If You're Looking for Eating Adventures of a New and Different Kind …”:

… then China is the place for you! Getting served the whole chicken, including the head and feet, is just the beginning of your interesting gastronomic experiences (经历) here.

This because China has long faced a basic problem: while its population is large, the amount of arable land (可耕之地) in the country is relatively small. In fact, since most of the Middle Kingdom consists of mountains and desert, crops (庄稼) can be grown (種) on just 10-15% of its total land area.

Thus China has always had what some observers have called a “famine (饥荒) cuisine (烹饪法)”. That is to say that any plant (植物), animal (动物), or animal parts that are in the least bit edible do get eaten.

In Yuannan (云南) Province, for example, which is very mountainous and has little arable land, insects play more than a minor role in the regional fare. I actually ate bee (密封) larva (幼虫) when dining with a Chinese friend at a Yunnan restaurant located near the Second Foreign Langauges University (二外) (I taught English there during my first year in Beijing).

I have to say that it didn't taste all that bad. In fact, were it not for the seasoning on the larva, the stuff probably would have been completely lacking in taste. The same can be said for the fly (苍蝇) larva (or pupa) I had sampled at the Mono Lake Visitor Center in California before coming to China.

The park ranger informed us that the Piute Indians (印第安人) gathered and then dried the fly pupa from Mono Lake. The lake (湖) has lots and lots of flies, providing plenty of food for the masses of migrating birds who stop there on the Pacific flyway.

The only notable thing about the fly pupa was its crunch. The ranger also told us that this food is extremely high in protein (蛋白质) and has virtually no fat (肥) or cholesterol (胆固醇). The same could probably be said about the bee larva. But I remember that it was rather expensive, so I doubt if the growing numbers of overweight Chinese people suffering from high cholesterol will soon be adopting an all bee larva diet!

Yunnan cuisine also features lots of exotic mushrooms (蘑菇) and other wild greens. One of Beijing's best Yunnan dining spots is Hou Hai’s South Silk Road Restauarant. For some reason, these dishes are translated on the menu from Chinese into English as “Stir Fried Wikipedia”! Leaving aside this “Chinglish”, the restaurant is really worth a visit. It has outdoor dining by Hou Hai's southernmost lake and the food, especially the pork ribs in pu'er tea, is to die for (超好吃). But be warned: it's pretty spicy (很辣).

I also twice dined on sea sponges during my first year in China, when I lived and worked in Henan (河南) Province. The first time was at a Zhengzhou (郑州) Muslim Restaurant—our school took us there for dinner, following a day trip to the Yellow River. The second time was at a National Day banquet organized by the Hennan Provincial Government that was held at Zhengzhou's swank Sofitel Hotel. I and a few other teachers were invited to go and represent the school at this event. The school, I might further add, made a special point of including two very cute young blondes in our delegation.

Sea sponges are aptly named. Eating these little critters really is like eating a sponge, particularly an old and rubbery sponge that's seen way too much heavy duty cleaning action around the kitchen. So during my first go with the sponges, I literally felt like gagging after taking just one bite. Indeed, had there not been other people at the table, I would have spat it out faster than a snitch turning state's evidence.

When the sea sponges were served during the National Day Banquet, I thought, “Well, why not give it the old college try”. This was, after all, the Sofitel, and I figured that their expert kitchen staff might be able to turn the humble sponge into the marine delicacy it's reputed to be. And the rest of the dinner was outstanding—it was hands down the best meal I had in Henan all that year.

Alas, no such luck. Once again, I couldn't get more than a single bit down. I thus concluded that the problem with Muslim restaurant wasn’t the saurce or anything like that. The problem is simply that sea sponges just taste really awful.

My Middle Kingdom culinary adventures haven't gone beyond eating bee larva and sea sponges. However, some foreign friends and acquaintances have scaled far greater heights when it comes to eating what most of us would consider utterly disgusting fare. For example, during my first year in China, one of my fellow teachers dined on sheep's testicles (睾丸). This fellow was back in the states after just one term, and perhaps this dining experience had something to do with his quick departure from China!

