the fifties till the seventies as they embarked on long tours. Today, the scenario has changed in most of the countries where one would find vastly improved quality of food with all kinds of catering available, even in the remotest of places. So the players have little or no apprehensions in tasting various delicacies of the countries they travel to.

However, people do avoid certain cooking even today which does not suit their taste buds. And there are certain dishes which are not even heard of in their own countries.

In the Far East, especially in Chinese restaurants, a crocodile steak or snake meat is as popular as a Kangroo steak in Australia. Iguana, a spiny huge lizard is popular in Guyana and in the South America, as is the grass eating Capybara, a pig-size rodent. One has to be careful in what one orders to eat.

It was on one such tour by the Pakistan cricket team that the players had to jump from their seats to get away from the dish of ‘Mountain Chicken’, served to them in the island of Dominica where Pakistan is currently engaged in the decisive third and final Test, aiming to win the first ever series in the Caribbean.

On their 1976-77 twin tour to Australia and West Indies under Mushtaq Mohammad, Pakistan after having drawn a three-match Test series in Australia, arrived in the West Indies to play a five-Test rubber.

During the long tour, Pakistan played a three-day match in the lush green tropical island of Dominica which is known for its scenic beauty. During that match against Dominica in Westwind group of Islands, the team in the capital Roseau were taken to an evening meal by their manager Col. Shujauddin in a highly-rated restaurant.

Having looked at the menu, everyone agreed to have ‘Mountain Chicken’ which after a while was served to the players who started to dig into the dish when suddenly manager Shuja shouted at them to stop eating because he had discovered that the thing in their plates had nothing to do with chicken at all.

In fact, it was a forest frog, a delicacy in the Caribbean known as ‘Mountain Chicken’. The waiter was summoned and was asked to explain how he served a frog in the name of Mountain Chicken.

“Sir, this is what we call Mountain Chicken here and you ordered just that,” replied the waiter.

Numbed at the thought of eating a frog, Javed Miandad jumped off his seat like a frog as did others. They, however, had a good laugh over the incident later.

Miandad was only a novice then, having made his Test debut just a year earlier with a brilliant 163 at Lahore against New Zealand. He played in only one Test in the West Indies on that tour, but went on to become a legendary batsman in the years that followed.

Of all the players who had that Mountain Chicken in Dominica, Miandad I thought had the longest effect which lasted even till the 1992 World Cup in Australia where he leapt like a frog several times during the Sydney encounter against India to taunt Kiran More, the Indian wicket-keeper, who had been sledging him from behind the stumps.

Dominica is now important on this tour because of the last appearance of our two great players Misbah-ul-Haq and Younis Khan who are playing their farewell Test.

For them, of course, it is important to bow out in style to make their visit a lot more memorable than Pakistan’s visit in 1976-77 when they lost the series 2-1 and tasted Mountain Chicken.

Published in Dawn, May 12th, 2017