If you know me, you know that I love food. All kinds of food. Coming from a long line of inventive
cooks makes you believe that any food can be redeemed. Until moving to China there was only
one food I couldn’t manage to swallow: raw zucchini.
(Notice the qualifier?
RAW zucchini. Yes, I’m
aware that zucchini bread rocks, zucchini relish is creative, and broiled
zucchini is fall staple, but I cannot manage to swallow that crud raw.)
26 years, and there’s only one thing on the never-never list.
THEN I MOVED TO CHINA.
Preface: I love the food here! So creative and different, the best
comfort food, ridiculous variety-- I’ve been blown away by how great the food
is. But some things….should just never
be.
#1. Sea
Cucumber
I was aware that people eat sea cucumber in China, so when I
saw a translucent tentacle-ish thing at an elegant banquet, I was eager to try
it. Imagine a dense jello that
tastes like water and slides down with all the elegance of a rubber glove. It was like eating a tense
jelly-fish. You’re not sure
whether to chew, slurp, mush, or just swallow the thing whole and pretend like
it never happened.
#2. Things shaped like eyeballs
During my second week here I went out to hotpot with a
group of experienced teachers. Hotpot
is a fantastic eating experience, delicious, social, interactive – all the fun
of fondue without the peril of boiling oil. In my individual bowl of broth there was a random assortment
of veggies and spices to which I added meat, mushrooms, and more
vegetables. About halfway through
the meal I found a mystery item – something round, slightly translucent, with a
thin skin about the size of a quail’s egg. It struck me as looking vaguely like an eyeball, but I chose
to think of it as a marinated quail egg and just eat it. Then it popped in my mouth. Grittiness. End of story.
Add to the never-never list: check.
#3. Stinky Tofu
People have compared stinky tofu to a cheese before, a
fermented food product that smells, but still tastes delicious. The first time you smell stinky tofu,
you expect to stumble over a corpse somewhere, and that’s saying something once
you realize it smells worse than the garbage lying mounded in the summer sun. As I child, I hated dog-duty. (Yup,
the doody-duty.) Summer was the
worst because of the combination of dirt, dried grass, and doody. Imagine that smell combined with fetid
diapers and corpse-ish-ness. And
then imagine putting it in your mouth.
WHY WOULD ANY SANE PERSON DO THAT???? I got some by accident on my last day in Xi’an. It was disguised by soup and some
benign-looking chicken. The
taste? A whole lot like the smell. I tried a few bites for politeness’s
sake, but I have to say again, WHY WOULD A PERSON EVER PUT THAT IN THEIR
MOUTH?? And on PURPOSE?!
If you feel like I’m being judgmental, then you are
absolutely correct. I have
adventured, experienced, tasted, and judged that these vile things will never
pass my lips again.
(Jesus, you hold the one trump card, but PLEASE, let this
plate pass.)