Another colleague from that school, who stuck it out here for another two years, albeit first Fujian and then in Shanghai, before going to Ethiopia to teach law, was voted by her colleagues the instructor most likely to eat strange and interesting dishes. This lady, who is a delightful 50-something lawyer from South Carolina, feasted on grilled sheep eyes, fried silk worms (炸蚕), and fried apples (炸苹果) with ants (蚂蚁).

Even more bizarre culinary adventures await those who travel to Mongolia (蒙古). At least this is what I can surmise from an utterly hilarious article Tim Wu posted in the online SLATE magazine in September of last year. In particular, Mongolian diary culture is very different from that of the West. As Wu notes, there's a good reason why we stick to drinking milk from a cow (牛奶): “most other types of milk are absolutely disgusting”. They all get “under your skin in a special diary sort of way.”

This is especially true for camel's (骆驼奶) milk, which Wu states has a very “musky” flavor and is like “drinking bottled smoke”. He adds, “I finally understand why Camel is a brand of cigarettes (抽烟)”. According to Wu, while Yak (牦牛奶) milk isn't too bad when served warm, mare's milk (马奶) tends to be very salty, giving a whole meaning to the phrase “acquired taste.”

However, mare's milk is a lot more drinkable after being fermented (发酵) into alcohol (酒); moreover, imbiding it is a sure-fire way of getting drunk in a hurry (很快喝醉). I suspect it also beats drinking the local vodka (伏特加). Wu notes his Mongolian host went out of his way to flavor the vodka with a few live beetles (甲虫), as if to add a “Ghenghis Khan (成吉思汗) touch to the whole thing”.

Mongolia is a very diary-centric place—most of China's milk is produced just across the border, in adjacent Inner Mongolia Province, around the city of Hohhut (呼和浩特)—so cheese (奶酪) is a big part of the Mongolian diet. Unfortunately, Wu notes that nearly all of it is “hard as a rock and as acidic as battery acid.” It thus not only tastes bad, but eating it is “rather exhausting” to boot.

But the high point, if one can call it that, of Wu's adventure was getting served an entire sheep. In China, by contrast, while you usually get the whole chicken, you very seldom, if ever, get served the whole sheep, at least nothing beyond the eyes and testicles, along with the parts we westerners normally eat, such as the leg.

This particular sheep was boiled in a large vat warmed up by burning dung. Wu notes that while the stomach and heart were the “highlights” the lungs “had a spongy texture” that made them hard to bite through. And after eating the fatty intestines and connecting flesh, he “felt, for the first time, what 19th century writers refer to as ‘rising bile.’”

Wu provides the following memorable verdict on this experience: it was “like a horror film (恐怖电影), except that I am eating the special effects (特技)”. Yum, yum, I can now hardly wait to visit Mongolia!

