Owner: Weird Meat URL:http://www.weirdmeat.com/ Join Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 12:11:28 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: WeirdMeat.com documents experiences eating strange food, as I travel around the world. What is weird to one, is normal to another. I want to find out why. Includes articles, travel stories, photos. Site statistics:Click here
Yak in Yunnan 2007-07-08 03:19:00 On location in Yunnan, Southwest China.
Mom and I recently had a little vacation in Yunnan Province, Southwest China. It was our first time to the region, and we had such a good time, we're already talking about going back. I'll publish a series of stories about Yunnan's weird meat choices over the next few weeks.
Yucky yak steak.
Yunnan borders Tibet, and there are lots of Tibetan people in
Bylakuppe 2007-06-05 22:17:00 We were doing yoga in Mysore, India. That's where the Ashtanga people go. Most of these people are vegetarians, as are most people in India. Actually, most of these Ashtanga yoga people that go to Mysore, they're not from India, but they're still vegetarian.
Bylakuppe's Golden Temple -- a slice of Tibet in tropical South India
Anyway, one of these vegetarians told us of a place nearby
Lizard Soup 2007-05-11 22:33:00 One of my favorite areas in Hong Kong is the herbal medicine shop streets around Sheung Wan. For reasons I won't get into here, these shops carry an amazing variety of real deal Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), that you almost cannot find in mainland China anymore. In Shanghai pharmacies, for example, they look at you like you're nuts if you ask for herbals instead of pills. They think Read more:Lizard
Deep Fried Sand Worms 2007-03-25 06:16:00 I was cast in a small role in a Chinese film -- 旗舰 - 巴特尔 (qi jian - ba te er) -- as an American soldier. We traveled down to Zhanjiang, Guangdong -- a navy town. The foreign actors had to do background checks and leave our cameras and mobile phones before we entered the military areas. Which was funny because all the "Chinese" people were allowed to take pics all over the place, and I'm sure Read more:Fried
, Worms
Beef Tongue 2007-03-11 01:35:00 I love Hong Kong. It's a foodie paradise. Everything is good. While you might not find the absolute best of any particular dish, you know you're not going to get anything bad. They don't have time for that here.
They also have the best waiters here. They don't bother you when you want to be left alone, and they know what you want before you order. Some of the older guys intimidate me --
Cicadas in Jinan 2007-02-19 01:31:00 I love the sound of cicadas. I remember my first trip to Asia many years ago, mid-summer in Kyoto, Japan. I was a typical first-timer, taking pics of everything in sight. But one day I was hiking in a rural mountain area, and the sound of cicadas in the trees was so mesmerizing, I shut my camera and bought a cheap tape recorder. For the rest of the trip I recorded sounds instead of
Anthony Bourdain's "A Cook's Tour" 2007-02-08 01:34:00 The subtitle is "Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines" but the real goal is a mildly macho food travel show, not shock value. We like Mr. Bourdain
-- he's funny, idiosyncratic, and opinionated. But why is he whining like a wussy when he has to eat bird's nest soup, natto, or mountain potato? We've eaten all these things in our home country, America, and we didn't freak out about it, even Read more:Anthony
, Anthony Bourdain
Raw Sheep's Heart and Horse Meat 2007-01-23 00:52:00 We were approached by a globe-trotting freelance videographer working with Current TV (Al Gore's new TV network in the USA) who wanted to film and interview the Weird Meat Experience.
We took the guy out for the live drunken shrimp at Shanghai Ren Jia -- only to find out they'd taken it off the menu (at this particular location -- it's still at the others). So we promised the following night Read more:Heart
, Horse
, Sheep
Snake Soup 2007-01-14 07:42:00 The recent earthquake in Taiwan has made the internet slow and logging into blogger difficult from Asia, so we apologize for the delay in updates...
