Hello, Dear Friends and Family!
It’s been a bit since my last post. I hope you’ll forgive me, but I’ve been traveling quite a bit my first month here in China – I slept in a hotel a total of 24 nights of the first 30 I was here. Now don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a complaint and was actually quite fortunate because I ran into (another of) what I like to think of as “culture” moments – where you accidentally bump into some aspect of your own life and culture that is a baseline assumption about how the world works – and then you find out you’re wrong. I had several I wanted to share with you and it ties into some of what I’ve been complaining about with food. But first, let me tell you about Dale’s version of “The Princess and the Pea…” and partially encapsulate my first month in China.
When I first got here on February 12th, I stayed at a place called “The Dragon Hotel” in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, PRC (baby!), a lovely western-style hotel with king-size beds and pillows just the way I like ‘em. It took a few days to find an apartment, but eventually my man Liang found one right around the corner from my hotel and not too far from where he lives. Jackpot! Because I don’t have a car, this makes it very convenient for Liang to come get me whenever we travel together. It also means I can schlep with him to his gym every morning and get in a workout – which has been great for my ankle rehab and overall conditioning. I think I’m averaging about 5 workouts a week.
The day I got my key to move in, we were scheduled to travel to Beijing for 12 days because Liang had back-to-back seminars. Sometimes he is solely a translator, other times he is both a translator and an instructor for our seminars here in China. I only had time to drop off my luggage in my new digs, re-organize my bags into what I needed for Beijing, and then off we went. Liang had to order a washer-dryer unit for my apartment and that got installed while I was gone, so the timing of going on the road was perfect. It meant that I didn’t have to be in an apartment without certain essentials… like a coffeemaker, which I ordered while we were on the road, and the usual sundry household items you need for everyday living (silverware, anyone?)… and which I hadn’t brought with me in my luggage, for obvious reasons.
After our time in Beijing – and at the Great Wall, Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, etc. – we came back and I got a look at my apartment. Liang was there with me to inspect it and ensure everything was all set. As we were looking around the single, rather sparse-looking room, I noticed that the bed seemed to be missing something… namely, a mattress. There was a boxspring, so I walked over and sat on the large stiff-looking rectangle on the bedframe. Yup. Just as I thought – metal coils, hard wood, and stiff plastic. I made a note to Liang:
“I’ll need to order a mattress,” I pointed.
“A mattr- mattrecks?” I could see the pronunciation was kicking his ass, so I tried to sound it out slowly.
“MAT-TRESS.” Pause. “Mattress.”
“Mat-tricks.”
“Almost.”
A lot of our conversations are like this, and lest you think I’m the asshole here, you should see what it’s like when I’m trying to pronounce his language, Mandarin, on the way into the gym every morning.
“Zow-shang how?” I said brightly one morning, a proud smile on my face when I saw Liang pull up in front of my apartment. I picked this up on my own while studying the night prior, instead of my usual “Nee how ma?” (Nǐ hǎo ma? – How are you?)
“What…?” He says back at me in English. “What are you trying to say?”
Shit.
“I was trying to say ‘good morning,’ but now I’m not so sure…”
“Oh.” He flips the car in reverse, backs out crazily, then off we head to taunt Death in traffic.
“How do you say good morning?” I ask tentatively.
“早安。”
Only one syllable of that sounded vaguely like anything that came out of my mouth.
In Mandarin Chinese, you don’t raise your voice to say a question like we do in other (mostly western) languages. That rising tone is an integral part of the word in tonal languages – which is to say that the same “syllable” can mean something very, very different simply by the way the (seemingly identical) word is intoned – like “ma” with a high-pitched but constant tone, means “mother.” Like you were singing the note “fa” at the top of “do-re-me-fa, etc” HOWEVER, if you pronounce it with a neutral tone at the end of a sentence it makes the sentence a question. Nope, I’m not kidding. And there are four different tones, although not every word-sound in Mandarin uses all four tones. And as I’ve noted previously, it’s actually five tones, but they lie and say Mandarin has “four” – they don’t count the “neutral tone,” so it’s “four plus one!”… or, as I learned to call that in arithmetic, “Five”, but whenever I say that I get an argument with Mandarin speakers, so I just leave it alone. They’re supposed to be the math geniuses.
Anyway, Liang and I have become very comfortable correcting each other. It’s kind of the essence of our relationship. He wants to learn better English (his is very good, by the way) and my Mandarin is an abomination, so we’re pretty constantly (lightly) teasing each other about our languages and cultures. Yes, we joke about all manner of “lacist” stereotypes to each other all the time and giggle about it. (That’s “racist” pronounced with a bad Chinese accent, because the “r” in Chinese is more closely pronounced like an “l” sound, Mom, in case you missed that joke.)
Which reminds me of this great moment when we were getting off the train at the big train station nearby and I yawned – and he said something that I guess is a Chinese phrase about yawning – a rough translation is that “you’re singing an opera.” Except that while explaining the translated Chinese phrase, he pronounced the short “o” in “opera” as a long “o” like in “soap”, so what I heard was Liang say that I was “Singing like Oprah.” And since we hadn’t been talking about music at all, in fact, we had just disembarked from a train, I had no context and in my head I was thinking, “what in the holy hell does Oprah have to do with anything that is going on around me??” I wish I could have recorded the two of us working that mess out; it was worthy of the best of Abbott and Costello without intention.