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

经历 (jing1li4). This just refers to life experiences. Mandarin has a separate word for “work experience”, which is 经验 (jing1yan4). And when using this word, be sure you say “历” in a fourth, not a third tone. Otherwise, your Chinese listener think you're talking about your manager (经理; jing1li3) at work.
可耕之地 (ke3geng1zhi1di4). “可耕” means “arable”.
庄稼 (zhuang1jia1). “Harvest” is 收获 (shou1huo4).
種 (zhong4).
饥荒 (ji1huang1). “饥” means “starving”, while “荒” by itself can mean “waste”, “desert”, and “desolate”. The Mandarin word for “hungry” is “饿” (e4), while starve to death is “饿死了” (e4si3le5). This term can mean literally and figuratively “starving to death”.
烹饪法 (peng1ren4fa3). “烹” on its own can be translated as “cook”, “boil”, or “stir fry with sauce”; “饪” can also be translated as “cook”. “法” means “method” or “approach”.
植物 (zhi2wu4). This literally means “established (fixed) living thing.”
动物 (dong4wu4). And this literally means “moving living thing.”
云南 (yun2nan2). Translated word for word, it means “south of the clouds”.
密封 (mi4feng1). “Honey” is 蜂蜜 (feng1mi4). I should also note that unlike people in the west, Chinese people never refer to their adult loved ones as “honey.” They instead say “宝贝”, which means “baby” and “darling”. And husbands call their wives “老婆” (lao3po2), while wives call their husbands “老公” (lao3gong1).
幼虫 (you4chong2). “幼” means “young”, while “虫” means “insect/worm”.
二外 (er4wai4).
苍蝇 (cang1ying5).
印第安人 (yin4di4an1ren2). This word refers to “Native Amercans”, not to people from India. The latter are called “印度人” (yin4du4ren2); “India” is “印度”.
湖 (hu2). This character is quite similar to the one for the Chinese family name “胡”, as as in the country's current President, 胡锦涛 (hu2jin3tao1). The character for “lake” differs from the proper name because it has the “water/liquid” radical on its left side. That provides a clue about the meaning.
肥 (fei2). The Chinese word for “lose weight, “减肥” (jian3fei2) really means “lose fat”.
蛋白质(dan4bai2zhi4). Literally translated, this means “egg (蛋) white (白) matter (质)”.
胆固醇 (dan3gu4chun2). “胆” on its own means “gall bladder” and “gall”, as in “audicity”, “固” is “originally”, “as a matter of course”, or “solid”, while “醇” can be translated as “mellow”, as in “mellow wine”.
蘑菇 (mo2gu5).
超好吃 (chao1hao3chi1). This means “super good tasting”. Something that just “tastes good” or “delicious” is simply “好吃”. You can also say “非常好吃”, “really, really good”, “特好吃” (te4hao3chi1), “particularly/especially good”, or “好好吃”. The latter phrase can’t be directly translated; it’s just another way of saying something is really good.
很辣 (hen3la4). Since Sichuan people love spicy food, women from there are called “辣妹”, or “spicy girl/spicy little sister”.
河南 (he2nan2). This name just means “south of the river,” i.e. the Yellow River, or “黄河” (huang2he2). “河” is the Chinese word for “river”.
郑州 (zheng4zhou1). Zhengzhou is the provincial capital of Henan.
睾丸 (gao1wan2).
炸蚕 (zha4can2). “炸” is the word for “fry/fried”. The second character can also be written as “蠶”.
炸苹果 (zha4ping2guo3).
蚂蚁 (ma3yi3).
蒙古 (men3gu3).
牛奶 (niu2nai3). “牛” is “cow”, while “奶” is “milk”.
骆驼奶 (luo4tuo5nai3). “骆驼” is the word for “camel”.
抽烟 (chou1yan1). “烟” means smoke and the “火” (huo3) character within this character, which means “fire”, gives a clue about its meaning.
马奶 (ma3nai3). “马” is not only the word for horse, but is also a Chinese family name.
牦牛奶 (mao2niu2nai3). “牦牛” is the word for “yak”.
发酵 (fa1jiao4).
酒 (jiu3). “酒” is a suffix that appears in all terms for alcoholic beverages, like “beer” (啤酒; pi2jiu3), “wine” (葡萄酒; pu2tao2jiu3), or literally “grape (葡萄) alchohol”, and last but certainly not least, that infamous and to my mind (and most other laowai), disgusting clear spirit, “baijiu” (白酒), or “white alcohol”.
很快喝醉 (hen3kuai4he1zui4). “很快” means “very fast”, while “喝醉” is the word for “drunk”. “喝” on its own means “to drink”.
伏特加 (fu2te4jia1).
甲虫 (jia3chong3). “甲” means “first in a series”, while “虫” means “insect/worm”.
成吉思汗 (cheng2ji2si1han2).
呼和浩特 (hu1he2hao4te4).
奶酪 (nai3lao4).
恐怖电影 (kong3bu4dian4ying3). “恐怖” is the word for “horror”, while “电影” means “film/movie”.
特技 (te4ji4). “特” is a shortened for of the word “special” (特别; te4bie2), while “技” is the word for “skill”. It's used to form the word for “technology”, which is “技术” (ji4shu4).