Best and Worst Meats

One of the great joys of eating street food in a country you are visiting is the opportunity to try meats you've never tried before (both new animals and new parts of familiar animals). In the course of researching this book, I added a couple of new animals to my own list (donkey and dog come to mind immediately) and loads of new organs and things, and it was always a thrill. Something about new experiences--there's nothing like it. Unfortunately, that little jolt of excitement when you try something totally new to you is not always accessible when you are at home, so we are stuck living vicariously through others. This list of the best and worst tasting animals as judged by Andrew Zimmern--a man who has tried a wider variety of animals than probably anybody on earth (and whom I've discussed previously on this website)--is the crème de la crème of vicarious living. Many readers may have tried crayfish; fewer will have tried porcupine. Take note that donkey is his second item on the list. This won't be a surprise to citizens in parts of China, as I've written before. Donkey aside, the whole list is a lot of fun. What a good reminder of how many foods there are for us to try in one short lifetime!

I'm establishing a tradition of using this photo of Andrew Zimmern.

The East-West Flavor Divide

I've written several times about my distaste for classifying unfamiliar (to you) foods as "bizarre" or "exotic," as it tends to say more about the classifier's world than about the food itself. It suggests too narrow a cultural framework, and typically carries some uncomfortable Western-centric (often even Caucasian-centric) baggage. That being said, I do get it. I can understand why somebody who grew up in one culture would find some foods from another culture a bit odd (rabbit heads, for instance). It's not how I would normally choose to classify foods, but of course it makes sense that others might.

With all that in mind, it was with great interest that I read this article on PUNCH (an "online magazine focused on narrative journalism—both written and visual—about wine, spirits and cocktails") that talks about baijiu (the biggest Chinese spirit), the different ways Chinese folks and Westerners feel about it, and the different language they use to describe it.

Baijiu photo by Wikimedia user Badagnani

The article is fascinating, and I encourage you to read the whole thing. To whet your appetite, as it were, here are three quotes from the article:

"What the Chinese prize most [in baijiu] is fragrance: its intensity, complexity and duration. Ditto for strength—the stronger the better. Incidentally these are also the two qualities that outsiders find most objectionable in baijiu."

"It’s not simply that we can’t agree on the language we use to describe flavors, it’s that we don’t even agree which flavors are desirable." 

"If it follows wine’s lead [in entering the Chinese market] in the West, baijiu must take the path of the wandering missionary: Adapt to local custom, convert the natives and arm them with the tools they need to create more converts. Proselytizers must seek common ground and embrace local substitutes. Foreign drinkers might grasp a baijiu’s pineapple notes, but perhaps grassiness is more intelligible than Chinese medicine, fruit leather better than dried dates. Admittedly, this approach does little to bring us closer together. So long as we lack a common international language with which to describe flavors, we are left largely where we started: in a segregated barroom, enjoying the same beverage at a distance from one another. They cannot participate in our discussions, nor can we in theirs."

If all of this is true for baijiu, then it is likely true for street food as well. I wrote my book for a Western audience; perhaps I would need to use entirely different words if I were writing for a Chinese audience. We don't share the same language when talking about food and, like baijiu, we can't always agree on what tastes "good." This is the kind of cultural divide that, although fascinating to me, is worth bridging. By eating local foods that don't fall into the categories that you've come to expect as "good," you come to understand the local mindset a little better. Just as the author of the article transitioned from thinking baijiu tasted like paint thinner to being a connoisseur, so can everybody learn to appreciate different standards of quality. There will always be differences in taste and differences in language, but it's well worth one's time to seek opportunities to better understand those differences (and, if you're lucky (like me), you can learn to love the unfamiliar flavors).

