How much is that doggie in the window??

To all my vegetarian friends and animal lovers, do not read on! One of the things I was interested in experiencing when I came to china was the different foods they have here and so far I have definitely had my fair share.

The first new food for me was chicken butt hole soup….mmm sounds delicious hey? It wasn’t bad but the butt hole itself is exceptionally chewy and it got to me after a while. In China they eat the entire chicken except the breast. In bigger cities like Beijing you can go to the store and buy chicken breast but it is nearly impossible in a restaurant. Usually the breast is shipped to other places (because it is worth so much more) and they eat the rest of the body. At the store you can buy preserved chicken feet as a snack, they eat every part of the inside and often sell the individual body parts on a stick at a barbeque stand. I have tasted nearly every part of a chicken including boiled skin, intestine strips, and fried fat.

Speaking of meat on a stick they have those bbq stands everywhere. At the stands you can buy anything you can imagine including snake, scorpions (which I also ate), shark meat (again I ate), sheep penis (which is insanely long), starfish, blowfish, cocoons, all sorts of insects, and cow balls. Yesterday I ate donkey and it was very good, one of my favorite meats ive ate here actually (it beats Asian beef even). They serve it cold in thin slices and it tasted kinda like a preserved beef.

Today I did every animal lovers worst nightmare and I tried eating dog. But for all you puppy owners don’t hate, its not as bad as it sounds. Dogs here are bread for eating purposes (like they originally were long before they became household pets). They are raised on farms the same as chicken, pigs, and cows and cooked in all sorts of ways. I decided to have the cold plate that is covered in a Korean type sauce. It was alright, I think if I would have known it was a different animal I would have enjoyed it a bit more. It was kinda like roast beef the way it shreds and it was quite tough too. It really wasn’t bad but I must admit the thought of little Coca smelling my breath after I ate one of her own made me a touch sad. I am glad I ate it, it is important for me to try foods from the different countries I visit but I will admit it isn’t going to be on the top of my list next time I order from a restaurant.

So yeah, that is my experience with food here. In the south you can still go to restaurants and order monkey brain. They put the monkey under your table pull its head up through a hole in the middle of your table, kill the monkey, open the scalp, and cut off pieces of the brain and fry them up on a hot plate. I will not be in an area that does that and I don’t know if I could anyway but it sure sounds interesting. Im not sure if there will be any other foods ill be experiencing but im not into turning down much so I guess we will see what else my little taste buds will be devouring!