So, there we are in my apartment staring at my box spring. I’m telling Liang I need a “mattress” and I see this look on his face as he’s staring at the bed…
“What is wrong with, um, a… bocks-spring?” It’s instantly clear to me that he thinks I’m nuts. “This is what I sleep on.”
“This!?” I kinda laugh. “No, this is a box spring, Liang. I need a mattress…” Still puzzlement. And then I realize, he’s not joking. He really sleeps on this thing.
“You sleep on this?!”
“That is what I am saying!”
Eventually, I managed to learn that among all of the great crimes of Mao Tse Tung – the 5-year plans, the theft of property, the starvation, struggle sessions, re-education camps, etc. – one of his less-well-known Crimes Against Humanity, sadly underreported, in my opinion, was selling the Chinese some bullshit that they needed to be a “hard” people, and thus to sleep on these… slabs for beds. I only had to spend six days of backbreaking misery on it before we were back on the road and I got to snuggle down into my western-style “mattricks” at the Sheraton.
In the meantime, I managed to get Liang to order something approaching comfortable, although even now I believe the mats I use for jiu jitsu and judo would be safer to be thrown on than my bed. It’s too hard to break-fall on… it would hurt. Seriously.
Now, lest this seem like complaining, let me make it clear: I love it here. In fact, I love these moments when I find out that (a) the world doesn’t have to be the way we’ve grown accustomed to, and (b) the Chinese are (generally) still living a relatively “harder” existence compared to us and it gives them a certain… durability. Like we used to be in the States just a few generations ago.
Now, please let me diverge (seemingly) for a moment to make an observation about economics. We tend to think of individual country economies as somehow being “uniform” for its people. We even assume it as a matter of our political and moral discourse; you hear people talking now about “equality” and nonsense like the federal minimum wage, as if the economic conditions that pervade in segments of the country like rural Montana or Idaho can just be magically normalized to some standard conceived in the stupidity of DC or NYC. Well, when you’ve got 1.4 billion like the Chinese do, they kinda understand that not everyone is going to be living the same standard of living – and it pervades every aspect of life, including….. FOOD!
Which brings me to cultural observation number 2. I’ve made a lot of jokes with people about the “menu” here and how it conflicts with my own personal palate, but truth be told, it’s largely because I – and many of us – have been spoiled by generations of bounty. In the U.S., there is virtually nowhere that is more than a 30 minute drive from some kind of grocery store, Walmart, or other place where processed food can be purchased. And now with Amazon and the like, there are conveniences like food delivery services. One can afford to have a rather discriminating palate under such circumstances.
China, on the other hand, is vast – it has the Gobi Desert and the Himalayas, as well as a huge swath of coastline, giant rivers, massive forests, and multiple mountain ranges… And it’s also got almost 1/5 of the world’s population, which is a LOT of mouths to feed. In fact the Chinese compound character for “population” is made up of the two characters for “people” and “mouths.” That is not a coincidence. Feeding its population is a non-trivial matter in China.
Thus, when you have those kinds of concerns, what’s “on the menu” may well open to a lot more things than we find particularly “yummy,” but when you get up against survival, you find that the human palate “adjusts” to the circumstances. For example, when I was in Beijing, we had frog one night alongside our Beijing duck (older folks know it by the old mispronunciation for ‘Beijing’ – i.e. ‘Peking’ duck). I’m not a big fan of eating reptiles, yet one of the “joys” of being in the military is the opportunity to be occasionally starved where you will learn how to catch lizards, and eat them, to survive. I’ve had snake – and I know some of you on this are old enough and from remote enough areas to appreciate these things. Pigeon is also on the menu in Beijing. One night, much to his chagrin – and after a lot of uncomfortable needling by one of our other L1 Staff who is a country boy and heard Chinese people eat dog, so he wouldn’t leave it alone – my boy Liang sheepishly admitted that yes, he had in fact eaten dog. You could tell he was sensitive to what it meant culturally to Americans.
It’s considered a delicacy in the north of China and rarely eaten, but it still happens. They’re “trending” away from it culturally, but my suspicion is that’s a fact of their economy reaching a point where wild dog no longer HAS to be on the menu. I have attached a picture to this email of the tank of turtles in my local Super WalMart. As I told my girls when I sent the picture: “No kids, it’s not the pet store, nor the aquarium… I’m right near the Produce section!”
How…delightful.
If this sounds horrible and even immoral, consider that you can find a lot of things that can be both pets and dinner even in the US, still: like rabbits. When you’re in survival training, they teach you how to trap, kill, skin, and dress out ol’ Thumper and his brothers. Many of you on here have probably shot squirrel or other (cute) furry rodents, but if you really think about it, you would notice that squirrels as a species tend to be rather plentiful in city parks, residential neighborhoods, and college campuses – because we don’t hunt them. You get out into the wild and I have some news for you, they’re not nearly as plentiful because they are “on the menu” for a lot of other critters in the food chain (especially hawks and other birds of prey) and in a pinch, yep, they’ll hold you over until you can get to more “civilized parts.”
So, as much as I’ve been poking fun at how the Chinese need to stop serving me all of my meals with the heads still attached because I don’t want to stare into the lifeless eyes of my meals – including shrimp/prawns – I am offering a defense of their culinary habits. The way China eats isn’t simply a cultural oddity. In some places, sure, it preserves a tradition, but it still has a very physical reality to it. The more wealthy folks in southern provinces and along the coast look down (a little bit) on their more northern-situated and interior countrymen who continue to eat in these ways – because in the southeast they can get fresh seafood at any moment. For other parts of the country, however, there are still 700 million people living in “rural areas” – outside of the big cities – and what’s “on the menu” is a very different reality from life in metropolitan areas. If you really think about it, we still have places like that in the States, in the bayous or Appalachia – where they have a rather different palate because the human animal can adapt to a wide variety of circumstances. That includes eating lizards and the like if that’s what’s readily available.
