Friday, June 5, 2009

Culinary Adventures

One thing that makes this group an ideal traveling team is that there is not a picky eater in the bunch. In fact, these folks will try anything. This has resulted in some new culinary adventures for us all. Here are a few new tastes from my last few days: chicken feet (seems like a lot of work for not much), eel (more benign than I expected), glutinous rice ball (the name is terribly off putting and the reality rather like a big lump of super-slimy tapioca), and roasted cicada (which if you can overlook having little cicada legs stuck in your teeth, is actually quite tasty. Roasted means crunchy and rather chewy with a rich flavor of garlic.)

This group is also great at tracking down local holes in the wall for authentic and inexpensive food. Needless to say, these venues do have English translations on their menus. Not to be daunted, we have mastered the fine practice of pointing to whatever dish looks good on someone else’s table and taking our chances. This in turn provides interesting meal conversation as we play the ‘what are we eating?’ game.

I find breakfast food in different countries is particularly intriguing. The food we begin our days with typically has a narrower range of menu than other meals and seems to thrive on routine. In China noodles and dumplings are the fare for three meals a day if you like. Throw a fried or boiled egg on top of those noodles or wrap it in a crepe and voila! China breakfast. Fruit and some sweet sesame crusted balls (whose name I have yet to learn) are also common. You can, of course find other variations including, to my surprise, a nice array of pastries. I have tried to start my day with the green tea that is in available In my room, but my propensity to coffee has had me on a quest in each of our locations. Downtown Shanghai was easy . . . coffee shops are part of the diverse westernized scene. Here at the University there is a coffee shop a few blocks from my room . . . with good coffee and good pastries, but which sadly doesn’t open until the late hour of 8:00 a.m. Have I mentioned that the sun is up at 5:00 a.m here?

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