Now, that’s just goddamned disgusting!
I just don’t understand the appeal of this type of dish… I mean really, my stuff works just fine, thank you, and I don’t use any funky stuff… just regular use to keep it in working order.
Now I remember a few years ago, some sick Singaporean restaurant was offering a special dish comprised of various animal penises and testicles for an amorous Valentine’s Day date meal to be shared by “loving” couples.
Give me a freaking break!
I’ve never eaten it myself, but my Chinese teacher swears that it’s still eaten on rare occasions as Chinese medicine in the countryside … it’s called 紫河車, and is basically a live 5-month old human fetus. It must be removed live from the mother and eaten immediately, otherwise it has no medicinal value (again, according to my teacher). Another one which is apparently much more common is to chop up and eat the mother’s 胎盤 after giving birth. Quite nasty …
My ex-girlfriend. 
Actually I think it was the pig’s feet served by my boss’s sister in Pingdung during my second week in Taiwan. She was a little lazy and didn’t pluck all the hairs off.
And durian.
The funniest had to be my ex-gf’s first meal in mainland China. Once you know what to expect you can be mentally prepared, but finding a pigeon’s head in your soup for the first time can be very entertaining for the people around you.
Did anyone watch any of the last Survivor series on TV? The Taiwanese American girl got some pretty disgusting looks from her team members due to her eating the feet and intestines. End result? She was booted out. Could’ve had something to do with the chicken toe nail she still had wedged between her two front teeth too 
[quote]In that case, please don’t tell me you find shit disgusting, Wolf.[/quote]-- Chainsmoker
Please don’t tell me you consider shit to be food?
(Food is what we are talking about.)
[quote=“wolf_reinhold”]
Please don’t tell me you consider shit to be food?
(Food is what we are talking about.)[/quote]
Well, I consider some food to be shit. Does that count?
I think stinky tofu tasts great. Just try it once and hope that it’s fried well, so all the pathogens get fried out. How do they make it?
In Beijing I once spent an afternoon in a medical college, looking at the dissected human bodies. At supper that evening, someone at the next table was eating a pig’s foot. The resemblance between pig’s trotter and pickled human is quite remarkable. 
No no no. I’m talking about the steamed stuff, which smells just like freshly produced human sewage. And yes I did taste it once. It is truly repulsive. How anyone can swallow it is beyond me.
I know. The barbecuedis also good but I never eat the steamed one, but I just love chicken feet.
Now, apart from the deep-frying and the barbecuing, how do you make (ferment) stinky tofu?
Within my first hours of arriving in Taiwan, I was greeted by a stray dog taking a walk around Chungho with a rooster’s head in it’s mouth. Now what’s the story there? He must’ve been half pissed to be doing that, or very hungry :shock:
This is slightly off topic, but I met a woman (Danish) in Bali who was convinced that spoiled food (or comestibles otherwise tainted) could be made edible by putting a lot of hot chillis on it. The “heat” killed the germs, she said. Strangely, she was sincere and made me wonder how common this thinking is.
Is that why chou tofu (food of the gods) comes with hot spices?
As far as I know, many spices kill germs on food to some extent. I certainly wouldn’t want to test the idea on spoiled meat or anything. I have noticed that you rarely get sick when traveling if you stick to very spicy food. I also know that garlic is an excellent cure for almost any kind of intestinal worms. Wasn’t there a study about this from Cornell?
[quote=“wolf_reinhold”]
…and since when is kaoliang a dish?[/quote]
picky picky!
I voted for the intestines and blood. For all you people who voted for chicken’s feet, please explain how eating chicken’s feet is worse than pig’s intestine. Perhaps a chicken occasionally steps in shit and maybe even walks on dirt for a lifetime, but probably not because I think chickens are harvested from metal coops. A PIG eats garbage and that garbage gets turned into poo its entire life within its intestines! A chicken lives maybe 1-3 years? A pig certainly lives 3+ years. Who grew up on a farm or happens to know please tell me. :shock:
Chicken feet people… please justify how that is grosser than poop-making intestines, but before I do… let me ADD by mentioning that there is also the blood of that garbage-eating pig in that dish… now… chicken feet people… explain!
This better be good.
I voted for intestines and blood, but in defense of the chicken-foot camp, those toenails on deep-fried feet are pretty revolting. Now the kind they serve in dim sum restauants usually have the nails removed, so I can tolerate them.
Now as for the intestines–do they actually serve the large, poop-producing intestines, or is it the small intestines that wind up in the bowl.
I like most everything here. I mean hey, I grew up on American food which is crap compared to the real cuisine of the world like that found in Taiwan, Japan, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Korea, Italy, Mexico and France. Come on, America’s mix of English/German food is crap. I love English and German culture, but most of the food cannot compare to that mentioned above.
In Taiwan, the only thing I won’t eat is “di hwei guei”. I have been known to knaw on a chicken foot, but only to show that I am not frontin’, but representin’. I can be down with this Taiwan sh*t. Most foreigners here that I hang with even like stinky tofu. I don’t have any respect for people that have lived here for years and still eat western food everyday, although the longer I live here, the more I jump at the chance to eat stuff like the Texas fried steak smothered in greasy gravy at TGIFridays, especially after eating either noodles or rice for weeks on end.
That depends on where you grew up in the US. Southern cooking, albeit often fattening, is very ‘moreish’!
There’s little German influence, and instead, beans, rice and corn are the staple ingredients that make it so yummy.
As for Taiwanese food and living here a long time, I would say the desire to eat it goes down the longer you live here due to the “grease”. I cook most of the time, and now that my dear friend has endowed a double Braun food processor on me, this hobby has become even more delightful. So, I bring my lunch (leftovers) to work almost everyday, unless I forget.
Even the Taiwanese like a break from the lunch boxes now and again because today one of our colleagues went on a Subway run for everyone in the publishing department.
Subway, YUM, with fresh raw vegetables! Much better than oily overcooked veggies with questionable bits in it.
Because I won’t let my mouth near many of the dishes on the list above, and not being a pork eater (meat or byproducts) has left me very little choice on occassion here in Taiwan. What is it with putting pork in everything???
I hate Kaoliang the most according to those items I have tasted however, and it’s even worse to kiss someone whose been drinking it. If you do drink it, be sure to drink it straight, and don’t mix it with anything, especially guava juice. I made that mistake many years ago and ended up with the worst hangover I’d ever had in my life.
That depends on where you grew up in the US. Southern cooking, albeit often fattening, is very ‘moreish’! [/quote]
OK, I can agree with that. Southern food can be called cuisine, but mac and cheese and meatloaf and gravy? A potato on a plate? Plain boiled vegetables? A hunk of meat? Too simple and not that tasty. Well, then again, I like American white trash food, but it’s not haute cuisine, like that I mentioned above and I think the food in Taiwan is much better and healthier than that found elsewhere, no? Talk about grease, Southern cooking is loaded with it. And Subway is a welcome site here in Taiwan, but when back home in the US, you can find better fresher subs and sandwiches no?