I’ll close this with two final stories regarding some other culture “moments.” I have been trying to learn how to write Mandarin and for all who know me, the only academic endeavor I have ever straight-up failed was second grade penmanship. Learning Mandarin is like learning calligraphy, so I was discussing this with Liang and his own experiences. (Mom, you’ll appreciate this.) I was pointing out that my mother has lovely handwriting, which is quite an accomplishment, because “my mother was actually born left-handed, but way back when in my country…” I sheepishly went on, “the nuns would crack your hands with the ruler for trying to write left-handed, so my mom actually had to learn to write with her right-hand.” I was about to make some joke about the nuns when I was brought up short by the look on Liang’s face:
“That is here.” Whoops.
“Wait, no one can write left-handed??” He shook his head from side to side.
“They tell you it is so that you do not cover over the characters as you try to write from left to write.” Now, I’m in my infancy of learning Mandarin, but one thing I do know is that it can be read or written in either direction. I pointed that out and Liang laughed.
“Oh, of course it is booshit, but that’s what they tell you in school. And they give you a—.” Then he made a little chopping motion with his hand, as if he were rapping a kid’s knuckles with a ruler.
“Do you know anyone at all who writes Mandarin left-handed?!” I asked incredulously. He looked down and thought for a second.
“No. I do know a few people who do some other things with their left hand, like… badmitton, or table tennis, or maybe basketball… but not write.”
“Culture” moment the last – and my final food story. And it helps explain the subject line of this whole email.
The first night we landed in Xiamen, our local host wanted to take us out to a special dinner that would showcase the great food of Xiamen, which is a beautiful city on the southeast coast and home to one of the more prestigious univeristies in China. As it turned out, there was a place not far from our hotel that was, “Exceptional! And you will not know this if you’re not from around here!” beamed Ming, our local friend. I could tell he was excited to take us as we zigzagged down a couple of alleys. At some point I realized that this was a place that was unlikely to have seen many round-eyed lao wai, so I wanted to make a good impression.
It’s at this point that I would like to refer you to a Jerry Seinfeld award acceptance speech in which he skewers his own industry, including actors. Link is here and worth the five minute watch for a laugh (I consider it the Greatest Award Acceptance Speech Ever). Everyone who knows me, however, knows I “inherited” my mother’s love of movies. I’ve always thought Meryl Streep among the best actors of mine or any generation, but after watching Seinfeld’s video – and my dining experience – I kinda have to agree with Jerry Seinfeld: actors get any number of “takes,” time to “get into the role,” as well as makeup, and pre-written lines – I’m no longer impressed. Let me ‘splain…
As I walked up to the restaurant that night in Xiamen, I was starting to get a little nervous about what might be on the menu and I was doing my level best to ensure I had a poker face on now matter what was served. We stepped into the doors of the family restaurant and – as the honored guest – I was ushered in first. I started to look for a table in the large room and noticed immediately to my left what could only be described as a bank of aquariums on the wall, as well as water running through a bunch of tables at waist level. In all of these tanks and basins were a variety of sea life – none of which looked in the least appetizing. As I stood there, I felt an arm on my shoulder and our host announced:
“The menu! Only the best! Whatever you want!!”
There was a man in a little chef’s outfit behind the trays of water with a stick pushing around these various sea creatures; the hostess and wait staff were there and I could feel that the entire restaurant had its eyes on me. There would be no “second takes,” no makeup, and no “getting into role.” With every ounce of sincerity I could muster, I plastered the biggest smile on my face and beamed, perhaps too loudly: “It all looks so good! Any recommendations?”
I could tell by his response and expression that wasn’t going to get it.
“Whatever you like.” And he gestured expansively at the various swimming and crawling and slithering things. I was in full-panic mode looking for anything that resembled something I had previously eaten in my life. Mind you, I grew up in New England and I like seafood, but these things looked like the slimiest, most bottom-feeding fish and creepy-crawly things I had ever seen. And just what the hell are those things? I thought as I looked around and saw some crawfish looking things crawling around in a tank. There were some water snakes too – eel, which I’ve run across scuba diving and never once did I think, “Mmmmmmm…YUMMMMM!!!! Sure wish I had some time to stop and grab a couple of those to eat!!!”
Not too dissimilar to dinner that night
I was in full bullshit mode, so I started pointing like I owned the place. “Definitely some of those!” I said, gesturing at a pretty good analogue for clams. Next to them looked like a kind of scallop, so I pointed at those, too. Seemed safe – I mean, how different could the taste from the similar-looking shellfish I occasionally ate back home….right?? Was there nothing floating that looked like it would be a flaky, white fish?!? A-HA!!! I spotted a lobster and turned to my friends: “We gotta have some of those, right?!” I bellowed. Everyone nodded in agreement.
By now, I had apparently shown enough gusto and everyone joined in, discussing my picks and other choices to compliment the meal. I made sure some local beers made their way to the table…LOTS of beers, because I was definitely going to need a few of them to consume some of these things.