I was in Hong Kong recently, to visit my friend PaPeRo. PaPeRo is a robot made by NEC. I was asked to perform (as a DJ) at NEC's booth at the ITU, a massive technology expo. My little friend PaPeRo does cool stuff like talk in 7 languages, Read more:Snake
Shanghai Restaurants: Top 10 Favorites 2006-12-14 01:58:00 (or ... 10 Restaurants in Shanghai
That Don't Suck)
WeirdMeat received a lot of feedback about our public disapproval of Shanghai cuisine. Some good, some bad, but no one (as of this writing) has offered any solution or suggestion that there is something good about Shanghai cuisine. Maybe we're right? Seems like they even admit it. We've challenged many a Shanghai friend to find us a decent
Asexual Animals 2006-11-17 09:43:00 For Thanksgiving.
My mother has always been a superb cook. She was a health food fanatic when I was a kid, so I grew up eating excellent homemade 100% whole grain bread, honey instead of sugar, whole milk, and regrettably, carob cakes instead of chocolate. (I've since converted her to a complete chocolate snob, like myself, more on that in a later post. Let me just say, if it's less than 70%, Read more:Animals
Dog Meat 2006-11-04 08:08:00 I've actually eaten dog a few times before -- once in California, once in southern China, and in South Korea, but never as the focus of a meal. So I rounded up a few brave men for a trip out to "Koreatown" in Shanghai, where there are several restaurants specializing in dog meat. I asked a few ladies to join us, but they all had excuses ... what's up with that? Is dog meat macho?
We ordered 5
Bird's Nest 2006-10-20 02:48:00 The genteel name is "bird's nest," but after our investigation, we found that you're not actually eating the nest, you're eating the bird's "spit" or "saliva." Well, maybe not YOU, per say, but people who do. These people are beautiful. They stay young and fresh and have perfect facial skin. That's what the stuff claims to do for you, at least. I'm young and fresh and
Winter Worm, Summer Plant 2006-09-19 04:54:00 Several of my dear Chinese friends tried to convince me, but I refused to accept it. "It begins its life as a plant, and then becomes an animal," they said. Or the other way around -- animal first, then plant. I'm no biologist but I'm pretty sure that's not possible.
"It's a virus? Bacteria? Fungus?" I said.
"No, it's a worm," they said. While others said, "No, it's a grass plant. [pause] But Read more:Plant
, Summer
Weird Meat Nominated 2006-09-11 03:35:00 WeirdMeat.com has been nominated as "Best Asia Food Blog". That's great. We appreciate the props. One step closer to quitting our day job, yes!
Another nice accolade from City Weekend magazine, who called WeirdMeat the "grandaddy" of all Chinese food blogs. Dunno about that, but cheers for the kudos. Read more:Weird
Snake Bites Back 2006-07-17 05:30:00 Sorry for the delay since last post, trust us we've got some fun stuff coming up soon -- we ate bird vomit, and finally we've solved the mystery of the "winter worm, summer plant" -- but here's a quick bite, er, link to an article about Shanghai's hospitals warning residents to watch out for snake bites. These snakes are intended to be eaten by humans, but sometimes they bite first!
Thanks to Read more:Snake
Rats! 2006-06-17 06:51:00 Eating rats.
Rural southern Cambodia.
We decided to tag along with a Cambodian-American friend of ours to a rural area in the southeast near the Vietnam border. He was returning, after decades, to see his aging parents and family who had survived the Khmer Rouge years. The plan was to throw a big party with 100 Buddhist monks as a blessing for the elderly parents ... and for entertainment. No
Sea Horse Soup 2006-06-05 11:06:00 My assistant Coco was chatting up WeirdMeat to a Guangdong-ese friend of hers and they suggested we go to a traditional Chinese medicine shop and get some dried seahorses.
I've always thought sea horses were cute little bizarre animals. I learned that it's actually the male sea horse that gets pregnant and carries the babies, from watching indie rock band Yo La Tengo play a live performance Read more:Horse
Wild Meat Less Popular in China? 2006-06-03 00:53:00 City Weekend magazine May issue carried a story called "Beef, it's what's for dinner" about a recent study by WildAid and China
Wildlife Conservation Association. The study claims that wild animals are becoming less popular with Chinese consumers. I'm a bit suspicious of the numbers -- I've heard other reports on the contrary, that with a newly affluent class in China, more diners can afford to
Weird Meat Feed Fixed 2006-06-03 00:23:00 Yes, we were aware that our Atom/RSS syndication feed was not working properly. Blogger's support was no help. Finally a Weird
Meat fan came through with the solution.
