Tastes Like Noodles

Oh what a few days it has been. It's been a bit of an emotional roller coaster since we got our site placement, since we're going to be splitting off from so many of the people we've come to know and depend on at our training site. We had what felt like an intensely competitive "language simulation" on Friday, which basically felt like we were on some kind of Try to Survive in China game show. Followed by another "go find your way to this place and answer questions" field trip (on which I was thankfully able to score some occidental culinary herb seeds, which I will hopefully be able to grow), followed by beers with the training sitemates, followed by host family, followed by not enough sleep, more language classes, Chinese banquet simulation, then KTV (Chinese Karaoke), and finally, our very first Sichuan hotpot experience.

Our host family decided that celebrating our site placement was a good opportunity to introduce us to Chengdu style hotpot since Chongqing and Chengdu are in fierce competition for the title of Best Sichuan Hotpot. Chengdu is known for being more oily and Chongqing is known for being more brothy, but also more spicy. This particular eating venue also featured miniature Sichuan opera style performances. The pot looked generally like the ones Richy and I had eaten from for previous cook-your-food-in-broth-meals in Korea and at Beijing Hotpot in Portland, but you could tell that the oil to broth ratio was leaning much more toward the oil and that there were a heck of a lot of hot peppers floating on top. Spiciness is something we have definitely become accustomed to and expect from any decent Sichuanese meal, but we weren't expecting our typically non-offal eating host family to suddenly order duck intestine, cow stomach and cow kidney. What a celebration!

First to come to the table was a rack, kind of what you might expect to hang doll clothes on. But there were no doll clothes on this rack. There were clean, thinly sliced strips of duck intestine, looking very much like slightly pink shiny noodles. Not too terrifying looks-wise. Ge-ge puts one in the pot, pulls it out a few minutes later, dips it in sauce and slurps it like a noodle. Jie-jie asssures me "it does not smell or taste terrible." I followed Ge-ge's example and slurped up my duck intestine, which as long as you don't call it duck intestine, is actually not bad. It tastes just like a noodle, but with a very delicate texture. The next dish was very thinly sliced, and the way Jie-jie refused to tell us what it was, we knew it came from somewhere deep inside an animal. She told us she would tell us after we tried it. Again, she assures us, "it does not smell or taste terrible." We dipped the slightly shiny, pinkish-grey slices into the broth, let them cook, dipped them in oil and ate them. Flavor was not a factor, the texture reminded me of mushrooms, and I found myself thinking, "I am fine not knowing what this is." Apparently it was cow kidney. Next, Ge-ge offered us dark grey, prickly-looking slices that were most definitely not going in my mouth. At this point, I draw the line at things that look hairy. Which apparently means I draw the line at cow stomach. I don't think I would ever order these items for myself, but I feel I've reached a certain cultural turning point knowing that duck intestines taste as inoffensively as egg noodles.