In the end, I did it. I completely faked my way through dinner, pulling the heads off of my prawns like everyone else did and ignoring the eyes staring up at me from my fish…. And yet there will be no Oscar in the category for “Best Performance when Your Personal and National Honor is on the Line and Your Food Selection Looks like an Episode of ‘Fear Factor’.”
But as far as I’m concerned, Meryl Streep doesn’t have squat on me.
Until next time…
(And I promise, that’s my last Chinese food story.)
Upon my return: Ahhh… mattricks!
Are you going to keep to that?
Ozi, in food, it’s Squab.
In America, it’s a pigeon.
Or, Birds of Pestilence.
Bah.
The whole reason pigeons were imported to this continent is that they’re delicious.
They are still massive disease vectors and create nests of filth in human habitats.
My first time dove hunting we ended up on a lease infested by pigeons. Probably would’ve been good enough eating given their diet, but we passed on the opportunity. Im sure the local barn kitties enjoyed the meal.
Cross my heart.
I like your Chinese food stories.
So fucking gross.
I’ll stick to Italy, thanks!
Bad link on the Seinfeld clip. Here’s the speech and yes, it’s amazing.
Thanks for these, Ozy!
I had somehow never seen that Seinfeld speech before. It is truly one of the greatest speeches I’ve ever seen.
That was a great clip
Thanks for the backup, Tundra!
“How do you say good morning?” I ask tentatively.
“早安。”
Quick and cheap. Who knew.
My mandarin teacher called it caveman grammar. Once mastering the tones and characters, it’s a relatively simple language. It’s just those huge initial humps.
And for cheap we have a woman under a roof.
Anybody who says you can learn the characters by what they represented centuries ago is nuts I think.
But I like Chinese food stories.
Thank you Ozy, that’s quite an experience.
*Salutes*
That was really fun and funny, great stories Ozy!
Thanks, Yusef!
Enjoyed your story last night. Good read.
Reminded a little bit of one of my all time faves by Roger Zelazny, “Doors of His Face, Lamps of his Mouth.”
Thank you Sir.
International travel holds no allure for me. I do enjoy reading about other people’s travels.
I’m kinda with you.
And the ‘Vid madness has put any tentative plans we might have had to visit Europe on pretty much permanent hold. My international travel at this point may never leave North America.
“And the ‘Vid madness”
May I just say: fuck all the Australian governments for their extreme idiocy in this regard.
Yeah. The girlfriend keeps looking and telling me when every country “opens up”. I have to keep reminding her that’s only for those with either negative tests or vaccination cards to get in. And it doesn’t mean that they’ll still be open six months later.
We’ve still got a tentative trip scheduled for a couple years out, and are saving for it, but I don’t have high hopes that it’ll happen.
I’m still bitter that the tyrants cheated me out of a Prague trip last year.
I’ve enjoyed my time traipsing around Korea, Okinawa and Japan.
It was especially great when you are one of the first Americans the native kids meet. You can make them cry with out big noses and round eyes.
The guys I never understood were the one who would be stationed somewhere like Okinawa and spend all their time on base. The ones who never tried any local food or learn a bit of pillow Japanese from their girlfriends.
妈妈骑马。马慢， 妈妈骂马
(Māmā qí mǎ. Mǎ màn, māmā mà mǎ)
That’s awesome, Gustave!
RE: protonmail from last thread, old.protonmail.com should get you in if the new interface is messing up.
In the end, I did it. I completely faked my way through dinner, pulling the heads off of my prawns like everyone else did and ignoring the eyes staring up at me from my fish – I don’t get it. is this unusual? prawns and fish?
Anyhoo I don’t like china;s government but would probably enjoy a jaunt in the country
Sleeping on a hard surface is good for you
His mind replaced the actual critters with memories of more edible seafood.
Tell that to my ruptured L5-S1 and herniated L4-L5 (on the other side).
I’m only going to say this once: those of us who crashed helicopters and slept on the ground under fire for a living don’t care about “building character” by sleeping on a rock. My body gave at the office. As Patrick Henry famously said, “Give me tempurepedic, or give me death!”
In romania it is not about building character it is said it is good for the back if yu sit on a chair all day. Orthopedic mattresses they are cold and are very hard. I mean not as hard as wooden boards but much harder than other mattresses
???
I did enough sleeping on the ground in my younger years.
If I have to do it again, it better be because somebody needs killing because I’m sure going to feel like doing that the next day.
My sciatic nerve says you’re full of shit.
I should have added allegedly.
But also Varys in the song of ice and fire books slept on a hard bed because he said he had a bad back
It depends entirely on the issue with the back.
More bullshit. The heavier you are the more you crush your tissues between your bones and the bed. GRRM of all people would know that.
My bad back does much better with hard mattresses.
I figured it out after a trip to Korea. There you unroll a thin cushion each night to sleep on. My back felt great after our visit.
When I got back, my back started hurting again after sleeping on our super soft mattress. Once I realized what was going on, we bought a super firm mattress and things have been good.
Just a box spring would be tough though.
This. I have blown out my lumbars, left side L3-4, L4-5. They even spent six hours pulling bone shards out of my spinal cord, and I will take the firm to hard matress any day of the week. Those matresses that you sink into? God, those are painful.
Point is soft beds are gay
…and my shit is all fucked up.
Great stuff! (The writing, I mean)
I’m willing to bet the food was pretty good, too. If you were acclimated to it. The seafood sure looks pretty damn fresh in the pics.
If by “fresh” you mean “still alive” then yes. Yes, it was “fresh.”
