Have a Bloody Halloween!

If you have been keeping track of my blog posts, almost all of them are bizarre foods from Asia. But... this post is going to be a little different, or to be exact, a little more global!

Eating (or drinking) blood has been a common culinary experience in many countries. Places including but not limited to China, Philippines, Masai in Africa, Sweden or even Norway have their own recipe of cooking and consuming blood in their cultures. Interesting enough though, most of them use pork and sheep blood instead of cow, chicken or other cattle and weird animals' blood. I am in no expert position to explain the reason behind this, but I can certainly introduce you to the world of blood fest!

Growing up in Hong Kong, pork blood is no stranger to me. Literally translated as "the red in pig," pork blood is usually in bouncy pudding form, that almost looks like they are red tofu. Local Cantonese loves to have it with rice congee because of its salty flavor. It is sometimes consumed with other parts of the pig, such as different organs and sometimes ears, but it is believed that pork blood can compensate the loss of iron in human body.

In Trinidad, people do pretty much the same thing - pork blood is steamed into pudding and is served with breadcrumbs and rice.

Interestingly, one of the most "blood thirsty" continents is not Asia, but Europe, our Western counterpart! Germany, for example, has their famous blood sausage, Blutwaust, in which pork blood is mixed into different types of meat (traditionally including horse meat and ox tongue). Blood sausage is readily available in regular grocery stores and butchers almost everywhere in Europe. I certainly can't imagine eating blood sausage in the morning, but apparently this is an extremely choice of food for European. In Hungary, pork blood is prepared like cheese in your scramble eggs. According to Weird Foods From Around the World:

it is a big deal to kill the first pig of the season. So there I was in the morning watching some of my co-working chasing a pig around in the back yard, they caught it. Then slit it's neck and colleted the blood in a frying pan and then beat some eggs and cooked it, It had a brain like look.

In Sweden, there is blood dumplings; blóðmör in Sweden; beuling in Belgium and Netherlands... whatever it is called. Europeans are one big group of blood thirsty eaters!

If I do not forget, this is the first post I've written about bizarre food in not only the exotic Asia, but also the civilized Europe and America! What exactly makes a local dish bizarre? And as time passes, how has bizarre food becomes regular everyday food? Maybe Europe and America are more advanced technology wise, but as a country, they do have their own local dishes too. Be prepared to see more Western bizarre food in here next time. In the meantime, have a very happy bloody halloween!

"Eating dog meat... ewww"

Dogs have been domesticated by most part of the countries for centuries and they are now considered a man's best friend, but it's true, in some part of East and Southeast Asia, dog meat is still readily available on the street.

I have been researching online, and found a lot of different opinions on this issue. Animal Freedom claims that eating dog is inhumane, and they urge Korea to stop this action immediately or they would boycott them. While animal cruelty is certainly not acceptable by any standards, their complaint did not channel to the Koreans, instead, it stirred up more racial hate towards Korean. So is eating dogs an animal abuse or a cultural gap that we haven't recognized?

I am not here to comment who's right or who's wrong. Eating dogs, since ancient Asian times, has served a long-lasting history and an important cultural role. I find myself agreeing on this anonymous person's letter to Animal Freedom's organizers. Like myself, he is not standing on the side of animal abuse, but he thinks that instead of banning dog meat (which has been legally banned in 1990), there should be a better system of butchery:

I myself, who has never eaten dog or cat meat, am against eating those animals in an emotional way. However I don't believe those Koreans, who see dogs and cats as food, will listen to others (especially westerners) who have also two morals in their way of living. For example, Western people are eating much more meat in daily life than Korean people and a lot of western people think having pets is the best way of loving animals. Most Korean people truly agree that brutal killing of dogs and cats should stop. Even though law has forbid it since early 1990, it sometimes happens still illegally. However it takes time. Some Koreans think the way of butchering dogs by hanging and beating to death makes the meat more tender and tastier. I advice people to persuade the Korean government to do a better job on stopping this illegal and brutal butchery. In most cases, dogs (not pets) are raised in farms and killed by electrocution just as cows and pigs. This is more civilized than some French people who make 'foie gras', using pipes to force food into the throats of geese to make their livers bigger and tastier.

Dog meat is popular in these Asian countries, not because Asians are cold blooded, but it's because of the geographical restraints. Because 70% of the land in Korea are mountains, it is almost impossible for them to breed animals that are bigger than the size of a dog.

Again, comparing the West and the East. Why is the East (or even Africa) always have to be exotic, whereas the West is always seen as civilized? After years of colonial domination, isn't it time for the West to listen to these countries and learn to appreciate their culture?

