I recently spent 10 days in a little town way out in the west of China – in a mountainous region – about 150 kilometers outside of Chengdu. There were no KFC’s or McDonald’s to be found in this remote area – not even fake ones (that should tell you how far out I really was) – so I had to fill up with the local food. One of the main staples of this little town (and throughout the region) is Malatang which is a Chinese word meaning ‘spicy and hot’. Malatang is basically an extreme version of Sichuan’s famous Hot Pot where anything and everything is thrown into a boiling hot cauldron full of spicy juices and then fished out a few minutes later to be eaten with chopsticks. A few days later, the tangy taste continues to inhabit my mouth no matter how many times I brush my teeth.
After living in China (and Mexico) for a few years, I could handle the spiciness but it was the actual content of the big pot that made me a bit uneasy. Have a look.
At first I thought these were pig's intenstines so you can imagine my 'great' relief when I found out that I was actually looking at Pig brain!
Cow stomach is another popular malatang ingredient.
See this big spoonful? Someone is about to dump it into my bowl (good ol' Chinese hospitality) and soon I will be munching on cow stomach, pig brain, turtle eggs and other delightful pices of who'knows'what.
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I live in Xiamen my wife is from Gwun Ping village (spelling will be wrong) and there is a town near there called Datian this place has a special mushroom called Hong goo and this makes a slightly red coloured soup, this mushroom only grows in this area and is expensive to locals but for us westerners not so, A bowl of Hong goo soup will cost about 100 rmb so i am told and i can tell you is nothing like any other Chinese dish it is really delicious and my wife got a big bag to keep at our home and cook with, nice with chicken and also noodles.
If you get a chance try it out.
Also i will diverge off the subject of china for a moment and if you like food check out allrecipes.com really great website well worth registering on as people are really helpful and tell you what substitutes to put in the food recipes which living in china necessitates.
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