We figured it was a simple stupid fix, and it was, but we were too dumb to figure it out alone. Along came a weasel... well, the guy who does this website: Weasel Trek, and saved the day.
We really like the globetrotting weasel Read more:Fixed
Did AIDS come from eating monkey? 2006-05-27 01:14:00 This question has been discussed for years, but I found a recent article about new research on the origin of the HIV virus. From CNN: Research into wild chimps backs theory people got virus eating
them.
The theory is SIV may have transfered to humans as HIV, and possibly from humans eating monkey
meat, and that this may have happened on a number of occassions. WeirdMeat.com has always felt a Read more:AIDS
Illegal Foods 2006-05-14 22:21:00 We're really big fans of the spicy-numb flavors of Sichuan food. Back in California, we used to cook with lots of "Sichuan peppercorns," which are actually a citrus flower, it turns out. They were illegal because, like a lot of illegal things, they're good for you. Seriously, the FDA worried imports of these might carry a citrus disease. But, we were addicted to the "ma" flavor, so we hunted Read more:Foods
Mmm... Home-Grown Meat 2006-04-25 00:22:00 Is this creepy? "Scientists forecast meat grown on kitchen counter"
Instead of being cut from a farm animal, the beef, pork or chicken would be grown in incubators from a few starter cells, a growth medium and some hormones to get the cells to divide.
-Mon, 27 Mar 2006 14:06:12 EST - CBC News We've all heard of genetic engineering, GMO's, etc. I find this completely creepy, but if Read more:Grown
Tom Cruise Eats Placenta 2006-04-19 03:47:00 Tom Cruise
is having an active publicity year -- couch jumping on Oprah, dishing out mental health advice, publicly gushing about his new love, and all that Church of Scientology stuff. But this new item today is worthy of weird meat gossip. According to this Chinese news website, Xinhua, Tom Cruise
is eating placenta from his new child / mother?
WeirdMeat.com has nothing against eating
Kangaroo vs. Crocodile 2007-08-06 22:55:00 Boya redeems himself by eating the weird jerky
I once called my friend Boya a weird-meat wimp. Today he redeemed himself. He recently returned from a trip to Australia with boxes of Crocodile
Jerky and Kangaroo Jerky. He also picked up some Emu Jerky, but the jerks at New Zealand customs confiscated it. Apparently Kangaroo and Crocodile meat are OK, but we're not sure why the Emu meat wasn't
Eating Bugs at Stone Forest 2007-08-19 13:54:00 Stone Forest
(ShiLin), near Kunming, Yunnan, southwest China.
I'd been wanting to taste bee larvae, a Yunnan Province delicacy, ever since I heard of it years ago. They take bees nests and cook up the baby larvae, and eat it as a snack or appetizer to a full meal.
It was only our first full day in Yunnan, so I wasn't looking for it, I knew I'd get around to it at some point during the trip. Read more:Stone
Hermaphrodite Frog Guts 2007-10-11 00:09:00 We're eating frog guts and it's a pleasant experience. Hasma is frog ovaries, or more precisely, the fallopian tubes of the hermaphrodite frog "Rana temporaria chensinensis, which is also commonly known as the snow frog or forest frog" (according to answers.com).
Hasma in a sweet soup
This is a delicacy in China, these frog fallopians. Like shark fin soup and bird's nest, they are treasured
Dr. Ho 2007-11-23 23:18:00 Travels in Yunnan, SouthWest China.
A few miles north of Lijiang there's a charming little village called Baisha.
We entered as most tourists do, into a temple ground that lies at the front. There's not much to say about temples without getting all academic on yah, but this was worth a look for the tranquility it offered after spending a few days in the bustling alleys of Lijiang. Plus
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