Culture or Cruelty: Dolphin Eating in Japan

As an island, Japanese enjoy eating seafood. Walking into a Japanese restaurants, one might find it hard to not recognize the variety of fish offered as delicious and often raw dishes. While Japanese cuisine is getting attention from all over the world, their dolphin eating habits bring about a whole lot of attention from the press and environmental activists. More than 20,000 dolphins are captured and killed every year, yet the government claimed that dolphins are not endangered species, and therefore eating dolphins in Japan is not only acceptable, but is also important to the livelihood of local villagers in the industry.

In small towns like Taiji, Japan, dolphins fishing requires a major labor force. Every winter during the months of October through March, villagers (who are most likely fishermen) gather together to capture dolphins. They first disorient the dolphins with nets and fishing boats, then deliberately injure one of them (because dolphins never leave their family or friends if one of them is hurt). As the net begins to tighten, fishermen began to lift the dolphins, one by one, onto their fishing boats, and eventually they are delivered to the factory, where they are brutally slaughtered.

After a bloody and violent process of slaughtering, dolphin meat are either sold in the local fresh market, or packaged as canned whale meat that can be found in many nationwide Japanese supermarket.

What bothers so many environmental activists is not the fact that dolphins are being served as foods, it is the brutal and inhumane ways of killing that brought about so much attention and controversies. The captured dolphins are often tied to a truck and dragged to the process factory. While they are still alive, factory workers would cut open their throats with a sharp knife and leave the dolphins there for hours, until they slowly bleed to death. Often times, it takes hours of suffering for them to die.

For more information on dolphin massacre in Taiji, Japan, take a look at this CNN report on dolphin slaughtering and its related video on youtube.


Looking at both sides of the argument, I find it extremely hard to take a stand on this issue. On one hand, an ocean polluted with dolphin's blood is certainly not something I would like to see; but on the other hand, if there are so many dolphins in that region, and that fishing is the major source of income in those villages, they have every right to consume dolphins. If eating living silkworm and roaches on Fear Factor is acceptable to Western audience, Japanese, too, have their points in seeing the art of eating dolphins as part of their culture. My point is this: why isn't the slaughtering of chickens or pigs or cows generate as much of a controversy? Because they are more abundant, or they are intellectually less of a being than dolphins? I am certainly not supporting the cruelty and violence used on animals, but it seems to me that the standard of humanity is extremely vague and ambiguous. While the West often see the oriental East as uncivilized and inhumane, is the French foie gras industry anyway more lenient to the animals when ducks have to be kept in extremely small cages so as to limit their physical activity, and increase the fat accumulate in their livers?

This is a question that posts the double standards of many environmental activists in the West. Indeed, what makes a dish a local culture? When would you define eating that dish as adventurous, or inhumane? That is something we, as human beings, should all think about.

We Are One Big McFamily

Talking about balut yesterday, I can't help but wonder: if you can buy balut pretty much in every city in America, there's probably even easier to get American food in the Philippines. Indeed, according to this cool map, there are more than 100 McDonalds, and approximately 50 Starbucks in the Philippines region. Starting from 1995, the number of Starbucks shop worldwide has been skyrocketing to 6,200, with three new stores opening each day. McDonalds, as an even more symbolic cultural icon of America, has 31,000 restaurants in 118 countries all over the world, employing more than 1.5 million people in total. With 4 billions in sales, McDonalds has certainly become a representation of America in other countries' perspectives.

Starbucks and McDonalds' success in other parts of the worlds depends greatly on their adaption to local cultures. Take McDonalds as an excellent example, their menus differ across borders. In India, where beef consumption is considered sinful, McDonalds transitioned its famous Big Mac into Chicken Mahajara Mac. In Germany, beer, instead of Coke, is served as part of the combo; In Hong Kong, rice paddies are used as supposed to buns. Of course, the adaption has not always been successful. After numerous trials and errors, McDonalds is still in the process of adaptation and modification. But as Art Siemering says in his article in The Futurist:

"Globalization is the master trend that will drive the world of food in the years ahead [...] I sense that the cutting edge is moving on to nations whose cuisines are the products of many ethnic influences over the years. And we're discovering these countries simply because we're starting to pay more attention."

Look at the newest addition to the McFamily - Chipotle BBQ Snack Wrap: We are not eating more healthily, we are also eating more globally.

Balut: A National Passion

I promised I would dedicate one blog post to the famous fetal duck egg, also known as, balut in Philipines and hon vit lon in Vietnam. Before researching on this topic, I had to tell myself several times "it's okay, it's alright, they are just eggs with hair, legs, and sometimes perhaps eyes." I plucked my courage, went on to google, typed in "balut"... it turned out there were lots of academic article about this cheap and exotic local cuisine. One of the essays, in particular, captured my attention and I found it extremely interesting.

