Deer Antler Gum Drops

I spent last Christmas eve up in Shenyang, China. Shenyang is a city in the cold harsh north, half way between Beijing and Russia. I had one of those stupid DJ gigs where I got to play for 20 minutes in between some Russian dancers and a group of Chinese b-boy break dancers (who do their routine to bad Chinese teenage pop music). The Chinese like to party wild on Xmas -- someone never told them it's more of a family holiday, were we sit inside sipping egg nog and watching the fireplace -- no, they like to get sh*t-faced drunk in a nightclub and whoop it up. Anyway, I spent 8 hours at the Shenyang Airport on Xmas day cause my flight back was delayed, "due to delay."

Their internet wasn't working and I'd failed to bring a book, so I had to resort to shopping at the airport. They had a shop specializing in exotic medicinals from the north-east of China. Deer antlers. Deer penis. Siberian tiger testicles. Weird dried mushrooms. Twigs, branches, and a variety of ginseng-like things. The penises were far too expensive, so I bought a bag of candy -- "Pilose Antler Soft Sweets" -- gum drops made from deer antlers.


(the product is called "Pilose Antler Soft Sweets". Pilose means having soft, fine hairs. Yes, the antlers are fuzzy.)

Poor Rudolph, his horns melted down to make soft candies, eaten on Christmas day.

* Check out these posts of us eating Deer Placenta, and Deer Penis Wine.

* (that guy on the left in the first photo is Luke. He's a hipster. See the unnecessary scarf worn with the hunting hat?)

Spicy Tit ?

Blogging has been difficult as the tool is blocked in China, where WeirdMeat is currently spending time eating. But we managed to find a little loop hole. It's not perfect but we're going to try to post this.

A friend snapped this photo in Shanghai. A Chinglish menu gem, for sure. "Spicy Tit" ~~~!!!

Octopus Beak

I've been writing about weird meat for a while now, so I get quite excited when I run into a new weird food that I've never seen before -- especially when I have no idea what it is...

I was at the Huang Long seafood market in the city of Hangzhou, which is one of my favorite places to eat in China. There are about 50 stalls all with live and fresh seafood of all sorts, and aggressive hawkers try to lure you in to their sections. Some of them chase you with giant live crabs, others amuse you by doing vulgar things with phallic sea creatures.

I like to check out all the freaky ocean critters before setting down to eat. Most of the stuff I've seen and eaten before, but this time I ran across a display of something I just had no idea what it could be...



Is that a bird head? A bear claw? A shark tooth?

It turns out to be an octopus beak. I'd forgotten they had beaks like this, hidden under their rubbery blubbery head. Looks strong and sharp and curved like a parrot's beak.



You hold it and eat the flesh around the beak. I suppose we could call it octopus "neck". The meat was dried like a jerky, and kind of reminded me of eating a duck or chicken neck. I'm sure you'd like it.

Octopuses, I mean octopi, er, (what is the plural of octopus anyway?) are crazy crazy creatures. Here's a nice page about them here, with more photos of their beaks. Here's an octopus beak in a museum exhibit -- looks like a bird head eh!

And then finally, this rather disturbing image of a giant squid beak getting fingered:


Image from Smithsonian

Food You Don't Like...

photo of "uni" (sea urchin) by Inside-Japan

You know how there's some foods out there that people have a hard time with? I'm not talking about the "weird" stuff we usually write about. Stuff like ... dried coconut. I know so many people who just can't stand it. They won't even eat German chocolate cake (one of my favorites) or Mounds candy bars, because of the coconut. Then there's stuff like, oh... licorice, cinnamon, kimchee or sea urchin (uni), that many people refuse to try. Or they try it once and give up. Imagine if they did that with sex -- which is always bad the first time.


photo of kimchi

My dad has this thing with rye bread. He can't eat it. No rye bread. Could never figure that one out, it's just bread! The whole family picks on him because of it. He eats everything else though. Maybe a bad childhood experience involving rye bread?

Other people have problems with cheese. Some people don't like fish. I knew one guy who refused to eat anything green. (I have the opposite problem -- if there's nothing green on the table I get grumpy and my appetite shuts down.)

So, I'd like to start a list here of foods people don't like. The more non-logical the better. Don't like spinach, or pickles with peanut butter and bananas, or licorice chewing gum? Have you ever met anyone who doesn't like pizza? Tell us about it ... comments below.
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