The other night I went out to dinner with some Chinese friends. Like always, I sat by idly as they poured over the menu and discussed things to eat. They asked me to pick something out, and so I looked through the menu (which had pictures) and picked something that looked good. Although my Chinese has gotten much better, ordering new food is still difficult. Food is its own separate category, and the verbs, adjectives, nouns, and sentence structures that I am learning in Chinese class don't usually discuss the difference between HuZhou and Beijing style pork.
Anyway, the food eventually arrived and there's all sorts of stuff. We over ordered, as is custom in China, and gorged ourselves. Now that I think of it, over ordering Chinese food seems to be a global custom. Anyway, among several things that we ate, there are a couple that stand out. One was some sort of really soft fat in thick layers that covered small, oval and oblong bone. My guess is that it was pig feet, but I can't be sure because when I asked my friends what it was they just smiled and gave me more. I've realized you have to be careful when you ask about something in China. When you ask a question here, you are implying in a polite way that you want more of it (if it's a food), might like to buy it sometime in the future (if it's an electronic or household item), etc... I usually just want to know more about it, but I've learned to temper my questions.
The other interesting dish I ate was bone marrow from pig bones. It came in a giant bowl placed over a bunsen burner in a tannish colored soup. The bones had been broken apart and were no larger than half a loaf of bread. After having placed one in my bowl, I was handed a straw and shown how to suck the bone marrow out with it. I found seeing cute, petite Chinese girls sucking bone marrow from pig bones to be brutally hilarious. It is such a carnal and primitive looking way to eat, yet they all carried on as if it was no different from any of the other dishes, which I guess it wasn't for them. The bone marrow wasn't bad, but it certainly wasn't anything I would order again. The consistency was somewhere between gravy and pudding, with chunks of something more solid mixed in with it.
Eating out with locals is always enlightening, and even though I don't always understand what they order, or would I ever order it again, it makes my experience here seem more... authentic. Plus, every now and then you run into a dish you would never order in a million years that tastes pretty good. I think the strangest thing I've eaten in China would have to be pig brain. Granted, this was in 2005 in Chengdu and not this year, but it's still the strangest thing I've eaten in China. It came on a little plate at a hot pot restaurant, and when it arrived I had just one clear, concise thought, which was "yup, that's a brain." We tossed it into our hot pot, gave it a couple minutes, and I had a bite. It wasn't very good (which I was happy about, I think I would have a hard time rationalizing to myself every time I wanted to order pig brain), and the aftertaste left a filmy like residue in my mouth. Anyway, the bone marrow was much better but I doubt I would order that again either.
Anyway, the food eventually arrived and there's all sorts of stuff. We over ordered, as is custom in China, and gorged ourselves. Now that I think of it, over ordering Chinese food seems to be a global custom. Anyway, among several things that we ate, there are a couple that stand out. One was some sort of really soft fat in thick layers that covered small, oval and oblong bone. My guess is that it was pig feet, but I can't be sure because when I asked my friends what it was they just smiled and gave me more. I've realized you have to be careful when you ask about something in China. When you ask a question here, you are implying in a polite way that you want more of it (if it's a food), might like to buy it sometime in the future (if it's an electronic or household item), etc... I usually just want to know more about it, but I've learned to temper my questions.
The other interesting dish I ate was bone marrow from pig bones. It came in a giant bowl placed over a bunsen burner in a tannish colored soup. The bones had been broken apart and were no larger than half a loaf of bread. After having placed one in my bowl, I was handed a straw and shown how to suck the bone marrow out with it. I found seeing cute, petite Chinese girls sucking bone marrow from pig bones to be brutally hilarious. It is such a carnal and primitive looking way to eat, yet they all carried on as if it was no different from any of the other dishes, which I guess it wasn't for them. The bone marrow wasn't bad, but it certainly wasn't anything I would order again. The consistency was somewhere between gravy and pudding, with chunks of something more solid mixed in with it.
Eating out with locals is always enlightening, and even though I don't always understand what they order, or would I ever order it again, it makes my experience here seem more... authentic. Plus, every now and then you run into a dish you would never order in a million years that tastes pretty good. I think the strangest thing I've eaten in China would have to be pig brain. Granted, this was in 2005 in Chengdu and not this year, but it's still the strangest thing I've eaten in China. It came on a little plate at a hot pot restaurant, and when it arrived I had just one clear, concise thought, which was "yup, that's a brain." We tossed it into our hot pot, gave it a couple minutes, and I had a bite. It wasn't very good (which I was happy about, I think I would have a hard time rationalizing to myself every time I wanted to order pig brain), and the aftertaste left a filmy like residue in my mouth. Anyway, the bone marrow was much better but I doubt I would order that again either.
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