Margaret Magat, in her well-written article, Balut: Fertilized Duck Eggs and Their Role in Filipino Culture, argues that balut is an extremely valuable nutritional resources in Southeast Asia, where alternative sources of proteins are often found lacking. In places like the Philippines, many locals cannot afford to buy luxury food, therefore, they turned to cheaper choices sold by street vendors Many balut eaters believe that eating balut, especially after work, will compensate for the energy lost during the day.

Calling balut the cheapest nutritional substitute available to Filipinos, Butch Coyoca says that one can buy balut instead of buying vitamins. "It's like a powerbar, a superfood," he said. "If you stay up late at night and it's already morning, like 2 a.m., a lot of people would eat one or two before they go to bed because they would believe that (balut) would compensate for whatever losses they incurred for not sleeping enough."

So what exactly is a balut? While normally a duck hatches after 26 to 28 days after incubation, a balut is an egg with a duck embryo aged 16 to 20 days in age. Sometimes fertilized chicken eggs are used instead, but fetal duck eggs have proved to be a more popular choice among Filipinos and Asian Americans. Eating a balut is also considered an national art. To eat a balut, first drop it into hot boiling water, then crack a hole on the shell. Sip the broth (which is the embryonic fluid of the duck), continue crack the rest of the shell, and ... eat the yolk.

Magat also mentions the notion of "machismo," a concept introduced by the Spaniards 500 years ago. According to Magat's informants, many believe that balut has sexual energizing powers:

I believe that the machismo belief is still alive and flourishing in the Philippines and is partly responsible for the belief that balut is an aphrodisiac good for men only.

Instead of Baptism, young men are to be tested in order to prove himself a real man. Under a sex culture dominated by male, Filipino males are supposed to provide pleasure to their wives or mistresses so as to prove himself a real man. Eating balut, allegedly, will "get you knees hard and the sex will last longer." Magat observes this psychological connection between food and sex in Philippines, and balut plays an extremely important part in conventional gender roles and sexual beliefs.

Because balut is often considered a symbolic symbol for fertility, it can almost be found any place where Filipinos and Chinese live. They are widely distributed around the world. In California, there are more than 1 million Filippino Americans, which makes the state a leader in balut production in the country. If you ever want to overcome a fear factor, go to any Fillipino grocery store, or visit Metzer Farm in the Salinas Valley, and I am sure they will be more than happy to show you what New York Times called "A National Passion."

Eating the King of Reptiles

Somewhere in my consciousness, I remember eating crocodile meat when I was a little kid. The great chef of our house, my mom, made this dark colored soup and served it to us one night. Of course, we didn't know it was crocodile meat until after the dinner (she somehow fooled us into believing that it was chicken, what a smart trick!) I asked my mom about it recently, and she said the recipe came from my grandmother, a mother to five children and a grandmother to ten grand kids.

Crocodile meat is rare to find in Hong Kong, though I've heard some really traditional Chinese grocery stores still carry them. My mom said she got her crocodile meat from Thailand. Apparently, some relatives of ours bought us little purses made of crocodile skin, and shipped the rest of the crocodile to us for dinner.

My grandmother told my mom to make us crocodile meat soup because this "hot meat" (as supposed to chicken, which is a kind of "cold meat") is a traditional remedies for treating childhood asthma, which my brother had when he was younger. Try searching "crocodile meat + asthma" on google, you will not be surprised to see many successful cases in which crocodile meat really cured asthma. I don't know if this is scientifically proved, but it is believed that crocodile meat also helps strengthen immunity and delay aging.

I forgot how crocodile meat tastes like, except the fact that it wasn't very tender. The soup tasted good, nothing special, but my little brother ends up having his asthma cured. There's something about crocodile meat then...

Tricked by Treat!

I have been looking for recent and topical issues concerning exotic food on my Google Reader. After hours of efforts, I think I am convinced that bizarre foods are products of heritage and history of different culture, and they probably won't show up constantly on RSS feeds. *Idea light bulb pops up* Why can't I talk about weird behaviors caused by normal food?

We've all heard of how candies and sweets can make one happy. Scientific results have proved that they raise blood sugar level, thus make us more energetic, lively and happy. But recent researches have shown that they can also make us more violent! According to National Post, Topix.com, and many unknown personal blogs, studies have been conducted, showing that "Children who by age 10 were eating candy daily were more likely to be arrested for a violent offense by the age of 34." Well, when I come to think about it, it is possible that this might happen. See, if sugar makes us energetic, the chance that kids would use their energy to commit crimes is relatively higher! We all know kids who are spoiled tend to be more rebellious, thus might be more violent in the future. Do we necessarily need a study of 17,500 children to know this?

Yet, I am not denying the possibility of association between candies and violence. In fact, that might actually save us all some bucks from our pockets, especially when Halloween is right around the corner, maybe we should consider stop giving kids their treats...