Is that not a thing in America? In some countries in europe there are restaurant where they have aquariums with live fish and lobster and you can choose what you want
At most, Lobster. Most others, nope.
Probably a eastern European thing… Probably not in France or Germany
No, that’s not really a thing in America, Pie. At least not typically. I’m sure you can find some of that – and I grew up near the coast, so we would buy fresh fish and other things right off the docks – or go dig up clams ourselves.
But the aquarium setup is not usual in a US restaurant. I’m guessing because of all of the OSHA and other government health regulations.
In greece and turkey they are common. In Romania less so but exist. We also have aquariums in supermarkets to buy fresh fish.
I’ve seen plenty of lobster tanks in NY and NJ.
I’ve been in a couple of very high end grocery stores that had fish tanks with live fish – I think it was trout. Never seen live fish in a restaurant, though.
There was a restaurant in OKC that had live fish for you to select.
Of course, I had no frigging idea which fish were good to eat or not.
You want the Pufferfish, particularly the liver.
/damn lies
Exactly! I’ve had fugu on a plane and I’m still here.
I was extremely let down when we ate fugu in Japan.
We went while I was working there and I had an expense account I could abuse, so I treated the extended family.
Didn’t think the fish was all that extra tasty and then I found out that if you did get a bad piece, you wouldn’t keel over right then and there. Takes a while to get you (or so I was told).
What a gyp!
I’d love to be able to pick out my own live swordfish in a restaurant
make a few duel for the honor
Given how many servings are in a fish that size…
Quite the Epeecurian are you?
I think I’ll need a doggie bag.
*fiercely narrows gaze at Jimbo*
I’ll have them wrap the leftovers in foil.
I think Swiss is trying to say that you will Epee for that!
Don’t get any fresher than that.
I prefer my food to be actually dead when I eat it, I have to admit. I’ve dipped my toe into pretty authentic (I think) Chinese food a couple of times. It had its challenges. And even that wasn’t anything all that unusual – no reptiles, etc., just chicken, pork, beef and fish that was prepared in different ways. I can say I’ve tried chicken feet three ways, and would not care to have chicken feet again, ever.
I’ve had all the chicken feet I will ever need.
Also, don’t eat the sea cucumber. Ever.
I’ve probably eaten more weird shit in sushi bars than any other kind of restaurant. Sea urchin – pass. Don’t recall sea cucumber, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I’d tried it. Sake on the side can lead to high-jinks and, err, memory issues.
I actually like uni. There was a restaurant here that stirred it into their risotto. Then they topped it with sliced steak. Yum.
I could see using it as a flavoring ingredient. Straight up, though? Yeesh.
Uni aka Japanese peanut butter aka baby shit
But good
chicken feet were sometimes the only thing you found at the store in the good old 1980s Romania. There was a weird superstition that students should not eat them during exams period because it would impend learning.
“I’ve had all the chicken feet I will ever need.”
Send the extra to Mrs F. Only place locally to find them is Walmart if the local VN have not shopped earlier. She will clean out 3-4 packs if available. They take her back to her village in the Delta.
I had the sea cucumber (the group I was with was trying to see how bad they could fuck with our delicate American palates) and I liked it. I honestly don’t know what other people don’t like about it.
I had sea cucumber once. That’s enough for me. It wasn’t bad, but I see no reason to have it again.
My food adventurism is disappearing. I usually just have a steak.
LOL
At Morimoto in Philadelphia, I had sashimi of living scallops.
It was absolutely delicious. Not entirely uncooked — they drizzled some boiling chili oil over it so there were little stripes of cooked meat.
Oh, you speak Japanese, so you love sushi, right?
Ahh, no. That said there is plenty more to eat.
Asia seems to have quite broad eating habits. All my Asian friends enjoy many more foods than I do.
That said two of my good Japanese friends don’t like sushi, while my two close Chinese coworkers love it.
Asia seems to have quite broad eating habits.
Yes.
In Korea during eel season every restaurant has 5 gallon buckets of live eels out front (or holding the door open). The eels all try to jump out of the bucket so it looks creepy as hell.
My wife who is phobic about any creature without legs can eat her weight in eels which surprised me.
I’ll admit that they did taste good, but the jumping eels were NOT what I would prefer to see while dining.
She was teaching them a lesson for scaring her.
The prawn heads don’t bother me as much as fish heads. Especially at home where I can preprocess the prawns and remove the head before cooking.
Shrimp and fish with the head on doesn’t bother me at all. Whole fish isn’t that unusual in American restaurants. We used to cook whole trout when we were backpacking – zero qualms. The goal/game was to get them in the pan while they were still twitching after being cleaned.
here the heads are used to make fish soup. But they are often on roast fish as well. Just as often as fillet you get whole fish
I’d rather have someone else devein the bastards for me.
It’s not the heads per se… it’s the eyes, and that they come out alive, and they do their damndest to get out of the steam pot on the table, and then they “pop” off of the glass as they are being steamed/burned alive, and my host is completely ignoring them and trying to engage me in conversation while I’m watching the Great Prawn Holocaust of ’17 happen right before my eyes.
That’s the whole “prefer my food to be dead”* thing. I’d have a hard time with that.
*To clarify, when it arrives at the table.
I definitely appreciate that the local Asian grocery is required to kill all (non-shellfish) seafood when it’s sold.
