I feel like I'm hyping this thing up, and it's probably not necessary. Lemme just begin, lest ye be underwhelmed:
Today we had "中文桌子”, or "Chinese Table" for lunch. This meant a plethora - nay, a veritable smorgasbord (again?!) - of delicious Chinese dishes, including my favorite: sweet and sour fish (called something I can't now remember - luckily most restaurants have pictures, so I can reliably find it). This is a big ol' foot long lake fish that has been doused thoroughly in sweet orange sauce, not unlike that on your good ol' (does he have something against the letter 'd'?) neighborhood takeout place's sweet 'n' sour pork, and then cut so that it forms nice little cubes, still stuck to the spine, or what have you, such that it is both delicious and fun to eat.
Oh, did I mention that once prepared, it doesn't have bones? Boom. But let me tell what it does have: eyes. And now you guess what I was just enticed into eating.
哎呀，at lunch I was sitting next to my enterprising minority studies 老师 (laoshi: professor, teacher) who informed me that there is a local specialty soup made of just the heads of this very fish - a dish that she finds rather enjoyable. She proceeded to demonstrate this fact by pulling out (no easy task with chopsticks) one of the eyes, and quickly popping it into her mouth. Sensing the challenge, and knowing I couldn't bear to let this opportunity pass (I'd already, last weekend, said no to a chicken foot eating contest) I picked up my chopsticks and made several awkward and deeply disturbing forays into the fish's right eye socket. Taking hold of the eye from both sides, I pulled toward me, and the eye, with a gruesome snap, came free.
And now, came the waiting game. I should have just done it quickly, like my professor, but I wished to conceal my horror with a guise of academic fascination.
Of course, what I saw only made it worse. The eye alternated between gray and whitish blobs, was slimy with what was perhaps only 50% sweet sauce, and had an awful white cable dangling from one side, an appendage I couldn't help but realize was the optic nerve.
Let me pause here and tell you a little something about my personal beliefs. I'm not much of a religious person, but I have a couple deeply-held ethical positions. Firstly: that if in the time of Abraham, there should come to the land of Sharandar a man with a limp, and a goat, and clothes of blue linen, and the moon should be at its zenith, then the king should welcome him gladly, else there's a fair chance that the next day shall be cloudy, with a 40% chance of precipitation and wind from the NE. Secondly: that spiders are, in fact, not our friends, but are instead some of the most wicked creatures known to man. Lastly, thou shalt not eat eyes (this is perhaps related to the fact that spiders have - oh jesus - eight of the things).
And believe me, I have been punished for my transgressions. Not only was the eye itself salty, juicy - essentially everything you think an eye might be - but the fish has taken his revenge. He has responded to my violation of his optical orb by cursing me with "la duzi" (pronounced lah dood-zuh, this is not in fact french for "the doozy" - although that moniker wouldn't be amiss), or what you might call diarrheal oblivion.
I'm gonna leave you guys to think on that - Chinese cooking class starts soon. But here's a cultural note while we're at it: in China, I can discuss the movements of my bowels (frequency and consistency - all welcome!) and it is, well, normal. In America, where you are all reading this, that passage above was a little overly personal. Ah well, we only have culture to blame.
Oh, and I got a bike!
No comments:
Post a Comment