If in doubt, fry it - or BBQ it to charcoal. Seems to sort most objectionable things out...
Not that adventurous ie would never eat without a reliable guide in southern china - though I might manage snake which they eat. But flour rolled fly maggots is just off, even if they are deep fried - which is an actual dish, claims the northern chinese person (so might be a myth).
I did get a + point in the north for diving in to boiled blood-tofu. Had the missus explain I like black pudding, so it wasn't really an alien concept.
I suppose it's what you are brought up on. I like cockles and whelks - but if you really look at them, they are hideously ugly little buggers.
In my home town, one of my local pubs used to do snails on a Friday evening, a tradition dating from when French glassmakers were originally made at home in the village.
I didn't wait long. Only as long as it took me to sprint to the loo.
That's true. The deep fried was a bit like that. I got extra brownie points having previously brought up the sheep's eyes.
he definitely wasn't a reliable guide. We drove through Amman in my VW camper with him shooting into the air through the passenger window. The only reason that we didn't get arrested was that he was a police officer.
Plausible. I watched a show where Gordon Ramsay was touring India, making a complete arse of himself as usual, and he went to a remote village where they made an especially hot relish. He found it was made from red ants.
I like black pudding too, but my real favourite is Irish white pudding. Much the same, just lighter - in more ways than just the colour! I haven't had it for ages, but I think Morrisons used to stock it. Perhaps they still do, but they used to stock a Polish Kabanos which was a particular favourite of mine, and since the Poles invaded they don't seem to stock it any more. Pity.
Eww. Can't stand them. I do like oysters, though. I particularly like lobster but it doesn't seem to like me - my mouth and throat swell alarmingly. So I mostly stick to crab in brown bread and butter.
The diet of Chinese people gets its inspiration and roots from the times of famine, when anything that moved and was vaguely edible could be eaten, and often was.
Snake isn't all that bad, but too many bones in the ones I have eaten. Deep fried gutted frogs are loved by Chinese children because the meat tastes a bit sweet. I can't eat them. The boiled blood tofu was interesting, and also given to me because I said I liked black pudding, but it seemed a bit tasteless to me, which is unusual because where my wife comes from (Hunan), they like very spicy food. I haven't had the fly maggots, but the bee larva I ate once were pleasant enough. I can't eat much seafood after have one-trial aversion learning when I got severe food poisoning (needing hospitalisation) after eating cockles bought in a pub in Selly Oak many years ago. Donkey meat was all right, but I wouldn't choose to eat it again, and the same goes for dog. The one food my Chinese relatives were most surprised about because I liked it very very much was "smelly tofu" or "stinky tofu":a very strong flavour. What I can't understand is why they like this, yet can't abide the thought of eating cheese, and, in particular, very strong blue cheeses (the ones corresponding most closely to the stinky tofu. Tofu is made in an extremely similar way to cheese (we've made both) except that the starter is not cows, sheep, goats or other animal milk but, in rough terms, a kind of soya milk.
They also can't understand why pigs' ears are usually only fed to dogs in the UK: they are a delicacy and very expensive in China, and they also like to cook and eat chicken feet (apart from the claws which they spit out), bones and gristle and all.
As I said, one can understand their diet if one views it as being at some point rooted in the history and cultural memories of famine times.
The fact that you don't find prawns swimming in the bog, then jumping out and going for a walk on yer sandwiches probably helps their image ;->
Rule #89: When in the slightly more tropical parts of China, don't book a ground floor hotel room. That roughly halves the amount of wildlife you'll see...
Rule #10: Don't open any windows at night with the room lights on!
STWNFI and I intended trying the local guinea pig delicacy in Cusco, Peru. But once sat in the restaurant and seeing it being served we chickened out as it looked more like road kill!
Likewise, I found smoked jellied eel (the old London favourite) to be a bit on the crunchy side but at least the bones are chewable.
The bee babies sound quite appealing. I suppose it's the mental image that bees are fluffy and cute but flies are smelly sods that like turds and rotten dead things.
I've heard of that - not had it though.
I've had those. Not something I'd go out and buy, but if given, they were quite passable.
I'm sure in olden times here a few slugs ended up in the stew!
Troo. But then, you don't see what prawns eat in the sea.
I wish I could remember the name of the hotel we were booked into in Xian. The carpets were literally soaked in raw sewage leaking from the toilet. We left squishy footprints which filled with, er, liquid. Fortunately, someone else on the tour had been given a suite with multiple bedrooms, so with a bit of room shuffling, we didn't have to sleep in the sewage room.
Thats classic! No problem in China with snake, deep fried gutted frogs, boiled blood tofu, bee larva, donkey meat, dog, "stinky tofu", pigs' ears & chicken feet - and you get hospitalised by a plate of cockles from Selly Oak!
I don't like eating any dish that looks like the animal it was made from. So forget things like lobster claws and quails. I don't particularly like chicken legs and wings for the same reason. I can just about manage lamb or pork chops.
And I reserved rules #1-9 as I'm sure there are worse things... I only went as far south as Henan (2 provinces down from Mongolia) and the switch in climate from Shanxi was quite marked. I like Datong - fairly "English" summers, though just a tad hotter, but dryish. Relative lack of crappy crawlies too :#)
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