Definitely ate Turtle
February 15th, 2006
Before, at the Chinese New Year’s Dinner I went to I was served turtle. It was on the table but no one seemed keen to eat it. I ate some potatoes from the plate the turtle was on. I thought I got a picture of the turtle, but the next morning it wasn’t very obvious in the one picture I took what we actually ate.
I lent my camera to some random Chinese guy I had just met and he took 80 bad pictures of people I don’t know. That is the last time I lend my camera to a random Chinese guy.
Now I’ve definitely ate turtle as I was served turtle soup at Ting‘s house. It wouldn’t have been appropriate to whip out my camera and take a picture. I had to chew turtle skin off it’s undercarriage. I also likely ate turtle meat and turtle eggs.
It doesn’t taste like much but the texture is off-putting, as is the big old shell floating in the pot. I don’t like carcasses generally in my food. I was served baiju with my turtle soup even though both Ting and I said I didn’t want any. So being a good guest I had to sit and eat my turtle skin off the turtle shell and wash it down with baiju which now gets my vote as foulest alcohol on earth.
Having eaten turtle, frog, and yak penis while in China, what was the worst thing some Chinese person thought it would be a good idea to eat? Blood Soup, Danna got the bright idea to order this for us one day. I had exactly one spoonful. Not that there should be any doubt but it is basically blood, congealed with organs in broth. I think it was actually chicken and duck’s blood and organs. I can’t recall the taste too clearly it was five months ago, but the texture and general creepiness of it all gets my vote for worst Chinese food.
I still think the worst thing I was ever served was sea urchin sushi in Japan. It is considered a delicacy and is expensive. But it is orange, slimy and really really bitter. The only thing that could get the taste out of my mouth was black coffee. I tried beer, water, red wine, nothing would remove that taste from my tongue.
In 2024 I edited a lot of my old blog posts while redoing my taxonomy. I even dug up more old photos, something I should do more as I’ve now had a digital camera more than twenty years, alas I don’t save every photo I’ve ever taken and couldn’t find a good turtle photo. Of course I have the frog photo maybe even sea urchin sushi, but infamously no yak penis photos were taken while we went to dinner.
This entry was originaly posted on , it was last edited on and is filed under: Travel and tagged: Baiju, China, Chinese Food.
