Here are some friends with simlar question as we.And I have this question for many days,anyone help us?
Kitty said: Yes.Why do chinese people eat horrible things ?-I try seach this on internet but no results found.Maybe this is a stupid question.
Mike said: oh,no,you are wrong.I have found as below for this question(Why do chinese people eat horrible things ?),it will help you,my kids.
i am not being racist here. i just finished reading an article in national geographic about china.
the chinese food markets sell meat of everything on earth from rats, dogs, owls, snakes, scorpions, frogs, etc
it really made me vomit. why do chinese eat such disgusting stuff. Is there any special reason.
Answer:
It's all edible, and I think most of it would probably be far better for you than most of the fast food here. I have relatives in Europe that eat alot of fish dishes that would probably make the average person quiver. Alot of cured herring, eel, etc. Surprisingly good if you actually try it. For most people like us that come from a place where the food is always plentiful, we take for granted the ability to choose what we want to have whenever we want it. It rarely comes down to eating whatever you have to. I had a neighbor when I was younger who had relatives visit from Russia. When they saw the grocery store here, they wept at the fact there was so much food that you could actually buy. Hard for us to imagine standing in lines for a bit of food. My grandfather loves to eat rabbit, the main reason being the fact that he spent the entire Second World War in occupied Holland. There were many times he and others were literally living hand to mouth, and his ability to catch rabbits meant the difference between having supper or not. This is not to say that this is the case in China, but understand that people are shaped by circumstance, and what is plentiful can dictate what is on the menu more often than not. A person loses alot of fussiness in a hurry when there isn't alot to choose from. It is all edible after all, and the people of China just may look the same way at what we eat over here. If you saw what goes in to alot of the processed foods we have here, such as weiners, you just may think twice before eating them again.
But the thing is, they think it's normal?? Wierd I know! Other countries eat even nastier things...it's called culture.
It's their culture. If the belly of the animal faces the ground it can be eaten (birds don't count for some reason).
It's part of their culture. Food is food no matter where you go. Bugs are surprisingly high in protein. Some people are disgusted that Westerners drink cow milk.
The only problem I have with Eastern cultures is their adherence to ridiculous folk cures that rely on killing rare animals, like snorting powdered rhino horns to cure impotence.
No, there is no specific reason. It's just what they grew up around. Their ratburger is just like a hamburger to us(I kno,revolting,LOL!).
Maybe because they are desperately poor?
Not the same reason as why Luther Vandeross was eating Luther sandwiches...
I'm chinese.. I eat frogs and snakes but i dont eat any other things you mentioned..As far as I know, snakes are good for health, so are any other horrible things.. Beside, maybe they taste good..who knows..
I'm with you...but then again we have people in the United States that also eat frogs, squirrels, possums, snakes, etc. etc. It's just a part of their culture. I once saw this special on HBO where they showed kids in China actually going up to cages and picking which cat they wanted to eat. The server then snagged the chosen cat and proceeded to first boil it alive in water to get rid of the fur and then chopped the head off, gutted it and cooked it in oil like we'd cook a chicken. They then showed the kids eating it like it was a Chicken McNugget. The very idea to us here in the U.S. makes us want to vomit. However they, the Chinese and other cultures, view dogs, cats, and rats as just another source of food, much like we tend to view cattle, poultry, and pork.
It is normal -to them.
But you only find this in southern part of China, Guang Dong. Yes, they eat cats, dogs, rats, everything they can get.
That is not sick i think, the sick thing is that they like torture of the animal before it dies. The more pain the animal had in it's life, the better it taste, now thats pretty sick i think.
Actually, every race, creed, culture eats disgusting things. In the US many people eat offal meats (innards of animals-liver, tongue, heart, lungs, glands, etc) which I've always thought was pretty gross. Also think of haggus (no offense to anybody) it's a Scottish dish where you take the stomach of a sheep and stuff it with it's heart, liver, lungs, brain and eyes and then age it. bleah in my opinion. Or calamari-why would anyone eat a cute little squid? Or on lobster and shrimp-did you know the thing they call a "vein" on their back is actually their intestines? Yup, lobster poop has been eaten as a delicacy for hundreds of years, again I say bleah. Disgusting is just relative, can you imagine how weird some other cultures must think it is for westerners to drink the milk of a cow? I mean how did that start in the first place? "Okay Bob, you see that thing on the underside of the cow? We're going to drink whatever comes out of it." Bleah.
