Food Cravings and Other Items

[mikem]

Mikem, I was down in that area, maybe a little north of there, a couple of weeks ago. Had to attend to some business in Jasper and another little town near there. Really beautiful country in the autumn.

Being an east coast boy I missed the trees/forests out in AZ.. I was very fortunate to land a position with a major corporation here..better yet they chased me for the job..

M

[Mick]

What about those weird grubs that are about the size of a large pecan and they will be in a box near the front of a restaurant and they have like a pointy "head" which they will twirl around and around when you pick them up.  I hear that you are supposed to eat them raw.

Lends new meaning to the phrase, "Let's go grab some grub" doesn't it Robert?

[Robert S.]

What about those weird grubs that are about the size of a large pecan and they will be in a box near the front of a restaurant and they have like a pointy "head" which they will twirl around and around when you pick them up.  I hear that you are supposed to eat them raw.

Lends new meaning to the phrase, "Let's go grab some grub" doesn't it Robert?

My wife's aunt challenged me to eat one but I told her if she would eat one then I would too. She chickened out. I offered her 20 RMB if she would eat one and I could see she wanted the money but she still would not eat the grub. I was going to welsh on the bet even if she came thru with it. There was no way I was going to eat one of those grubs. They need to have those things on Fear Factor. I can't believe anybody would be crazy enough to eat one. We all had a huge laugh about it. Ping was encouraging me to eat one but I think she would have stopped me if I started to put it in my mouth. I'll eat the worm in the bottom of a bottle of mezcal, no problem, but these grub things are not nicely pickled, they are squirming!!! Does anybody know the name of them?

[owenkrout]

Haven't had the raw grubs, but they are popular in the NorthEast stir fried. I find them bland and not worth the effort myself.

[Robert S.]

Haven't had the raw grubs, but they are popular in the NorthEast stir fried.  I find them bland and not worth the effort myself.

Thank you, Owen, for clearing that up for me!!!

 

Another thing that concerns me is Chinese candy and popsicles and stuff like that. I don't believe their Food and Drug Administration (if they have one) would really measure up to what we are accustomed to for food additive safety.

 

And, it is shameful that the government will allow those crooked American hucksters to go on Chinese TV and sell their purported breast enlarging pumps and other ridiculous unhealthful lies.

[owenkrout]

If you are going to really live as part of Chinese society, then you take a certain amount of risk. The Chinese government doesn't protect it's people from fraud and outright harm anything like the US government. Stories of people being sickened or harmed by consumer products is common in the Chinese press. You just develop a certain amount of buyer beware sense. Sometimes I would pass on food stuffs on offer just because I had a bad feeling about it. Personally, I had very little problem with Mao's Revenge or anything else and we bought most everything from the street vendors right outside our home. Never missed a class in two years, so I managed pretty well. My one bought with pneumonia (just before the Chinese government finally admitted that SARS existed) came just after the end of the semester.