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.

Cici Aloe Drink (?)

Well, after the last entry, I thought I needed more of a challenge, and I found it in an aloe flavored snack-in-a-pouch. It winningly has Jay Chou on the package, who my girls assure me is the current heart-throb in China and beyond. I asked Allyne what it tasted like, and then stopped listening as I put the straw in my mouth. I took a long sip and..Whoa! Those were chunks! My eyes got big and Allyne laughed at me, "Mom, I just told you it had jelly chunks." Turns out it isn't even actually green, but it's from a green plant, in a green package, and I think I kind of turned green trying it. That qualifies it as a green snack right there.

Kiwi and Aloe Yogurt

I've always shunned green colored foods, unless they look like they just grew out of the ground. I remember as a kid being sorely disappointed in mint-chip ice cream (I think I cried) and avoiding green KoolAid at birthday parties. Green candy and Jello were other's I've stayed away from, as I've found the "apple" and "lime" flavors to be inedible. Fortunately, artificial green foods were few and far between, so it wasn't hard to avoid them.

Well, no more. After my last post, I realized how many green snacks there are here in China. I could avoid them as I always have, there are so many others to try, but I think it is time I face my fear of "green" and review some of the several green-colored snacks I've noticed on the shelves here. So next, I've tried a green yogurt, kiwi and aloe flavored (it was even in English so no guessing this time).

Normally, aloe is associated with medicinal or cosmetic purposes, so I was wary of this one. What does aloe even smell like? It just doesn't seem like a food. I'm kind of neutral on kiwis, and combined with what seems like a non-food flavor, I really didn't expect much from this one. But, to be honest, it wasn't that bad. It had a good amount of kiwi chunks, not too big, in it, and I really couldn't detect what was supposed to taste like aloe, reinforcing my colorless and flavorless opinion of it. I probably just liked it because I love the not-too-sweet, full-fat Chinese yogurt, and pretty much any flavor I've tried so far I've liked okay. So maybe this one was too easy. We'll see about the others...

The Snack of the Unknown Name

We have some really worrisome snacks on deck, so let's go with a good one while we get our courage up. These are candied walnuts covered in sesame seeds, and they are seriously tasty! We may buy some more so that we can cleanse our palates after some of the nasty ones.

Caplico Ice Cream Cone Cookies

I had to buy these, since they look just like little ice cream cones. The vanilla one tasted exactly like cream-filled wafer cookies. The green one I assume was supposed to be mint, but it really didn't taste like it. Actually, it tasted a bit like fish. Ew.

Potepo potato sticks

These sticks taste exactly like a buttered baked potato, except crispy and in a stick form. It's kind of disturbing, really, yet they are oddly addicting.

House of steamed potato

These are crackers, that taste like Pringles. But better, really. I'm glad the Chinese share my obsession with potatoes. I just wish they also shared my obsession with cheese.

Finger Licking Braised Pork Flavor

Oh, I love the name of this one. The Chinese are obsessed with KFC, so I'm sure that's why the "finger licking" part comes into play, but braised pork? I had to buy this one. In homage to Don's previous post, this is the one that is reminiscent of Violet Beauregarde and the three-course-meal chewing gum; it tastes like an entire Chinese meal in a chip. Which is a little disconcerting. It does, however, lead to the obvious, and no doubt forthcoming, chip creation: Finger Licking Braised Pork and Blueberry Flavor. If it's good enough for Violet...

Even Emma won't eat them

Yes, you read the package right. Blueberries are great in some things... muffins, pancakes, straight into your mouth, etc. Blueberries are not so great in other things... like potato chips.

We already have blueberry issues in our home. If we ever let Emma get to the package, she eats them all before anyone else gets a chance. It is a really obnoxious aberration in her otherwise unselfish nature. We have tried to remind her of Violet's fate in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but it has no effect (I'm making light of this, but it has been a real family fight. In an effort to enforce real-world consequences for her impulsiveness, we once made her go to church with a stomachache after eating a pound of blueberries that no one else got to eat in muffins).

The good news is that they really do taste like potatoes and blueberries (slightly salty). That is also the bad news. Perhaps we can use them as some sort of aversion therapy for Emma by forcing her to eat the whole bag. For now, we have the rest of the unfinished package (minus about 10 chips) in the cupboard. Even she won't eat them.

Italian Red Meat Flavor Chips

The Chinese love potato chips. At least based on the number of chip varieties, one would have to come to that conclusion. As I also have a weakness for all things potato, I will be reviewing as many types of potato chips as I can find. And there are many.

Here's one to start with: Lay's Italian Red Meat Flavor Chips

First, what exactly is Italian Red Meat? Not sure about that, nor am I certain I know what is in the bowl on the label. Is it pasta sauce? Minestrone? If you look closely you can see one rotini in the bowl. So it must be soup. Right?

The chips themselves are indeed red and do have a slightly meaty flavor, not unlike barbecue flavor chips, however I think these are sweeter, thanks to the aspartame. I don't detect what would identify them as "Italian" at all, but maybe it is the hint of tomato in the mix. So I guess this was not at all Italian, marginally meaty, and definitely red.

What are these?

These little fellas look like miniature dinner rolls. Maybe they are supposed to be served with bite sized meatloaf. Actually, the taste is more like Kix cereal. The kid on the package shows up on all kinds of products, and obviously he wants you to be happy in your snacking. Sometimes he is on dairy products, so maybe this package really is a tiny serving of breakfast cereal, and we are dumb foreigners for eating it plain.