Snacking on the Great Wall: Spicy Pork Paste

This snack was sampled on our camping trip on the Great Wall of China. Think of it as a spicy version of Underwood Deviled Ham, which I admit I have a weakness for in spite of it's high fat content. In the Chinese version, unsurprisingly, the fat chunks were even larger (if you look closely you can see some of them). Mmmm. We sampled it on crackers, and as usual I'm the only one that even remotely liked it.

The Cutest Snack Ever

After that last snack, I thought we needed one that was a little more pleasant. I came upon this street food when we were in Hangzhou last month. Isn't it adorable? I had to buy it because it came in a little basket. I'm not sure what gives it the purple color, but the rice was sticky and sweet, there was dried fruit on top, and I ate it with the little green two-pronged fork that was provided.

Green Gelatinous Snack with Meat

Apparently this snack is for Tomb Sweeping Day, which was at the beginning of April. The best way to understand this is with an unveiling of the snack in photos:

Here is the snack, in a cute and unassuming little box, no more than a couple of inches across. Looks pretty harmless.

Inside we find a green globule.

Unwrap and...who's in here? It's meat floss (dried shredded meat).

The meat floss begins to emerge.

I had to play with it awhile before I ate it. Maybe it's because it was actually just like that green slime we used to play with as kids, only slightly firmer. But the texture was identical.

Taste: Sweet, sticky and soft outside, and meaty, salty and fuzzy inside. I don't think those adjectives should go together. Ever.

Cheese Ice Cream

I found this at a snack stand in Hangzhou. It did in fact have a hint of Swiss cheese flavor to it. No holes, though.

Pouch-o-Rice

This little noodle packet holds soy-flavored sticky rice. It's eaten hot and is really rather good. We bought them at the local grocery store.

Bamboo Shoots

Okay, so I didn't try the bamboo shoots myself, but isn't he cute? We watched him eat at Ocean Park in Hong Kong. Looks like he likes them.

Purple Rice Fruit Cake

I don't really know what this is, but I saw them at the grocery store and I thought they were pretty. They have candied fruits on them, like our fruit cake, golden raisins, and pine nuts. The rice is probably mixed with red bean paste. Overall it tasted a little sweet, a little fruity and really ricey. Maybe not my idea of a great dessert, but not too bad, either.

Mandarin Oranges

These oranges are tiny, about 1 1/2 to 2 inches across, but they are sweet, tangy and juicy. The best oranges we've ever had. Everyone here eats them like candy.

During the Chinese New Year season you can buy large gift boxes of mandarins to give to friends and family, for around 5USD. We just selfishly buy them for ourselves!

Stinky Tofu

We finally did it. We tried the infamous stinky tofu that everyone has been talking about. This is our story:

On our first foray into old downtown Suzhou, we smelled a terrible, terrible smell. In China, it's easy to find unusual odors. It may be at the wet market, with it's mix of fresh fruits and vegetables, meats, fish, and animals waiting for slaughter. It may be the smell of stale tobacco in the taxi. It may be someone's tea-soaked breath. If you're really sensitive to this, don't come to China, but honestly, for me it is all part of the charm (okay, not the breath). This smell, however, was unlike anything I'd smelled before, kind of like a combination of excrement and something rotting, and I assumed it was the sewer gasses wafting up to the street.

The next time we went to downtown Suzhou we smelled the same thing, and Don and I remarked at how offensive this smell was. It wasn't until a few weeks later, again in downtown Suzhou, that one of the kids said, "Oh, that's the stinky tofu."


"That is NOT a food!" I was unconvinced, but we tracked down the source and there it was. I determined that I would have to try it, but, well, maybe I needed to work up to it.

Last week, on an outing with my mom, we stopped at an outdoor stand in a park for some snacks and there it was. I was feeling adventurous, and rather hungry, so Allyne, my mom and I went for it.


Here are the pictures:














This is the tofu marinating in liquid, possibly fermented milk, vegetables and/or meat.















Here, the woman at the food stand deep-fries the tofu in hot oil.
















Here it is! The sauce was spicy and a little sweet, and the tofu was crunchy on the outside, but soft in the middle. The tofu tasted like, well, like deep-fried tofu with a savory, meaty flavor. And only a hint of the flavor that made it smell so bad.

So, did we like it?

We had seconds.