Boy Eggs

Now that I'm home again, there has been a decided shift in the questions people ask me about my project. I will probably have to set up a new FAQ page to accommodate this shift. In the meantime I can tell you that besides "how was the trip," which is open-ended enough to be nearly impossible for me to answer satisfactorily, one of the most common questions I get is "what was the weirdest thing you ate." Now I have already covered my thoughts about calling foods "weird" or "bizarre" in a previous post. In short, I don't like it--it's just too arbitrary and culture-centric. That being said, it's still easy to name the weirdest thing I ate in China. It's this:

That may look like an ordinary hard-boiled egg, and in many ways it is. There is just one key exception: this egg is cooked in the urine of young boys. Preferably under the age of ten (because urine from an eleven-year-old would just be gross). This delicacy is known by various names, the most descriptive of which is 童子尿煮鸡蛋 (tong zi sui zhu ji dan), or "boy urine cooked egg." This is often abbreviated to just 童子蛋 (tong zi dan), or "boy egg." Some of you may have already heard about these boy eggs because Reuters recently did a story about them that made the rounds on the Internet back in March and April. One thing that was missing from the Reuters story, though, was a personal taste test. That, of course, is where I come in.

Boy eggs are not easy to find in China. They are really only available in one city (Dongyang (东阳), in Zhejiang Province) and only in the springtime. I heard rumors from some seatmates on the train that boy eggs were also available in other southern Chinese cities, but I haven't found anything to substantiate this. Frankly, in my experience they weren't even easy to find in Dongyang itself, even though it's been officially listed as part of the city's "intangible cultural heritage." It took a good bit of asking around before I found a woman selling them from a wide, rusty pot.

I am nothing if not dedicated to my street food project, so I dutifully suppressed the part of my brain that was reminding me that these eggs had been cooked in urine and bought one for 1 yuan. After finding a suitable spot to sit and eat, I got down to business. On the outside, as you saw above, it looked just like a normal egg, albeit with a faint urine smell. Once shelled, however, it's a different story.

That marbleized look you see is the result of the cooking method--after boiling in the urine long enough to become solid, the eggshells are cracked a bit to allow the urine to soak into the egg itself during the remainder of the boiling. Those lines on the egg are where the cracks were in the shell. Actually, this shelled egg doesn't look terribly different from the tea eggs you can find all over China. The key difference there, of course, is that the tea eggs are cooked in tea instead of the urine of young boys. I can't emphasize that point enough--that this is an egg cooked in urine. Now, while the look of the boy egg is fairly similar to the tea egg, there are several important sensory differences. The most notable are the way it smells and feels. Have you ever changed the bed sheets for a child who wet the bed at night? If so, you may recall the way that the air is heavy with the odor of stale urine and that your fingers feel a bit slimy after touching the soiled linens. Throw in the smell of egg for good measure, and that's exactly what it is like to hold a boy egg, which, I remind you, is intended for human consumption. This slimy, rubbery ovoid that smells like stale urine and egg is meant to be eaten.

So, with the preliminary examination complete, it was time to eat the boy egg. Once again suppressing that part of my brain that was reminding me about the whole "cooked in urine" thing, I dove right in. The result? Surprisingly, it wasn't that bad. In fact, it didn't taste substantially different from other hard-boiled eggs I ate in China. That strong odor of urine didn't translate into a strong taste, oddly enough. That's not to say that it wasn't there--it was just very mild. Like most hard-boiled eggs in China, the white (if you could call it that) was salty (though perhaps the saltiness in the boy eggs came from a different source...) and rubbery(they tend to cook eggs longer in China than we do in the USA), while the yolk tasted like every other hard-boiled egg yolk I've ever eaten. The inside looked exactly like you'd imagine.

Two or three bites and it's gone. So that's that.

The foremost question in your minds, I suspect, is "why would anybody eat this?" The short answer is that it's tradition. Tradition is a powerful force in China, and in Dongyang these boy eggs traditional. The longer answer is that Chinese traditional medicine values the urine from virgin boys as a good preventative measure against joint pain and other ailments. Why it has to be boys and why they have to be virgins, I don't know. Many people in Dongyang eat these by the dozen in the springtime. That's not to say that everybody likes them, of course. Some Dongyangers find the whole idea repulsive. Also, it's worth noting that anytime I mentioned the boy eggs to a native Chinese person in any other part of China, they were pretty grossed out by the whole idea. So I caution you against thinking this is something everybody in China does. Just like eating dog or cat, it's true that some people do it, but it's not everywhere and it's considered gross by much of the population.

