Eric's Beijing Diary

Food. The food is absolutely incredible. If I talked about every good meal I have eaten since I have been here, I wouldn't have time to talk about anything else. Most tastes are acquired, that's just the way it is. This means that if you are confronted with something you have never eaten before, it is likely going to taste strange. Not everything tastes good. There is a very natural reaction to something that is different from what you are used to. Now, I am a pretty adaptable person when it comes to food. I figured that whatever food I was confronted with, I could probably learn to live with it. But I have been subjected to meal after meal after meal of incredibly delicious food. I don't know what I am going to do about it. This is something I was completely unprepared for. I don't know...I might have to stop eating breakfast. As I said, there just isn't time enough in the day to talk about every good meal I have had--I have never had so many good meals in such a short time in all my life. If this doesn't stop, its going to be a serious problem. Mind you, it's a problem that I thoroughly enjoy, but it still gives me concern. I really do get a lot more excercise now then when I was living in Arizona. I walk everywhere. But I am eating like a king. Just a couple of examples:

Last night I went with three other students to a very nice restaurant near the campus. Peking duck. I am sure most everyone has heard of the world renowned "Peking duck." But perhaps not everyone knows that you can't just eat it straight. I started to, but the students stopped me. You have to take a miniature taco shell and put a few pieces of the duck in this soft shell. Then you take these stringy vegetables that look like celery and dip them in this black sauce and put them in the taco shell with the meat. Then you roll it up and eat it. Very, very good. But that isn't all. There are the side dishes: this stuff made of chicken and peanuts, and then lots of steamed vegetables. Plus this hair-thin french fry stuff. We ate our fill. Satiated. Full. Well satisfied.
I said, "Hao chi."
They said, "Not bad."

Tonight, I went with a couple of students to another restaurant to have boiled fish, Sichuan style. First the guy takes this fish out of the tank where it is swimming around, and he shows it to us. Then, whap! whap! as he kills the fish. Then it goes in the pot, while we are served some side dishes. Again, that stuff made from chicken and peanuts. And plenty of unusual vegetables. Finally, the fish comes. Boiled white fish. It is boiled in a sauce filled with peppers. The lady comes and scoops the peppers out. Then we start digging in. I have always liked fish, but fish that is fresh out of the water is hard to compare with. I don't exaclty know what the sauce is made of, but it must be fattening, because it is really, really tasty. As we were pigging out on the fish, the lady comes with some egg and tomato soup. And rice. Of course, there are lots of vegetables. Fish is good, but fresh fish that was caught less then 15 minutes before it was sitting on our table is pretty hard to beat. We all ate our fill. Cost? We eached kicked in 20 kwai. That's about two dollars and fifty cents.