The cooking alive thing seems different from the the other cultural differences. The connection of other differences to widespread grinding poverty is obvious. I’m not seeing that connection for cooking animals alive. Even nomadic cultures killed their prey before cooking.
ISTR that in parts of China, they sleep on clay beds?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kang_bed-stove
Been there, done that.
(That’s in a later edition).
Can someone explain the purpose of box springs to me? I’ve only ever had platform beds or mattresses on bunky boards except for the occasional hotel or short-term relationship and they have always been the second worst sleep I ever got (air mattress being worst).
Funny you ask. I just read this article about box springs.
Bottom line: they are mostly an anachronism.
I’d never seen them before I came to the US.
I have a captain’s bed. So does XY. The only box springs we have is XX’s because she has an antique frame that requires it. I have slept on a mattress on the floor before, both with and without a box spring and I appreciated the box springs, but that was decades ago so maybe mattress tech has changed since then. Mr. Mojeaux won a $1400 Saatva mattress that is just heavenly.
I’ve used a sheet of plywood in place of a box spring on certain beds in the past. It firmed up the mattress a bit, but was perfectly comfortable.
I inherited a GI Bunk in VN, apparently the previous owner was the fattest GI in the 9th Division. Anyway, the side and end springs were stretched waaaaaaaayyyyy out. I sat down it and was almost on the floor. We had a VN master sergeant as a gopher and I asked him to get me a sheet of plywood. He scavenged me a sheet of 5/8th or 3/4th thickness and cut it to fit my bunk, the sad flattened mattress was of no account but after a few days it was great after a hard day at the office. That’s kind of my preference these days.
I recently acquired a pair of 6″ cast iron skillets (made in Tennessee, factory seasoned) which are just about the right size to cook a single burger patty, a single egg, or a single rasher of bacon, so I mentally started calling them single-serve pans. I tried them out to make lunch today.
These things run hot relative to the non-stick pans I’ve been using*, and I kept forgetting that the handle was not insulated. This rendered me unhappy, as the butter was not the only thing sizzling. (I exagerate, I withdrew my hand before getting a burn). It got a harder sear relative to the amount of interior cooking achieved. Lesson learned, use lower flame on the single serve pans. And never forget to re-butter before putting in the next item.
*for the same level of flame on the burner
You can buy silicone handle covers. I have some (slide on when using). Definitely saved me from some burns
I’ll have to look for some. I know my habit is to hold the pan steady when I’m going in with a spatula to turn something.
Thankfully, I had potholders nearby.
Handle covers or place a handtowel over the handle as a reminder. Even if it still needs a potholder because it’s too thin, the visual reminder is helpful.
(Thank you Chef Jean Pierre for that one)
Protip – do not use them to pound cutlets, even though the seem like they’d be perfect for the job.
What did you get when you tried?
A crack in the pan.
Mrs. Dean occasionally uses a cast iron frying pan to pound chicken breasts (she also has a sort of hammer thing that is purpose made for this) and has never had any problems.
I’ve managed to break three cast iron pans over the course of my cooking lifetime. Two of the wee ones, and one 10″.
Mrs. Dean generally uses something very similar to this.
I didn’t pay nearly that much for it; we have a different one, but I can’t recall the brand.
That size is perfect for cooking a piece of salmon in the oven (oil the bottom first). Also, searing a piece of meat and finishing in the oven.
It’ll also depend on the weight of the pan. Heavier the pan, the longer it takes to preheat, and the longer it’ll stay hot when dropping food in. I usually pre-heat them over high heat, then turn the heat down much lower for the actual cooking.
Sorry to be OT, but I just learned a cool bit of trivia. The term “robber baron” to describe 19th century industrialists started with Cornelius Vanderbilt. Political cronies had been given exclusive routes for shipping. In addition to gouging customers, the cronies managed to get a subsidy from the state legislature. Vanderbilt built parallel routes and still undercut them, even with their subsidies. They decided it was cheaper to pay him to go away than to compete with him. He, in turn, was branded a “robber baron” by the press. Yeah, the guy actually providing an affordable service with no subsidy is the bad guy. Not saying he should have taken the money not to compete. Of course, the public damn guys like Rockefeller for just that.
There were earlier uses of the phrase for literal barons who used their fortified positions to extort additional tolls and tariffs on shipping where they had no legal right to do so.
What about vanderbilt’s operations allowed him to run so inexpensively?
Mostly, it seemed like he did it the old fashioned way. Volume. Combined with the fact that he actually knew the business and his competitors were mostly guys with political connections.
Interesting guy, Vanderbilt. I read a biography of him once, and do remember the part about him being pissed off about the other guys getting the contracts because they had government connections.
One of many things I remember is that the author did not convert the money to the modern equivalent. He said it was really impossible because Vanderbilt had around 3 of every 5 dollars in circulation! (can’t remember exactly but it was a monstrous percentage of the dollars in circulation)
Great stories Ozy!
Food is a big deal when we go back to visit family in Korea. My in-laws all came from the generation that starved during and after the war, so making sure your guests are full is a huge deal. At first my MIL was terrified that I’d starve because of all their weird food. She’d watch what I ate like a hawk. Whatever I ate the most of during one meal would reappear as the main course the next meal. My wife would then tell me that I had to finish it all because my MIL made it special for me. So I became very careful about what I was eating.