The food we eat its determined by the environment we live, you cannot judge other people's food in comparison to your since they didn't have the same choices you do, i am just glad people's taste get habit to environment as well and can find delicious something that others wouldn't ! :)
I asked a man from China about what he's eaten and he has never eaten any of the animals you mentioned-- only beef, pork, chicken, turkey and fish.
OTOH, I have seen canned rattlesnake in the US and once was invited to a squirrel fry in Indiana (no thanks!). And I once asked a man from Africa to join me for dinner at a seafood restaurant and he was horrified that ppl ate lobster and shrimp. He said that it was like eating insects.
The person who mentioned that some ppl in the world think that it's weird that we (in the US and Canada) drink cow's milk is right. Some ppl in the world think it's weird bc drinking milk in many parts of the world is done only by children, not adults in their 30s, 40s, 50s and up.
If you don't like a certain kind of food, don't eat it!
Being relatively subjective here, are we?
China has a big population, and people need to get their proteins somehow. If a cattle were to pump out 5 calves every 10 mos, that would be great, but that doesn't happen. These other animals do...They are quite abundant. That's why PORK is one of the most popular cuts of meat (if not, the most). The Chinese do know their pork. I never heard of eating owl before and I think scorpions are more medicinal.
The Chinese are frugal people. I just wished Americans were a bit more, as well. Ever had chicken feet? They are quite delicious, surprisingly. I just find it funny that you should eat things for weird purposes, (i.e., don't eat chicken when you have a cold because the inner chicken will crow, or something like that. But you know the benefits in scientific study.) But be nice. If you're starving to death on a deserted island (I'm not implying that the Chinese are, although their socialistic Communism leads to that), roasted anything will sound delicious.
I've never had them and I have a diverse tolerant palate. I rather have pork, beef, and chicken offals before having a slice of roasted dog. I do know about their culture, but that doesn't mean I have to accept it. I'm not going to eat rats. You don't have to. Understanding it is good enough as do the Chinese to yours.
I never did care for shrimp or lobster. They look like sea cockroaches. Did you know that lobster was so abundant back then, that the Native Americans used them for fertilizer, and was used by the early settlers to feed slaves? Now, they sell for $50 a piece?!
it may sound gross but it is actually quite good. My favorite is frog legs!
Well all I can say here that fact is true and accurate. Not only Chinese people eat dogs, Indonesian people do the same. There is a province in Indonesia that they even really eat bats (!)
Sometimes they even eat cockroaches, grasshoppers or beetles even... I think you cannot judge Chinese people east horrible things like that. That's so American.... typical.
You need to know WHY they do that. It's all about the tradition and culture in there. They don't eat those odd stuffs every single day. Only in their special occasions when they want to celebrate or commemorate something in their culture and life.
Why Americans love hamburgers? :)
The fact is many of those odd foods are oddities. Sure there are some people that eat them but they are the few and rare.
with all the cultures throughout the world, just about everything is eaten. From termites in Africa to snakes in the north american desert. Chinese is the only great ancient civilization that still stands today (think roman's, ottomans, etc tec) along with it is it's culinary history. Now.. given that... all the those ancient foods that were eaten at one point in time for some reason or another has been preserved somehow, even if it is obscure.
These days, labor in China is extremely cheap. Farmers only make 2000-3000 RMB (250-400 USD) a year. Now just think how little it costs to grow scorpions? Not very many ppl eat stuff like that, but think of the entrepreneur who wants to make that extra cent, selling to the very rare person who eats that kind of food.
There are a variety of factors IMHO, but 99.9% of Chinese will not eat stuff like insects, rodents, terrapins, dogs and such. Snakes are much and frogs are much common... they are even eaten in the south of US.
I was in Beijing and for one hour I didn't one person buy a roasted scorpion skewer despite a thousands of people passing by. Sometimes they are there for attraction and entertainment. When you see a scorpions, you start to look. the attraction value and the business it bring by itself is good enough. I was quite entertained... as well as with other thousands of Chinese passing by.
So you tell me, how was your vomit? was it bitter? chunky? did it still taste like food you recently ate?
Read this: All the information of cooking and health post by website user,chineseop.com not guarantee
correctness,It's Non-profit and only for informational purposes.
Kitty said: Yes.Why do chinese people eat horrible things ?-I try seach this on internet but no results found.Maybe this is a stupid question.
Mike said: oh,no,you are wrong.I have found as below for this question(Why do chinese people eat horrible things ?),it will help you,my kids.
i am not being racist here. i just finished reading an article in national geographic about china.
the chinese food markets sell meat of everything on earth from rats, dogs, owls, snakes, scorpions, frogs, etc
it really made me vomit. why do chinese eat such disgusting stuff. Is there any special reason.
