New Discoveries
In celebration of the beginning of my 7th month in Taiwan, I've decided to recap a few of the things I've tried in the last few months/days:
I've tried to be adventurous as possible, culinarily-speaking anyway. I have stopped short of chicken feet and snake blood shots, though. I haven't worked up the courage just yet. Give me a few more months for these tasty treats. The chicken feet just look too much like chicken feet. I mean, they just sort of cut 'em off, clean 'em up, and then cook 'em whole. They have no meat on them, and apparently are oddly chewy. Clearly, this is not something I'm dying to try. Snake blood shots, procurable in Taipei's Snake Alley Nightmarket, although apparently good for virility, and would so clearly make a good story, aren't for me either. Gotta work my way up to that. Apparently, one can also eat deep fried bees, maybe that would be a good stepping stone. First bees, then snake's blood. Eh, why not?
But onto things I have tried:
Lemon Milk Juice: a smoothie-esque drink with lemon rind, milk, sugar, and other assorted goodies...yum!
Stinky Tofu: both fried and in soup form. Soup is pretty damn stinky. You can detects it's particular odor from blocks away. When stopped next to a vendor at a light, the smell is so strong as to feel like it is just as much an full-bodied entity as you are, ready to clock you over the head. It's often compared to moldy cheeses of the west, and I can appreciate that, but even so, I prefer cheese any day!
Seaweed, seaweed, and more seaweed: It's in soups, cooked as a sidedish, sold in strips for a fishy-flavored light snack. Lay's International even has Seaweed flavored potato chips. I gotta say this one has grown on me. I'm a fan.
Millet Wine: This wasn't so much wine as it was grain alcohol. Sweet, grain alcohol. It wasn't bad as far as Taiwanese wines go, Emilie and I split a small bottle of "wine" in the Kenting beach hostel over New Year and the millet wine tasted nothing like the cloyingly sweet, bubble-gum flavored medicine-y taste of that bottle. That aside, it's better to think of it as anything but wine or you'll be sorely disappointed. On a side note, the Taiwanese gov't makes it's own liquor, wine, and cigarettes, selling such wonderfully named brands of cigarettes as Long Life, and Extra Long Life. It's a beautiful thing!
I've tried to be adventurous as possible, culinarily-speaking anyway. I have stopped short of chicken feet and snake blood shots, though. I haven't worked up the courage just yet. Give me a few more months for these tasty treats. The chicken feet just look too much like chicken feet. I mean, they just sort of cut 'em off, clean 'em up, and then cook 'em whole. They have no meat on them, and apparently are oddly chewy. Clearly, this is not something I'm dying to try. Snake blood shots, procurable in Taipei's Snake Alley Nightmarket, although apparently good for virility, and would so clearly make a good story, aren't for me either. Gotta work my way up to that. Apparently, one can also eat deep fried bees, maybe that would be a good stepping stone. First bees, then snake's blood. Eh, why not?
But onto things I have tried:
Lemon Milk Juice: a smoothie-esque drink with lemon rind, milk, sugar, and other assorted goodies...yum!
Stinky Tofu: both fried and in soup form. Soup is pretty damn stinky. You can detects it's particular odor from blocks away. When stopped next to a vendor at a light, the smell is so strong as to feel like it is just as much an full-bodied entity as you are, ready to clock you over the head. It's often compared to moldy cheeses of the west, and I can appreciate that, but even so, I prefer cheese any day!
Seaweed, seaweed, and more seaweed: It's in soups, cooked as a sidedish, sold in strips for a fishy-flavored light snack. Lay's International even has Seaweed flavored potato chips. I gotta say this one has grown on me. I'm a fan.
Millet Wine: This wasn't so much wine as it was grain alcohol. Sweet, grain alcohol. It wasn't bad as far as Taiwanese wines go, Emilie and I split a small bottle of "wine" in the Kenting beach hostel over New Year and the millet wine tasted nothing like the cloyingly sweet, bubble-gum flavored medicine-y taste of that bottle. That aside, it's better to think of it as anything but wine or you'll be sorely disappointed. On a side note, the Taiwanese gov't makes it's own liquor, wine, and cigarettes, selling such wonderfully named brands of cigarettes as Long Life, and Extra Long Life. It's a beautiful thing!
posted by CJ at 5:31 AM
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