Foooooooooood.

I've spent the last couple of days working and mooching around with my pal Sarah. We've spent a lot of time eating (she cooks, I eat). She is a far better cook than I am, and watches me closely whenever I am in the kitchen. I'm starting to think she doesn't trust me to make anything good. My list of culinary creations is rather short; it includes french toast, toast, eggs and spaghetti. Also, if the food comes in a box with a game or trivia on the back, then chances are good that I can cook it.

Despite my shortage of culinary skills, I am a rather adventurous eater. The first food I want to talk about (and by far the strangest food I've eaten) was the dinner that Sarah made for me tonight. I'm not sure I should go into any details here, as she is sitting next to me trying to sneak a peek at what I'm writing. For my safety, I'll just stick with those experiences I've had when she wasn't around.

Chicken feet- I ate this while in China at a dim sum restaurant. I was being treated to lunch by a group of students. I didn't know the proper restaurant etiquette, so figured I would just try one of everything. I didn't know that it's considered polite for the host to push the guests into eating more and more and more and more and more. The guests are expected to be modest, and so will insist that they are full and cannot eat anymore. In this way, the guest and the host will insist back and forth until one or the other gives up. Even when your stomach is stretched beyond capacity, the host will STILL push dishes toward you in a vain attempt to get you to eat "just one more bite." And on that day, the dishes just kept being passed my direction. At first this wasn't a big deal. Anyone who has enjoyed dim sum knows each of the dishes are quite small. They are designed so that the guests can try a little of everything. But on that particular day, the lunch was never ending; my "one dish, one bite" rule was fast becoming a huge problem. After trying one bite from each of about 413.5 dishes, I was needing to take breaks to let myself digest. All through out the meal, I had been keeping my eye on the plate of chicken feet sitting at the other end of the table. I was hoping that my hosts would forget or gobble it all up before it could be passed to me. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

The first question I am usually asked about chicken feet is "what about all the bones?" When I ate the chicken feet, the bones did provide a dilemma for me. Do I spit them onto the plate, or do I spit them into the napkin? Are the leaves on that plant large enough to hide a stray chicken foot? Do the students know enough English to understand "fire!!!!"? Seeing that I had limited options, I reached out and grabbed the foot with my chopsticks. I found a spot on the far wall to stare at while I put on my best poker face and bit. The skin on chicken feet is smooth, and usually coated in a thick barbecue sauce. I once heard the texture described as similar to a baby's finger (I wouldn't know). Although chicken feet do taste good (like barbecued chicken skin), the mental images associated with them definitely put a damper on my enjoyment. I chewed, spit, gagged and swallowed.

I recently purchased a cookbook of foods gathered in the Sichuan Province, China. Sichuan is where Chengdu is located. After salivating over all the pictures in the book, I hunkered down and started reading the recipes in search of something I CAN make. Some of the items in the cookbook include:
"Pork slices with black cloud ear fungus" (Why they insist on using the word "fungus" instead of "mushroom" I'll never know.)
"Ants climbing a tree" (This recipe is really not as bad as the name implies.)
"Fire-exploded kidney flowers" (These are NOT flowers.)
"Steamed pork knuckle in ginger sauce" (Apparently this is a delicacy.)

On second thought, maybe I'll just stick with the french toast.