Day 35 Oh, the food

Ok, this country girl at heart must acknowledge that she loves down home cookin', straight from the garden or farm, to the table, just the way my grandmother taught me.  There's nothing like homemade mashed potatoes and gravy, a pot roast with all the trimmings, fresh green beans from the garden, homemade biscuits, yeast rolls, or bread, topped with homemade strawberry jam.  The only thing I didn't do was churn the butter, lol.  I haven't been too very homesick yet, but daggone, I miss down home cookin'! (and of course, the eatin' ;)  There are some things about the food in China that just....confuse me....leave me perplexed...scare me...and straight up gross me out sometimes!

As I walk to the grocery store, I can't help but wonder, "How does a man in
China make a living, simply by selling grapes?"  I try to buy my produce from the
street vendors whenever possible.  I have yet to find seedless grapes in China, btw.

Naked chicken feet, just laying out in the open, barely refrigerated, scares me.
Correction.  They gross me out.  I would never buy chicken feet-
refrigerated or not. I do not see the appeal of gnawing on a chicken foot.
The only part of a chicken I have not seen for sale is the beaks.
 I hate to think of where the beaks end up.  Maybe in the wieners
I bought that had corn in them- who knows?!

Ok, shoppers touching the barely refrigerated raw meat with their bare hands,
really grosses me out.  Not that I would ever purchase hog's feet to fix myself
for dinner, mind you.  The only reason I ever would buy hog's feet would be to
bait a crab trap, perhaps.  Even at that, feet- of any kind- simply gross me out.
Ewwww...stop touching the raw meat, woman!  

The strange things that all come in plastic packaging all scare me.  God only
knows what lurks in those packages...I have seen squid, fungi, what looks
like intestines, all in what, I am certain, is a flavorful sauce saturated in
MSG.  It's the Chinese way.  

The Chinese love their packaged foods- packaged crap-
with no nutritional value whatsoever.  Seriously, how
do they stay so tiny?!  I just think of American kids that
would have a field day picking through the snack sized
color packages of sugary treats and salty snacks.

And the jellies!  OMG, they love their jellies- which look like individual
jello and pudding shots- which, of course, have strange things in them.
It's the Chinese way. Nothing says a mother's love like a jello parfait
pudding shot with a creepy thing in it.

I typically try to eat whole foods- one ingredient things
that I can identify- and that are good for me.  So, processed
meats, in general, I find to be pretty disgusting.  But
when they are in more plastic packaging, and sitting
out in the aisles, not a refrigerated cooler, that is
beyond anything I am willing to try and consume.
I can't imagine how much MSG and other preservatives
must be in the tubes of goo- probably chicken beaks, too.

Now when I have been sailing, I buy 'boxed' milk off
the shelf as it stores at room temperature for a very long
time.  I can deal with buying boxed milk, but these baggies
of milk, laying out in the aisles, is just wrong, people.
Can you imagine what a kid's lunch box looks like here?
Goopy 'mystery meat' on shrimp crackers (also nasty, btw)
oodles of individual unidentifiable shots of sugar and
other salty stuff, topped off with a baggie of milk.
I say, where's the nearest McDonald's? The golden arches
seem way more nutritional and appealing that this stuff- but
I quite possibly could be deluding myself there.

I was so excited to recognize a Pringles can!  When I saw
it was green, I thought it must have been guacamole chips.
What?! Seaweed flavored potato chips?!  Umm, no thank you.

Most rice and beans here are sold in bulk; you simply scoop out how
much you want from these bins.  This looked more familiar to me,
like going to an Amish country store for dry goods.  Alas, no delicious Amish cheese
to be found ANYWHERE in this country.  I have tried.  Cheese, of any
kind, is a rare commodity, and it is the one thing that will cost me a small
fortune as it is all imported from somewhere else.  Their idea of
cheese, is more of the processed crap, wrapped in plastic squares.  I'll pass.

I thought I was buying a lime, but no, it was an orange.  Now, I realize that
all oranges start out green, and then ripen.  Not these ones.  They really
are quite tasty, and very juicy on the inside.  They are a little more
tart, kind of like a tangerine, but no seeds.  I eat lots of green oranges :)

All of this talk of food lead to a group of us making dinner plans around
the corner from our apartment complex.  I do love the traditional
Chinese dinners where the dishes are brought out to a turntable
that you spin around and grab what you want with your chopsticks :)

We ordered 'hot pot' and had two different kinds of broth.  One was a clear
broth, like a vegetable or chicken stock, and the other was a red spicy
broth, and was it ever spicy!  We then pointed to lots of colorful pictures
on the menu to throw into the hot pot.  We had some kind of meat,
pot stickers, lotus fruit, a plate of assorted mushrooms (not for me)
seaweed, and such.  The roasted potatoes with peppers and onions
were fabulous, and the green beans here are to die for- seriously.
The red soup to the left was some kind of tomato and beef brisket
that was good, and the pot next to it...

was a spicy red broth with scary stuff in it and FROG
WANGS....which is any and all parts of a frog including
frog penis.  Carlos and Rob were crazy- they devoured it.
When I watched them gnawing along the back and spine
of a frog I nearly tossed my green tea.  O. M. G. :/

I lost count of how many times Rob dipped into the pot of FROG WANGS.
He said he wouldn't have had to go back so much if the frogs were hung better.

With that, it was all Just. Too. Much.  It was time for this girlie to call it a night.  After a pbj, and a cold glass of milk, of course :)   G'nite, y'all!