Ate at the school "canteen" (i.e. cafeteria) tonight for dinner. Most everything was tasty. (Mmm...eggplant braised in soy sauce!) However, I can now objectively say that pig intestines are NOT good. (Ha ha...objective opinion...)
I pushed past the "egg balls" with my chopsticks and retrieved a delicious-looking piece of pork. It was indeed delicious. :-) I grabbed another piece of what I thought was pork MEAT, and popped it into my mouth. After one chew I realized that this wasn't meat. After a couple more chews, I was suspecting it wasn't a large piece of fat, either. And the taste...the taste...forgive my frankness,(skip to the next paragraph if you are grossed out easily), but it tasted the way old poop smells.
Yep, that piece of whatever was deposited into my napkin...politely, of course. Although I was told by a recent Chinese acquaintance that many Chinese people will--in the presence of closer friends--spit out whatever it is they don't care for with great gusto.
At the end of the meal, while conversing with my coworkers, a Chinese coworker at the table told us that it was pig intestines. He added that he didn't care to eat it because it was stinky!
Oy! In SK they kept trying to serve us a dish of "cellophane noodles" (made from mung beans - got no problem with those!) steeped in pig's blood (for color and for flavor!), wrapped in pig intestines and sliced into discs. It's like they were trying to make the least kosher food known to man...
ReplyDeleteMy students assured me it was okay to eat something else, as this dish might be considered "too salty." Yeah, salt... that's the reason...!