Dan Jones VI

Pursuing Curiosity the World Over

  • Home
  • About Dan
    • Contact
  • Resources
    • Public Domain Self-Help Books for the Enlightened Mind

Expand Your Palate, Expand Your Mind

July 16, 2014 By Dan

“Pig penis”, I replied to the British man standing next to me in Yangshuo, China. He noticed that I had just ordered a strange looking mystery meat from the middle-aged Chinese man with a makeshift barbecue stand. “What’s the uh… twirly meat there?” (Read that with a British accent and try not laughing) was his exact question. I responded the only way I knew how, but I could tell it caught him off-guard. “Well is it any good?” he asked. “Probably not, but it’s worth a shot.”

For the record, the pig penis was not delicious. It had a bit of a rubbery texture that was difficult to chew and most the flavor came from a heavy dose of Chinese spices and smoke. Fortunately for me, I was with my good friend Neil, a bearded red-head who makes me look comparably sane when we’re roaming the hinterlands of Asia.

Dan and Neil with minority Chinese women

We’ve always made a habit of trying new foods, especially weird ones. Weird food for weird guys, I guess.

We embraced our unorthodox approach to eating food in Asia early in our travels. In part, we were deliberately experimenting with adapting to new realities, but a lot of it was just out of pure necessity. While we had picked up enough spoken Mandarin to get by in most parts of China, reading Chinese characters on a menu was an entirely different challenge.

It became pretty apparent early on that we could either offend our hosts by asking 27 different questions about the menu in 3rd grade level Chinese (and maybe still not get what we wanted), or we could close our eyes and point to something on the menu. We took the second approach, and while we were slightly less irritating restaurant guests for doing so, we ended up with some wild things on our plates.

It should be noted, China is not a place where wasting food is just a fact of everyday life. School cafeterias in China usually assign a student to stand guard by the waste bin in order to document any student or teacher caught wasting food. Only a few decades removed from the horrors of the Cultural Revolution, mass starvation is still fresh in the minds of most Chinese people. So you can understand why they expect people to eat what they order.

Dan eating a scorpion

Dan eating a scorpion in Beijing

With that in mind, and continuing in the spirit of limiting our probably numerous cultural offenses as best we could, Neil and I made sure to eat as much of what we ordered as possible. That became a challenge when we pointed poorly and wound up with plates full of rodents, organs, feet, and the like.

All told, an incomplete list of the freakiest foods we’ve tried would include:

  • Meat of turtle, frog, pigeon, horse, and sloth–I know… It’s a long story.
  • Pig, chicken, and duck feet.
  • Pig and cow stomach.
  • Pig, cow, and duck intestines.
  • Pig, cow, chicken, and duck liver.
  • Chicken egg with partially developed fetus inside.

Now, those are some unusual foods, but there are stranger things out there that various cultures around the world eat, believe me.

In America, and in the West in general, we’ve gotten used to “having it our way” and being able to choose only the best, most easily likeable foods from a list of diverse cultural favorites that would make the Roman Empire jealous.

But what’s happened to our palates in the meantime? Remember the phrase “acquired taste”? I’m not sure enough of us are willing to be patient and open-minded enough to acquire new tastes. And that’s just plain boring.

Consider some of your favorite things in life. Musicians, drinks, hobbies, games, and yes, foods. Did you like all of them the moment you first heard, tasted, or tried them? I doubt it.

Exercising some patience and a little courage by trying new foods makes for a more exciting life. It’s as simple as that. And I don’t just mean a bite of something so you can later tell your friends you tried it. I mean honestly, repeatedly, and optimistically giving new foods a chance.

If you had asked just over a year ago if I would enjoy eating salted, dried anchovies, I would’ve said absolutely not. Now, I spend way too much time and money trying to replicate Malaysian dishes with dried anchovies. I can’t get enough of them.

If simply making your life a little more interesting isn’t enough to get you to branch out in the eating department, do it for your brain. Science has shown that new experiences, even trying new foods, leads to the growth of neurons. With each new taste you experience, new neurons begin to fire into existence. Having an adventurous palate literally grows your brain. Who can’t use a bigger brain?

So the next time you have the opportunity to eat something that makes your stomach turn a bit just thinking about it, go all in and give it a whirl. But don’t say I didn’t warn you about the twirly meat.

(Visited 245 times, 2 visits today)

Filed Under: Culture Tagged With: Asia, culture, food, palate

Expats Blog

Comments

  1. Arron says

    July 16, 2014 at 7:06 am

    Hey, Dan. Really funny story. Many foreigners are shocking about some certain Chinese food. You are the first one I know who want to try them.

    • Dan says

      August 20, 2014 at 10:07 pm

      Yep, life’s more exciting with unusual food…

Most Popular Posts

  • Carvana Review: The Car-Buying Revolution
  • Top 10 Words You Mispronounce That Make You Sound…
  • Cultural Echoes of Fast & Furious
  • Everything Has a Price, Except Trash
  • Bad Manners in Big China

Keep Tabs On Dan!

As a subscriber, receive special updates on Dan's whereabouts and happenings. Not to mention some free goodies to come...

Be Social, Follow Dan

  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Past Posts

  • May 2018 (2)
  • April 2018 (3)
  • February 2018 (1)
  • February 2017 (1)
  • June 2016 (1)
  • March 2016 (1)
  • December 2015 (1)
  • November 2015 (1)
  • August 2015 (1)
  • July 2015 (3)
  • June 2015 (5)
  • May 2015 (4)
  • April 2015 (4)
  • March 2015 (5)
  • February 2015 (4)
  • January 2015 (4)
  • December 2014 (7)
  • November 2014 (5)
  • October 2014 (4)
  • September 2014 (5)
  • August 2014 (5)
  • July 2014 (5)

Recent Comments:

  • An American's Take on GE14 in Malaysia and What the Future Holds on The Case for Not Voting in Elections
  • An American's Take on GE14 in Malaysia and What the Future Holds on Learning to Live With Rats: How Humans Adapt
  • #RedForEd in AZ - Why Americans Are Seeing Red Over Public Schools on The Case for Not Voting in Elections
  • Dan on Ode to My Aging Passport
  • Tim on Ode to My Aging Passport

Connect with Dan:

Facebook Google Plus Instagram Twitter

© Copyright 2017 DanJonesVI.com · Privacy Policy · All Rights Reserved