From Grits to Chopsticks

Living in China presents us with the opportunity to eat some unique foods — things that we never ate in the West.  Some of the meat items aren’t too strange, like pigs feet and potatoes,black chicken,and a wide variety of barbeque choices:But when you depart from meat dishes, things start to get interesting.  Recently, one of our students gave us something different in a “romantic” box:They turned out to be a special type of  mushroom: These 灵芝 (língzhī) mushrooms are supposed to be good for your health.  You break them up, boil them, and drink the liquid:Another student recently brought us a bagful of Lotus Pods:Each pod has a number of seeds which are peeled, split, and eaten after removing the green thing from the center:A bagful of pods contains a lot of seeds:We also received some 杨梅 (yángméi) from our neighbor:These sweet berries are only available for a short season and can be candied or eaten raw.  Another common fruit at this time of year is 荔枝 (lìzhī):These have a nice white center and are easy to peel, pit, and eat:Similar to lìzhī (but larger) are the dark purple 山竹 (shānzhú – mountain pearl):After breaking through the thick skin, inside you will find soft white segments (the pearls):If all of this doesn’t entice you to come and visit us in China, don’t fret: we also have familiar western food at the Pizza Hut downtown.  Here is an advertisement posted in our elevator to start your hunger pains:I’m not too sure what the toppings are, but the crust is very tasty!