Special Report from the Department of Missed Opportunities

Amar'e Stoudemire, power forward for the New York Knicks, recently said this about his trip to China:

Spent my last few days getting the local flavor of the people and culture of Beijing by visiting the Chinese Street Market. I was starving, but there was no way I was messing with these. They deep fry them here. I am going to have to pass!

That was accompanied by this picture of Mr. Stoudemire looking dubious by a street food vendor.

He went on to note that it was the sea horses, silkworms, scorpions, lizards, snakes, and tarantulas that particularly turned him off. "I think I am ready to land in LA and hit up In & Out burger!," he quipped.

Really? Look, folks, I can understand that there is a gross-out factor for Westerners when it comes to eating animals with more or less than four legs. I've also never tried an In & Out burger, although everything I've heard says they are a must-try delicacy in California. That all makes sense. But seriously...what a missed opportunity! There are lots of street foods that don't involve lizards. There are fried breads and steamed buns, there are pork and chicken skewers, there are hundreds of varieties of tofu. The point is that even if you are squigged out by the thought of eating something with tentacles (keeping in mind, of course, that lobsters have tentacles...), you can find a street food to try. I hear a lot of people, including Mr. Stoudemire, talk about actively avoiding street food while in China, and it truly makes me cringe. Not only does it make me cringe, I just don't get it. If you are soaking up the local color, like Mr. Stoudemire was, and you skip the street food, it's like you've taken in a rainbow but ignored the green. You're not getting the whole experience. Why would you purposely avoid part of the cultural palette? Like I said, I recognize that there are a number of reasons that people skip the street food while they are in China, but I really encourage anybody to give it a go anyway. It doesn't have to be scorpions...there are absolutely more familiar entry points. There's a whole world of flavors out there, and it's a real shame to miss them.

Direct message to Amar'e Stoudemire: next time you go to China, give the street food another chance. I don't think you'll be sorry.

More Entomophagy

It seems I'm trendier than I suspected. Shortly after writing my recent post about eating bugs, The New Yorker printed an article about the exact same topic. Unfortunately, you have to be a subscriber to read the full article online, but there are two supplementary online pieces including this one with some video from the writer's research from the article and this one about how to "free one's mind" from the cultural biases that keep people from trying bugs (including substantial reference to a 1992 article about entomophagy). Glad to have some high-powered support to my belief that we should eat more bugs.  In conclusion, please enjoy this cartoon from a recent New Yorker:

Best proposal ever.

Mitigating the Inevitable: Part 2

Warning: No pictures in this post...just a wall of text.

A while back, I wrote a post about some preventative measures to avoid getting ill while eating street food as well as how to deal with it when it happens (which is inevitable). When I wrote that post, I was in fine fettle and good spirits.  Shortly thereafter, however, my fettle turned very un-fine.  I'm not sure exactly what it was or how it found me, but I spent several days in July under siege by a particularly aggressive stomach bug. It's been a long time since I was sick like that. Years and years. It was terrible. I was laid out. Incapacitated. I had forgotten just how bad it can feel.

In Defense of Entomophagy

I am a big believer that we in the Western hemisphere--particularly here in the United States--should be eating more insects. This is not, at present, a point of view likely to earn me many friends. Nonetheless, I remain steadfast in this conviction. In much of the world, entomophagy is not a controversial lifestyle. Some estimate that 80% of the countries in the world include insects as part of their cuisines. Frankly, people who don't eat bugs are the minority in the world. Now, there are lots of good reasons to eat bugs. Entomophagy has something for everybody! You like protecting the environment? Raising bugs for human consumption requires significantly less food, water, and land than beef, pork, chicken, or really any other meat. You want to prevent animal cruelty? Unlike, say, chickens, most bugs actually kind of like being crowded together in tight living spaces. Want to eat healthily? Insects are full of protein and vitamins and (generally) low in fat. Hypochondriac? Insects are much less likely to transmit diseases to humans (remember the swine flu? The bird flu? Mad cow disease? When was the last time you hear of locust fever? Cricket flu? Ant pneumonia? That's right, you haven't.). 

