By
Emily Hsieh
, Columbia University
Food
M'mm M'mm Good
Disclaimer: Those offended by ethnic stereotypes, cruelty to animals,
and/or graphic descriptions are not encouraged to read this. All the rest of you
(meaning those of you with sick, twisted minds) are. There, I've given fair
warning.
If you've ever been to a Chinatown, you know how much you can learn about the
kinds of things human beings will eat. Being Taiwanese myself, I have tried my
fair share of funky delicacies and am not ashamed to say I love chicken feet and
pig ears. So you'd think I would be used to all the various animal parts that we
Asians are known for cooking up, but even I have had my share of double takes in
discovering new-fangled foods (or maybe just new to me out of my ignorance).
Being in a Chinese butcher shop is certainly an experience unique unto itself.
You can of course get all your prime cuts of meats - your loins, your rib eye,
innards of all sorts - pork stomach, pork liver, duck blood, "pork
bung" (pork WHAT?!?!? It turns out it's intestines), and my favorite of
all, and I swear I am not making this up - "bone in pork butt"
(doesn't that sound appetizing? "Honey, I don't know what to make for
dinner tonight. What should we get? Oh how about some bone in pork butt for a
change?").
And why stop there? I mean, if they're offering all of the above, why not cow
eyeballs, pig snout (actually, they probably already do), or "loin of cow
groin" (hey, that even rhymes)? Considering that we Chinese are obviously
very literal about our cuts of meat, I was a little surprised to see a mystery
meat mixture (yeah, "mixture" would be the best description) called
"Pork Picnic". Hmm. I know that that's just gotta be a euphemism for
some kind of processed (which would be putting it mildly) pork that even the
Chinese are ashamed to tell the truth about.
In any case, a trip to Chinatown could probably serve as a legitimate field trip
for those entering veterinary school. Where else can one see, in full anatomical
detail, all the parts of a cow or pig without laying a finger on a stiff
cadaver? Chinese butchers could probably lead a more educational dissection than
any professor in the lab.