Once we got to know each other more, that sort of stuff relaxed quite a bit because my MIL learned I was no picky eater. I was always a hit with the in-laws because like a dog, I was willing to try eating anything. (I figured that – again like a dog – I could throw up anything too bad). Any time there is a party one of the big hits among the Korean relatives is to see what they can get me to try. It is about 50/50 on whether it is good or not. The #1 incident was when my SIL assured me that a suspiciously hot looking pepper really wasn’t hot so I took a big bite and immediately dropped to the ground in the fetal position while my head melted. Boy did they think that was funny! Turns out the SIL and I had gotten our wires crossed and she thought she had told me that it was super hot.
The other family legend was when I ate beondegi (aka silk work larva). Turns out that I ended up being allergic to them. Since I have never had any other food allergies, it took a while to figure out what was going on.
On a trip with my BIL we stopped at a roadside stand to eat seafood and he kept trying to tell me that sea urchin was great. It looks like orange snot, but doesn’t taste as good as that.
I should also point out that the oldest Altar Boy’s first Korean words were “baegopaio” (sic?) which meant “I’m hungry” which made him the favorite grandkid of all time.
It looks like orange snot, but doesn’t taste as good as that.
Can confirm. Very strong flavor and weird texture, is what I recall.
Alcohol makes everything good. I’ve always been much more adventurous after a few drinks stimulates the appetite.
It’s awesome when a native orders food at an ethnic restaurant. I’ve had dishes that I enjoyed that I know neither the name or main ingredient.
Sometimes not knowing is a blessing.
One of the things about eating in Korea is that they haven’t gotten to the same amount of processing of food that we have. You can still tell what part of the critter they food you are looking at has come from.
No artificial casings for sausages. You get the real intestine casings. Etc.
Thank you, Your Holiness.
My tolerance for otherwise inedible food reached new heights after 16 months in Afghanistan.
A friend of mine once quipped during a meal with some local tribal chieftains: “What did they butcher and process this meat with… a fucking rock?”
What happened? Weren’t you swinging with the Wing? How did you miss out on hot chow?
I was a ground guy in Afghanistan.
Nose-to-tail, FTW!
Alcohol makes everything good.
*pushes bottle of baijiu over to Sensei to finish*
Was that the Buffalo Trace baijiu?
My first trip to Korea had me being dropped off in Seoul near times square. It was 24 hours door to door. I hadn’t eaten in 18 hours when I arrived and I was looking for somewhere to eat quickly. All of the restaurants had a line going out the door and it was raining really hard, no umbrella yet.
I left the main drag and started walking down the alleys trying to find something quick. I found a sidewalk serving giant bowls of mussels and what I’m guessing were abalone in a soup bowl. There were bunches of drunk Koreans drinking cheap Korean beer and something from a plastic bottle.
The shell fish in a bowl was great, the beer was crap, and the large plastic bottle I bought was Soju.
It was a great experience as the lady making the food kept refilling my bowl. The Korean business men kept drinking next to me and we started talking. I had a great time, but I think that shell fish at a random sidewalk booth was a bit stupid.
So as not to impose on the new thread: the last time I went camping I slept on the ground and didn’t mind it one bit. I am a stomach and side sleeper, so I DID have a pillow, which made the difference.
I had a Chinese friend offer to take me to an “authentic” Chinese restaurant in NYC’s Chinatown for dinner. He had never been to NYC city before so we walked the blocks of Chinatown where he would duck inside to check out the restaurant. He would come out shaking his head – not authentic. We kept walking until he finally found a place that suited him. Upon entering it looked like a aquarium shop – 3 of the interior walls were lined floor to ceiling with tanks that contained live critters. After we were seated my host ordered in Mandarin. I asked what we were having – he just smiled and said “you’ll see”. I watched the waiter grab a net and fish something out of two of the tanks – lots of splashing. Later the waiter emerged with a platter with a large steamed fish (head on) and another platter that had a stir fried lobster – cut up into pieces and reassembled. I don’t recall what side dishes we had but I did not recognize anything but the rice. For desert we had cold red bean soup which I had never had before – it was sweet and very good. That was a dining experience I will never forgot. Walking the streets in Chinatown was an experience – I saw all sorts of critters including tubs of live turtles for sale.
Growing up, we caught at least 1 or 2 snapping turtles each summer and ate them. Mostly we made stew out of the meat. If you didn’t know better you’d think you were eating beef stew.
The first years we started eating them were great because Dad and a few of his buddies would show up with a snapper they had caught and begin the process of chopping the snapper’s head off. For a kid living out on a farm with only 3 channels of TV, this was high entertainment!
One of them would try to get the snapper to extend its neck out of its shell by throwing a muskie lure (or other suitable thing) at it. The idea was that when it struck, the guy with the lure would hold on while another guy would chop the head off with an axe. Sounds like a good idea on paper, but since they’d all had a few beers it was always an option that one of the “hunters” would be injured seriously enough that the turtle could escape. My vocabulary grew a lot watching this.
The downfall was when someone told my father that since turtles are cold blooded all it took to safely and easily cut their head off is to throw them in a freezer for a couple hours. The turtle would start hibernating and shut down. Then all you had to do is pull the turtle out, grab its head with a pliers to pull it out and then cut it off. No fun at all!
Not too long ago I went to a Cajun restaurant that had turtle soup made out of local nuisance snapping turtles. I didn’t order it, but I have no problem eating snapping turtles. They are assholes.
Yes they are.
About the only thing good they do is eat goslings. Other than that, I can’t think of one redeeming quality.