Another question you might be asking is "where do they get the urine?" Easy answer: local schools. As you can see from this great 2011 article from the Ministry of Tofu, vendors provide buckets to schools and encourage the boys to use those rather than the toilets.

Source: Ministry of Tofu

I admit that after eating my boy egg, I couldn't help but look at every school-age boy I passed on the street and wonder whether or not he contributed to my lunch.

I also suspect many of you may be questioning how sanitary this endeavor is. Not very, to be honest. However, most doctors in Dongyang agree that these eggs won't hurt you (even if they don't believe in the therapeutic benefits). Depending how much faith you put in Chinese doctors, you can probably feel reasonably comfortable on the safety front.

So those are the boy eggs. I wouldn't label them a must-try street food in China. They are difficult to find (Dongyang isn't exactly on the tourist trail...there isn't even a train station) and aren't amazingly tasty or anything like that. They are however, extremely unique (remember: these are eggs cooked in urine), so if you're the type that likes to track down the most unusual foods you can, it might be time to plan a pilgrimage to Dongyang. For the rest of you, I suspect reading about it here was more than enough. I'm happy to oblige.

Street Food on The Bitten Word

Earlier this evening I came across a great food blog. The couple who write it live in DC (like me!) and primarily focus their energies on the foods they prepare themselves. I'm not much of a cook myself, but I like to eat good food and some of their sample pictures had me champing at the bit. What really caught my eye, though, were their two posts about their recent trip to China, particularly the one entitled "The Wackiest Foods We Encountered in China." In it, they recap some of the more adventurous items they came across, whether or not they actually tried them. Naturally, many of these "wacky" foods were street foods. Their pictures are lovely and do a terrific job of conveying the rich variety of street foods (and foods in general) in China. With their permission, here are some highlights:

Insects

(Credit: www.thebittenword.com) 

 Whole Pigeons

(Credit: www.thebittenword.com) 

 Sheep Penis

(Credit: www.thebittenword.com) 

 Stinky Tofu

(Credit: www.thebittenword.com) 

Visit their blog for more great shots of great food.

"Bizarre" Foods

Interesting interview with Andrew Zimmern on The AV Club today. For the uninitiated, Andrew Zimmern is the creator and host of "Bizarre Foods" on the Travel Channel. One of the more common questions I get when people hear about my street food project is, "hey, do you watch Anthony Bourdain or Andrew Zimmern? Unfortunately, I have to say, "not often; I don't have cable...but I like what they do."

The show is great, and it really reinforces the kind of adventurous eating I like to practice and promote. Of course, it brings up the question of what "bizarre" really means when it comes to food. For example, here's a picture of Andrew Zimmern about to eat a geoduck:

Sometimes a geoduck is just a geoduck...

And here's a picture of some classic American Midwestern fare...the tuna noodle casserole:

Fresh from the local casserole farm.

Credit: BrokenSphere

Who's to say that the geoduck is any more bizarre than the casserole? Both are ostensibly seafood. Both presumably taste good to some people (though both would have their share of naysayers). Both provide enough nutrition to go about your day. So where's the line between "comfort food" and "bizarre food"? Naturally the answer is found in human nature...we're creatures of habit. One man's favorite dinner is another man's stomach-churning nightmare, for no other reason than the world in which each was brought up. 

That's why I like to eat "bizarre" foods. If somebody out there eats something strange, then maybe if I give it a try I'll learn a bit about that person. It's a (often delicious) way to gain some insight into the fact that not everybody grew up in the same world that you did. Neither world is superior...just different. Our differences make the world dappled and interesting. This is what food diplomacy is all about. So from one gustatory diplomat to another, thank you, Andrew Zimmern, for your efforts to bridge the gaps between our worlds, one bite at a time.