Scary Chinese Food

Now I know we typically give a list of all the weird and wonderful things at the end of travelling through a country rather than the beginning. This system usually works well – some things you might meet with horror initially you get used to, and even make sense after a few weeks or so. Others remain pretty terrifying – or at least bizarre! That’s part of the beauty of travelling in strange countries after all. But we have met one thing in China already that we find so disturbing that it deserves a mention of its own.

I read somewhere a long time ago that in some regions of China the people would eat anything whose ‘back faced the sky’. That doesn’t leave much does it? I never took it literally though, but now I think it might be accurate. What crosses your mind when you read the word Scorpion? Deadly sting? Evil-looking leggy thing? Poisonous arthropoid monster? Tasty snack?

In Beijing there are stalls that sell kebabs of various meats and candied fruits. Unfortunately they also sell a local delicacy that puts you off these a bit - a scorpion on a stick! Yes, they have scorpion kebabs. And what’s more, when you purchase them the scorpions are still alive and wriggling. I haven’t actually seen anyone buy one, let alone eat one, so I don’t know whether or not they deep-fry the little devils before presenting them to you, or whether you have to bite the creature while it’s still wriggling - carefully avoiding the sting!

Ah well, on the plus side at least the skewered scorpions make the sea-horse kebabs look tame. But I think I’ll be sticking to a nice bowl of noodles and some Dim Sum myself.