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Published: January 10th 2011
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The live crabs
all tied up (but they still made these horrible clicking noises)! Food is one thing in China that is very foreign to other places we’ve visited. Sometimes I’m blown away by the things that are cooked and presented as ‘food’. When it comes to food in the US – I consider myself open to try anything. That is definitely not the case here. There is a saying in China… if you can cook it, they will eat it.
Many of the food conveniences of the US are either not available, not safe to eat, or simply ridiculously expensive to buy here. (We found a western/expat grocery store with cereal… too bad they were selling it for $14 a box!) This has led us to be a little creative in our cuisine choices. We’ve certainly had some interesting experiences with food. Here are two that happened recently that were rather entertaining.
Shanghai Hairy Crabs
Due to its location in the Yangtze River Delta – seafood in Shanghai is very popular. While walking the streets of Shanghai you often see every known possible form of seafood for sale. The most notable delicacy is Shanghai Hairy crabs, also called Mitten crabs. Joni and I have seen these sold in miniature kiddy pools by
Cooking away
this reminds me of the Little Mermaid... :( street vendors around Shanghai, but have never really taken the time to figure out what they were or try them.
A little background….Mitten crabs are rather small in size (a couple inches across) and are sold alive in buckets with their pinchers tied closed. They are quite expensive by Chinese standards and can be $10+ for one small crab. They are considered a delicacy because the crab meat is believed by the Chinese to have a ‘cooling’ (yin) effect on the body to help remained balanced. However, the crabs themselves are actually taking over many of the lakes/rivers here and are considered an invasive species in many parts of the world. They can survive in highly polluted water and can easily tolerate heavy metals such as mercury. (I, of course, learned all of this
after eating them.)
To be honest, I had no intention of even trying a mitten crab. However, one day at work one of the office managers sent me a message on Skype and said he had a dinner for me. When I asked what it was – he said they were crabs. I leaned over and whispered to Joni and she immediately responded “Are
they alive!?!?” I asked Keny and he responded confirming they were very much alive and sitting in the conference room waiting to go home with me.
After the workday I nervously walked into the conference room to see what I was in store for that night. In a bag I found two, very alive, crabs. Keny explained that one was female and one was male. All I had to do to cook them was boil them in hot water for 15 minutes with ginger. Easy enough….. As we walked home from work I explained to Joni how we needed to cook them and she made it very VERY clear that ‘we’ would not be the cooking them… looked like I was on my own for this one!
The whole process of cooking them went fairly easily. Joni hid in the living room and asked for updates. After boiling them I pulled them out and put them on a plate half wondering what parts could be eaten. I cracked the top open and found some white flaky meat around the outside. I ate it and it tasted rather odd. Joni took a small bite and said it tasted terrible.
Oatmeal Squares
for 90 yuan (almost $14) at the fancy import supermarket I cracked it open some more and found some orange and yellow ‘guts’ and tossed it aside. Apparently the only thing you could eat was the little white meat on the top. I cracked open the other crab and ate the same white meat. It didn’t taste very good, but I figured it was a gift and I took the time to cook them so I might as well eat it. I tossed the shells and ‘guts’ into the garbage entirely confused why anyone would pay $10 for just one of them.
What makes this story interesting is the fact that Langley invited us over to his house several weeks later for dinner with him and his wife. They cooked mitten crabs because they are one of his wife’s favorites. I told them how Keny had given me a few crabs to cook and explained that I thought they were just ok, but I would eat them again.
As we sat there with our first crab – Langley gave us instructions on how to crack it open. After we opened it up – he pointed at the white ‘meat’ that I had eaten before and said “DON’T eat this part” My jaw dropped…. And I nervously asked… ‘why??’ This is when Langley dove in explained that the white part was actually the crabs water filter. The part that filters out all the pollution and metals so it can process the water…. Wonderful… I suddenly felt sick to my stomach from the meal I had several weeks earlier.
I explained the story to Langley about how the ‘white’ part was, in fact, the only part that I had eaten. His only response was “You didn’t’ get sick!? You are lucky!” I chuckled nervously and tried to calculate how much damage I could have done with only two crabs. Turns out the part you are supposed to eat is actually the orange and yellow ‘guts’. Who would have thought…. It actually turned out to be very good. Another lesson learned the hard way - Never take anything for granted. Next time I ask for instructions…
Chicken Noodle Soup for the Chinese Soul
In the US, we often present meat and seafood in a manner that makes one believe that it did not actually come from a living animal. After all, who wants to think about little Nemo when they are chomping down a salmon fillet. Things in China are a bit different in this regard. Food is presented as is. If you want to buy fish, you pick your catch swimming around in a tank of water. If you want to buy a chicken.. you get just that. A chicken complete with a head, claws, and all the goods inside. So in all ignorance, when I saw chicken at the supermarket which was set on a Styrofoam tray and wrapped in plastic, I eagerly threw it in the cart. But my excitement slowly faded as I realized what I was getting myself into with the purchase of a whole chicken.
As I unwrapped the chicken for use in an all-American home-cooked chicken noodle soup and began rearranging its parts out of the fetal position, I recognized a long neck complete with head and beak on one end and a stubby tail on the other. Underneath, I found scrawny chicken legs with wiry toes and claws.
Warning: this description is not for the faint of heart… Cassie, if you haven’t already stopped reading, I advise you to stop now! 😊 I grabbed my trusty cleaver and began sawing at the neck. If I could have avoided this, I would have, but this was the only way to reach the insides. After no luck with my trusty cleaver, I called my husband in to the kitchen to help. He took care of it like a seasoned butcher… chop! I was now able to reach my fingers inside to search for the bag of innards, but to my surprise, there was no bag! I Googled “chicken anatomy” (what would you do without the internet?!) and began discarding parts of the chicken’s inside. After also removing the wiry legs and feet, the chicken was finally ready to toss into a boiling pot of water. This scrumptious chicken gave us the satisfaction of an all-American meal but provides you only a small taste as to the amount of work required to prepare a home-cooked meal in China. I admire Chinese women for all their hard work!
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vegan
eeewwww i am even more vegan after reading this. :P i learned the way to get a veg meal is to assert that i follow a strict buddhist diet when i visit china. hopefully i get to use that bit of knowledge someday! love reading your blog, so glad you guys are having such a wonderful adventure!