Everything but the quack...and LOTS of it ( thoughts on food in Beijing)

The day dawned quietly, without fanfare on the world stage.  The day when comparative  financial security, stable home and hearth, and most crucial, the recognition that what my mother thought did not have to control my every choice, combined.  It was a moment of insight on several levels. One revelation ( on how important a level is yet to be decided) was: I can eat whatever I want now.

To some readers this might be a true shoulder shrug event.  BUT  I grew up in the "poor children in China" clean your plate post war years;  I also struggled for over a decade with buy milk or buy bread decisions as a young single parent on a shoestring,  I deplore waste.  Food preferences weren't optional for much of my life. My parents did not have a three bite rule ( i.e. If you are still gagging after three bites, you don't have to eat it.) although to be fair, they introduced new foods carefully and in small amounts.  My mother ( who has well disguised food issues only perceived as I grew to adulthood) ruled the kitchen. Liver was not on the menu, but strangely lima beans (shiver) were.  This indoctrination extended well into my own home...never thought about it really until the great day came.

HA HAH! I don't have to eat potatoes (until recently when I find I crave mashed),  lima beans, or coriander.  I will never be a tofu eating vegetarian, although  I enjoy less and less meat. And I certainly prefer my food to arrive naked, faceless and wrapped in plastic from the shop.  Food prep, sanitation and storage are important to me ( those food biology classes at University and later as shome child care supervisor cranked up my squeamishness.)

So here I find on the streets of Beijing all that sends my food alarm bells into overdrive.  Unidentified featherless fowl bodies are suspended like clothes on a washline far above the pedestrians but close to the pollution dense streets (more flavor?) Tofu lurks for the unwary on every menu. Meat arrives from the kitchen with eyes and sometimes other bit intact.  I did eat these street vendor wonderful little fruits on a stick.  They were covered with boiling hot sugar syrup so I figure most the germs died. What a crunch sweet blast of flavor!

Some menu items are made out of , erm, guts.  Some things are labelled edible (?) fungus, the consistency of which mildly resembles boiled rubber band. I have developed radar alert for such like things.

Now, truth be told we like most Chinese food. recipes.  Sometimes the variations thereof are scary.  In Beijing they like it spicy. No, I mean they like it hot. lip searing intestine scarring hot.  My friend Laurie would die and go to heaven for the chili paste.  The food radar usually alerts for chilies ..but these cooks are sneaky.  The other morning a grilled tomato with lovely melted cheese looked for all the world like it came from London... via a good long soak in pepper sauce we found to my tongue's shriveled dismay.

We have mostly been able to navigate around pigeon soup complete with decapitated head with beak and eyes, sea cucumber in all its gelatinous ukky glory, and abalone which Himself will eat but did not pass my three bite test.But when someone else is doing the hosting and choosing we have to depend on pure good luck.

Take noodles...I give up. No chopstick skill.  And I prefer not to be the table entertainment chasing my food over the plate. of course everyman here slurps their noodles.  I am still my mother's child enough to know that having a noodle beard hanging out of my mouth over a little bowl it not happening in this lifetime.  Of course someone runs for the fork...but I know me and noodles. It is an eating event reserved for home only even with western utensils.So they know now to order clumsy here dumplings--but please not 5 kinds!!!!!!!!

The Chinese restaurant menu has possibly 200 dishes on it.  We choose maybe two and our hosts urge us to order more more more.  No no no.  Everyone shares what they order, but it is still always too much. I am glad to see that doggie bags are common here so the waste is mitigated somewhat but I see nearly full plates of food go into the bin at most meals. Makes me nuts because I know with a few hundred yards there are folks who have never seen the inside of a restaurant and would love this fresh food. The children don't look like they are starving but still...um the children in Africa are.

On the other hand, nothing of the animal is wasted.  We went to have Peking Duck at this very famous place.Everything is used. yes, even the webs.  And so as the guest of honor, Himself found himself with half a duck's head neatly cleavered in twain upon his plate. Not one to turn down odd food, he did eat.  He lived to tell of it.  Uck.

But then he was born and raised in a country where every bit of the pig is used except the squeak.
His mother would have competed with him to eat it.  My mother would have died right there at the table.
I just go quietly quakers.