A Blog For The Ages

In this week’s post there will be much said about food. In this week’s post there will not be any mention of human excretions of any kind.

Here is a list of things I have eaten in China that I had never eaten before: pigeon, frog, pig’s stomach, pig’s ear, rabbit, snail, Tofu that tastes good. I think that’s it. Oh, also, I ate a fried chicken head, which is a part of the chicken I had never eaten before.

There’s really not much about heads, as a genre, that recommends them to the appetite. They don’t taste better. You have to look them in the eye while you’re eating them. They don’t add to the table setting. It’s like having an unwelcome guest at your dinner party. They just make everyone feel uncomfortable. Having said that, being the westerner who is eating a head for the first time is fun, and your discomfort brings joy to everyone else, sooooo…win-win, right?

Pigeon is another dish in which you will often find heads. What can you say about pigeon other than…I wish there was more of it? You take a wing off the plate, wrestle your chopsticks for a few minutes, give up, eat it with your hands, and then you feel disappointed because there was only one bite (if your lucky) of meat on the whole thing. I know, Americans love meat, eat too much of it, blah blah blah, but this whole pigeon thing has got to be a joke.

Meaghan, one of the other English teachers, staunchly defended the eating of pigeon against an uppity Brit who thought it was disgusting that we would eat such a mangy bird. At one point she exclaimed that pigeon “is comparable to duck!” It is always good to call out people who attack things they have no experience with, but I have to give the duck its proper due. The duck is a fowl you can really sink your teeth into, while the pigeon will always seem to me more of an oddity, an appetizer.

If you look at the top of this blog, you should see some pictures I’ve uploaded through Picasa (I have this information second hand, so if I’m wrong, tough). I’ve also put up a video showing how, when you order frog with your Hot Pot, the restaurant staff goes to great lengths to make sure your meal is fresh. There was a lot of speculation as to what their source is for “field chickens.” Did they come from little Billy’s terrarium, or maybe the canal? Who knows, and who cares? Just to be clear, we are not talking about “frog legs” as a dish here. We are talking just “frogs.” I may, or may not, have nibbled on spines. I’m leaning towards “may.” As of now I’m giving frog a thumbs down. However, Hot Pot is not a venue where you get nuanced flavors (really just one flavor: spicy!), so it’s possible that I would enjoy frog if it were prepared differently.

I really feel like we, in the United States, have got pigs figured out. We know where the good stuff is, how to get it, how to make it sizzle. All this stuff with hooves (or trotters, if you want to be a dick about it), snouts, ears, stomachs, is just beating around the bush. The main attraction is not on the periphery. Touch your ear. Go ahead, feel it out. I’ll wait. Now, imagine eating that shit! It is exactly what you think it is. There is a negligible amount of fairly average meat attached to some cartilage and fat. To be completely honest, I’ve actually eaten pig ear more than once. OK for reals I’ve eaten it more than twice, but only because I keep getting tricked into thinking it is some other meat. It looks so good in the pan, and then boom, it’s pig ear. Pig stomach is not bad, but it doesn’t deserve its own paragraph.

Here is a list of things I haven’t eaten yet but want to: snake, some other lizard (iguana or whatever they have), dog, cat, some kind of brain other than cow (had that in Mexico), smoked blood.

Yes you heard right, smoked blood. Captain (yeah, that’s his English name) was telling me how they go about doing smoked meats here, and he informed me that there is a special dish they make for festivals that is basically smoked blood. I don’t think he knows the word “scab” but from what he said I think they take animal blood and basically let it scab over. Then they take strips of it and put it over the stove and kind of jerk or smoke it. I know some people who have had blood soup and they were not very enthusiastic about the experience (traumatized might be a better word), but I think blood jerky sounds interesting.

This is the conversation that might have taken place when smoked blood was invented:

Guy 1: Hey did you hear? They’ve got a bunch of extra blood down at the butcher’s!

Guy 2: How much is it going for?

Guy 1: They’re just giving it away! Can you believe that?

Guy 2: Grab the buckets.

Several weeks pass

Guy 2: Oh shit, we let that blood sit too long and now it’s all hard. What should we do?

Guy 1: ….lets smoke it!