November 17th, 2005 Today I had the teaching staff over for dinner. It was a fun social event, and it was once again nice to interact with some of the teachers after hours. We had a bit of a food exchange, Martina and I both prepared Western style dishes, and the Chinese teachers prepared a Chinese dish. Martina made a cold noodle salad (with homemade mayonnaise, which is the firs t time I can say I actually liked mayonnaise), which was rather good. I made Potatoes O’Brian, diced potatoes with bell pepper and onion, and fried in butter with a little cheese. Both went over very well, and one teacher commented that the smell of butter in the air reminded her of her time in the states. The Chinese teachers all pitched in and made Chinese style dumplings. They chopped everything up very finely, including spring onions, several other vegetables I couldn’t recognize, along with egg, beef and shrimp and mixed everything together in a bowl. Then, they put a bit of the mixture onto a flat square of dough, and folded it up like a tortellini. They also showed Martina and I how to make them, and we got make a few ourselves. It was a fun cultural experience. After all the dishes were prepared, we all dug in and had a feast. In addition to the dumplings, the Chinese guests also brought other common Chinese food, including things that were a bit more exotic. They had pickled beef, as well as pickled cartilage, both of which had an odd flavor to Martina (I didn’t try them) as well as pickled fish, where you could eat the head and eyes. But, perhaps the most exotic dish, were the pickled chicken’s feet. They are apparently quite a common dish in Asia, but to us Westerns, it was just too bizarre to even think about trying (they claws were still on the feet, which just made it too ghastly). However, the Chinese there, just dug in and ate them up without thinking twice. I guess when you’re used to eating these things; it doesn’t seem to be so strange. Many Asian countries have been very poor for most of their history, and meat especially was very rare for most people to eat. So the Asians of the past made good and sure to eat every single bit they could, and pickle the rest to preserve it for later. But even now that they are much wealthier than in the past, they still have the taste for such foods. They still eat things like the internal organ, such as intestines, liver, kidneys, feet and occasionally even eyes, although they can afford to only eat the more select cuts of meat now. Additionally, they still widely enjoy pickled foods, even though modern refrigeration makes such preservation unnecessary. I understand where it comes from and that once you’re use to such smells and flavors, they can be quite delicious and when the tables are turned, perhaps some of our common foods could seem bizarre or inedible (I’ve had Chinese people tell me that they find the odor of cheese to be strange and repugnant- and how could anyone think of eating rotten milk anyway?). And I guess if I were starving…. I’d eat chicken feet too.