Lizard Soup
One of my favorite areas in Hong Kong is the herbal medicine shop streets around Sheung Wan. For reasons I won't get into here, these shops carry an amazing variety of real deal Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), that you almost cannot find in mainland China anymore. In Shanghai pharmacies, for example, they look at you like you're nuts if you ask for herbals instead of pills. They think they're being "modern", we guess. In Hong Kong they still have the good stuff, or as the proverbial tourist might say, the weird stuff. Dried sea creatures, mystery animal parts, deer antlers, tiger penis, wine with whole king cobras, and stacks and heaps of herbs and twigs and tree bark. This is where I always stock up on Kam Wo Cha, the boxed herbal tea -- the best cold cure I've ever found.
It's not just the large selection that makes this TCM shopping district special -- it's the quality, the sights, the scent, the classic atmosphere, and the openly friendly service.
We'll have to devote several upcoming posts to Traditional Chinese Medicine weirdness, but we decided to start with these cute Ta!wan tree lizards we found...
The lady at the TCM shop explained that the lizards are best in a soup, and set out collecting all the bits and pieces to make the soup with. The soup ingredients (herbs) are yam, chinese dates, ginseng, medlar, and something called tragacanth. About 10 grams of each. I'm American, so I don't know what grams are. You cook these herbs with some pork bones and the lizards. The TCM shopkeeper told me I could eat the lizards (snap off the head and limbs and toss them out) and that the tails are the best, as in beneficial, parts to eat. They're reported to be good for asthma, colds, lungs and heart.
The lizards at the market were dried and tied to wooden sticks, two a piece. One is a male, the other female. The pharmacist told us they were all lizard couples, and that we're supposed to consume both genders together in the soup. We felt better knowing these married lizards perished together -- is this practised anywhere else, with other animals-for-consumption?
Anyway, the lizards sort of dissolved into the soup -- maybe we cooked it too long? -- but we did get a few little bites of bona fide lizard meat, and they were kinda tartly fishy tasting, and very boney.
Yes, that's a lizard coming out of my mouth.
Labels: HK, Hong Kong, lizard, soup, TCM, traditional chinese medicine
posted by Michael @ 8:33 PM
15 comments
15 Comments:
DUDE !
i knew there was something weird about you !
; )
touch sooner
jon
Wow!! You actually consumed that! Very impressive. I bought a pair of them lizards for medicinal curios at a chinatown pharmacy in Honolulu. The pharmacist(?) said that you could put them in a blender with alcohol, and the drink would "make you strong".
(Picture the previous statement said with arm motion intended to denote erect penis)
Hi
I've been lurking on your blog for quite a while, and I really appreciate your approach and your tone. It is said that to know a country you have to taste it. Well there you go.
I must say stuff like beef tongue is no weird meat to me at all. Mind you, I'm French, and we do eat so-called weird meats like horse, snails, frogs legs, tongue, brains, heart, guts, testicles, rectums, etc. And it's all yummy.
I'll be in HK next week. Can't wait.
BWT
I found this blog and started reading and I got shocked! As brazilian - we don't eat live animals , neither "weird" , as asian do - and vegetarian, looking at this pictures made me sick!
But congratulations, you are determinated on your studies and very brave to eat this things!
ps. It's commum here this kind of foods - ears, tongue, tail, nose and feet of pigs, tongue and testicles of bulls, cock's testicle, içá ( a big ant ) and others.... In Brazil's north and northeast has lots of different foods ( animals and vegetables, fruits.... )
Até mais!
I dont suppose you've tried this ancient chinese tea thing called puerh cha. From what I know, its the craze in china at the moment.
omg...i need to send my frens here...they think im a freak coz i ate silkworms...wonder wat they'd have to say abt ur food habits?!
:-)
Way back in my post-college years, I used to use tracaganth gum for making incense.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragacanth
I'm currently living in NYC (though not for much longer), and regularly stop off in Flushing's (Queens) Chinatown, which these days rivals Manhattan's. Lots of herbalists/"pharmacists", with barrels and bins of dried sea-creatures, fungi, and less readily identifiable things.
I don't dare mess with most of those, but a Chinese co-worker turned me on to an herb she called "buddha-fruit", used as a tea for cold remedies. I think one of the transliterations is Ma Huang.
I'll sell you some lizards. I also have squirrels, rabbits, pigeons, sea gulls, crows. Very good for your health.
I've been looking through your site for a long while now and this picture with the lizard's head has finally in all its worth made me feel awful.
Damn my western sensibilities!
Keep up the good work!
Those are Tokay Geckos. Very brilliantly colored (when alive), but also, VERY aggressive
This blog is great. You are extremely brave. And lucky to have this opportunity! Well done though, I'm really enjoying reading this.
Don't know if I could do the lizard in mouth thing though :(
P.
First off - this is an amazing blog. I only discovered it today and I'm already half way through all of your various weird meat eating exploits.
Secondly - those aren't tokays. Those aren't geckos at all, actually. My friend owns three tokays, and I've been bit by them enough to recognize them, dead or alive and they don't have those flaps running down the sides of their bodies.
If they're the same grams I use, there are about 25g to 1oz.
good write ups, really interesting but the whole thing with tiger penis is horrible, tigers are practically extinct. Less than 5,000 WILD tigers left, don't encourage poaching by at least avoiding these shops.
Yes, Tigers are almost extinct, and as a Result, forbidden to hunt. Most tiger Penis is likely dog Penis in Reality, not that it tastes much different. So don't worry, but you can also ask for dog Penis for Start, they will give you the same Thing for cheaper.
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