Weird stuff I’ve eaten

With the arrival of the Olympics, it seems like every journalist is busy scouring the hutongs of Beijing looking for stuff that will challenge their definition of food. I’m actually a bit miffed at that, because focusing on the stuff you find ‘disgusting’ actually takes away from the cuisine as a whole; it’s one thing to get all freaky about eating a duck tongue, say, but you’re focusing on it instead of all the rest of the dishes around it.

To give you an example, when I tried pidan doufu (tofu with fermented egg), it was more of a dare, and the strange thousand year egg was an experience in itself. But instead of freaking out about it, I gave it an honest try. And you know what? It became one of my favorite dishes in Shanghai. (I miss it a lot!) Same goes for chou doufu (stinky tofu) and yu tou (fish head).

Anyway, just for kicks, here’s a list of unusual things I’ve eaten over the last few years. Some of it isn’t very ethical… I don’t particularly feel proud of the whale sashimi, though I couldn’t pass it up. But I’d say that everything was worth trying at least once.

I’ve marked the place I’ve eaten these dishes for the first time… When nothing’s marked, it means China.

• Live fish, as sashimi
• Drunken shrimp (live shrimp drowning in rice alcohol)
• 30 lbs lobster, still alive, as sashimi
• Thousand year egg
  
• Dog hot pot
• BBQ dog meat, imported from North Korea
• Alcohol with a viper in it
• Alcohol made from deer horn
• Fur seal penis alcohol
• Sheep testicle [q]
• Scorpion
• Silkworm crysalis
  
• Grasshopper [q]
• Ant in chocolate [q]
• Fresh cobra blood mixed with rice alcohol [v]
• Durian
• Durian flavored popsicle that tasted like a dead rat floating in an oil spill on the highway [q]
• Sheep brain [q]
• Pig head [q]
• Fish head
• Chicken head
• Chicken feet
• Duck feet
• Pig feet
• Stomach
• Intestines [q]
• Lungs
• Spleen
• Liver [q]
• Heart [q]
• Beef tongue [q]
• Veal cheeks [q]
• Jellyfish [q]
• Eel
• Stingray
• Pigeon [q]
• Shark
• Whole baby chicks on a stick
• Many species of snake [q]
• Ostrich [q]
• Kangaroo [edmonton]
• Turtle
• Alligator
• Frog [q]
• Snails [q]
• Fresh oysters [q]
• Parrot fish
• Whale sashimi [j]
• Horse sashimi [j]
• Raw beef [f]
• Raw deer
• Haggis [s]
• Sea urchin [q]
• Sea cucumber
• Chicken blood soup
• Blood sausage [q]
• Beef marrow [f]
• Stinky tofu that smells like poo

[f] = France; [j] = Japan; [q] = Quebec; [s] = Scotland; [v] = Vietnam