Then you’ll appreciate this story: Many years ago I was on a BWCA trip with a bunch of dudes. One of them was a curmudgeonly former Marine, George, who carried a revolver in his pocket at all times. We were all out fishing in the canoes and he paddled around a point and was out of sight. All of a sudden we heard multiple gunshots, so we hauled ass around the point to see what was going on. Sure enough, he had hooked a monster snapper and had emptied his revolver into it. The other guy in the canoe was laughing his ass off.
George: “I hate those fucking things.”
I caught a giant one when I was about 6 in an apartment complex stocked pond. We had no adults around and no idea what to do, so we just cut the line and pushed it back in with a stick.
Probably the smart play.
Are you sure you guys aren’t 1/2 Latvian? Sounds like we had the same parents, including the beer drinking.
I only had to catch them, my folks took charge after that. They also wouldn’t share the beer with Kid 3/4 Score.
These were all box turtles, definitely not snapping turtles I’ve had turtle soup before – made from snapping turtle. It was good.
There’s a dim sum joint on Mott St. where I had wood fungus for the first time. It surprised me by being not awful; flavorless and a mouthfeel like cartilage, but not distasteful.
(Hey L0, where in Sideways should one look out for your dad’s painting?)
I seem to recall it being behind a bar but I’ve only seen it once. I’ll ask him if he knows.
That narrows it down. 😉
Anyway, thanks. I am rather fond of that movie.
Excellent story!
“What is wrong with, um, a… bocks-spring?” It’s instantly clear to me that he thinks I’m nuts. “This is what I sleep on.”
For reasons not entirely clear to us, my grandparents slept on a box spring without a mattress for the last few years they were in their own house. When they went to the retirement home, my aunts and uncles obtained a proper mattress and new box spring for them.
And speaking of mouths to feed, reposted from last night, RIP to this guy who ideas last month
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuan_Longping
Ozy, you are the one man who can make food interesting.
But, I would rather sleep on a futon, even at our age.
Man, it’s like a high-pressure firehose of information coming out about the origins of the Wuhan Flu:
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2021/06/08/pangolins-and-bats-oh-my/
The activity surrounding this question is just mind-boggling. Check back tomorrow — there’s bound to be yet more smoking guns on display.
Oh, and one Canadian province (Manitoba) is apparently getting ready to make “secure” vaccine cards which will be your ticket to seeing people and going places. This is just nuts, not to mention borderline unconstitutional (I know, I know . . . ).
The state of science journalism is a fucking disaster. Hell, the state of scientific inquiry is a fucking disaster. Everything has been totally politicized and we’re well into Lysenkoism.
If I had my way, I would run every editor who suppressed or altered scientific articles out of town on a rail and tar and feather them. And the ones who panned HCQ because “Trump” ought to be buried up to their necks in a field of buffalos.
Don’t forget the ones who put together the designed-to-fail HCQ trials, and undoubtedly other designed-to-fail trials that tanked cheap treatments.
Absolutely. As far as I am concerned they are culpable in the deaths of thousands at a minimum.
The Ivermectin information is stunning. These motherfuckers badmouthed something that costs literally nothing, is safe and appears to work like a charm, instead pushing $3K a dose Remdesivir and experimental vaccines.
I do hope there is a hell, because these fuckers deserve it.
Take your Pepcid and Robitussin while you’re at it, too.
And the pols and their lackeys that parroted the same BS and those that believed it (and still will not give up their masks).
It’s stupid all the way down.
“Get a rope”
Enjoyable as always Ozy!
Looks like your going to moved in soon. August 21, there is going to be a 10’s tournament in Springfield. Feel free to come down, and let me know if ya want to get a run in. We have an old boys side that always enters the tournament and I’m sure we can use all the subs we can get.
I
Oh, man. Talk about forcing me to get my ass back in shape!
Okay. I like it. Nothing like a goal to provide fuel for the fire.
Thanks, Lazer. Time to add some daily jogs and then back to the old sprinting days. (But I’ll probably hook, so I can always use the piggy excuses!)
? Sounds like a plan!
Damn, I’m too soft for China.
Gotta have a mattricks.
Mattricks for the win, HX.
And to defend myself about the soft mattricks jokes, I don’t like squishy mattresses either. But what I had for the first few days was a goddamn board. I would wake up in agony, barely able to get out of bed and then it would take hours for my back to loosen up.
Even the mattricks I got needed a topper to make it passable.
Mao can eat shit.
In other “news” Kamala has no sense of self awareness.
https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/kamala-harris-cookies?utm_source=lwc-newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=LWC-Newsletter+2021-06-08&fbclid=IwAR07q4mdAiYaartgN4VkKhi5wybAMgdEVvl_KKW_Ysp9nyLivwIScsYwU8M
That’s just weird.
Speaking of China, I mean Japan…OK, I’ll just admit I’m going off-topic.
“TOKYO: A Japanese minister in charge of cybersecurity has provoked astonishment by admitting he has never used a computer in his professional life and appearing confused by the concept of a USB drive….
“”Since the age of 25, I have instructed my employees and secretaries, so I don’t use computers myself,” he said in a response to an opposition question in a lower house session, local media reported.
“He also appeared confused by the question when asked about whether USB drives were in use at Japanese nuclear facilities.”
https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/1576246/japan-cyber-security-minister-admits-never-used-computer
He added, “but sex robots are a type of computer, and I know how to operate *them!*”
In other words, management.
So just like Podesta, who sat on a federal cybersecurity task force but set his password to “password”
Probably makes him hackproof. There is that…