So with all these reasons to eat insects, why don't we? I can only think of one reason, and, frankly, I don't think it's a very compelling one: people find it gross. Let's get past that, folks. 

For a more in-depth exploration about why we should eat bugs, watch this TED video. And keep an eye on this blog later this fall for my own adventures in Chinese entomophagy.

Via: www.oratrip.com

Jon Huntsman Likes Street Food!

I have just learned that lovers of street food have a high-profile name on their side: Republican Presidential Candidate Jon Huntsman! Huntsman, who until recently was the United States Ambassador to China (appointed by President Obama), described his love of street food (he calls it an "addiction" at one point!) in a video on his campaign site. Really! He devoted an entire two-minute video to his love of street food on this site that is designed to get him elected as the leader of the free world. Amazing! You can see the full video at this link (unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be embeddable).

Huntsman attributes his love of street food to his time spent in developing countries. "Street food is so fresh, and it's so good, and it's so cheap," he notes. He talks most extensively about tacos, but with the amount of time he has spent in China he undoubtedly has some great stories about Chinese street food. If you happen to be the kind of person who uses "love of street food" as your guiding factor in deciding whom to vote for, it looks like you've found your man.

Jon Huntsman: Street Food Connoisseur

Coming Soon to a Vendor Near You...

So I recently told one of my Chinese friends about my plans to write this book. When he wrote back, he shared the first thing that came into his head when he heard the news.  It was too good not to share.  Here are his thoughts, verbatim:

A deep and strong voice come over to my head (with a calm but powerful background music):

"2011"

"This Autumn"

"He's tough, he's precise, he was prepared for any battle any time where his stomach need to be."

(Then the background music turn to rock and roll)

"From one place to another, nothing can stop him from conquering the last corner of the menu! He is Caesar of the street food, and champion of a swimmingly stomach! Foods, thou shall just sit there and waiting to be digested."

"Because, he is about to start."

" FRANK KASELL, COMING SOON!"

Amazing! My project suddenly feels much more epic...

The Obligatory Contrition Post

Hello, friends. In the course of every blog's life span, there comes a time when the blog author must apologize for a paucity of posting. Now is that time for me. Admittedly, it feels odd to apologize for something like this. To me, an apology implies that I owe you something and that I have let you down by not posting more regularly. As if there was a noticeable absence in your life because I went a week without posting anything on my blog. A Chinese-street-food-shaped hole that went unfilled for a whole week. Blogs and the bloggers who write them sometimes have a reputation for being self-centered or narcissistic. I can't help but feel that an apology for not sharing my boundless street food related wisdom with you, anonymous reader, is illustrative of why blogs have that reputation.

Nonetheless, the fact remains that blogs ought to be updated regularly (some say it doesn't even count as a blog if it's not updated at least twice a day). On occasions where it has not been udpated regularly, it makes sense to acknowledge the breach of the unspoken agreement with established or potential readers. The best blogs foster dialogues about interesting topics, and dialogues can't happen if the conversation facilitator is a no-show. What I am saying is that I humbly apologize for not posting more regularly, and I thank you for bearing with me.

That being said, I expect the dearth of regular posts will continue for the next few weeks. Between an upcoming move, two upcoming out-of-state weddings, and all of the myriad preparations for this China trip, times are busy here. Unfortunately, this blog has been shuffled off to fourth or fifth place on the list of priorities. Once I am in China I expect to update this much more regularly with reviews and travel updates and whatnot, but for now it's going to have to be more of a once in a while thing.

Anyway, thanks again for bearing with me. To keep yourself entertained during this time of infrequent updates, you might spend some time perusing the "Awesome People Hanging Out Together" blog. It is amazing.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B