Answer:
It's all edible, and I think most of it would probably be far better for you than most of the fast food here. I have relatives in Europe that eat alot of fish dishes that would probably make the average person quiver. Alot of cured herring, eel, etc. Surprisingly good if you actually try it. For most people like us that come from a place where the food is always plentiful, we take for granted the ability to choose what we want to have whenever we want it. It rarely comes down to eating whatever you have to. I had a neighbor when I was younger who had relatives visit from Russia. When they saw the grocery store here, they wept at the fact there was so much food that you could actually buy. Hard for us to imagine standing in lines for a bit of food. My grandfather loves to eat rabbit, the main reason being the fact that he spent the entire Second World War in occupied Holland. There were many times he and others were literally living hand to mouth, and his ability to catch rabbits meant the difference between having supper or not. This is not to say that this is the case in China, but understand that people are shaped by circumstance, and what is plentiful can dictate what is on the menu more often than not. A person loses alot of fussiness in a hurry when there isn't alot to choose from. It is all edible after all, and the people of China just may look the same way at what we eat over here. If you saw what goes in to alot of the processed foods we have here, such as weiners, you just may think twice before eating them again.
But the thing is, they think it's normal?? Wierd I know! Other countries eat even nastier things...it's called culture.
It's their culture. If the belly of the animal faces the ground it can be eaten (birds don't count for some reason).
It's part of their culture. Food is food no matter where you go. Bugs are surprisingly high in protein. Some people are disgusted that Westerners drink cow milk.
The only problem I have with Eastern cultures is their adherence to ridiculous folk cures that rely on killing rare animals, like snorting powdered rhino horns to cure impotence.
No, there is no specific reason. It's just what they grew up around. Their ratburger is just like a hamburger to us(I kno,revolting,LOL!).
Maybe because they are desperately poor?
Not the same reason as why Luther Vandeross was eating Luther sandwiches...
I'm chinese.. I eat frogs and snakes but i dont eat any other things you mentioned..As far as I know, snakes are good for health, so are any other horrible things.. Beside, maybe they taste good..who knows..
I'm with you...but then again we have people in the United States that also eat frogs, squirrels, possums, snakes, etc. etc. It's just a part of their culture. I once saw this special on HBO where they showed kids in China actually going up to cages and picking which cat they wanted to eat. The server then snagged the chosen cat and proceeded to first boil it alive in water to get rid of the fur and then chopped the head off, gutted it and cooked it in oil like we'd cook a chicken. They then showed the kids eating it like it was a Chicken McNugget. The very idea to us here in the U.S. makes us want to vomit. However they, the Chinese and other cultures, view dogs, cats, and rats as just another source of food, much like we tend to view cattle, poultry, and pork.
It is normal -to them.
But you only find this in southern part of China, Guang Dong. Yes, they eat cats, dogs, rats, everything they can get.
That is not sick i think, the sick thing is that they like torture of the animal before it dies. The more pain the animal had in it's life, the better it taste, now thats pretty sick i think.
Actually, every race, creed, culture eats disgusting things. In the US many people eat offal meats (innards of animals-liver, tongue, heart, lungs, glands, etc) which I've always thought was pretty gross. Also think of haggus (no offense to anybody) it's a Scottish dish where you take the stomach of a sheep and stuff it with it's heart, liver, lungs, brain and eyes and then age it. bleah in my opinion. Or calamari-why would anyone eat a cute little squid? Or on lobster and shrimp-did you know the thing they call a "vein" on their back is actually their intestines? Yup, lobster poop has been eaten as a delicacy for hundreds of years, again I say bleah. Disgusting is just relative, can you imagine how weird some other cultures must think it is for westerners to drink the milk of a cow? I mean how did that start in the first place? "Okay Bob, you see that thing on the underside of the cow? We're going to drink whatever comes out of it." Bleah.
The food we eat its determined by the environment we live, you cannot judge other people's food in comparison to your since they didn't have the same choices you do, i am just glad people's taste get habit to environment as well and can find delicious something that others wouldn't ! :)
I asked a man from China about what he's eaten and he has never eaten any of the animals you mentioned-- only beef, pork, chicken, turkey and fish.
OTOH, I have seen canned rattlesnake in the US and once was invited to a squirrel fry in Indiana (no thanks!). And I once asked a man from Africa to join me for dinner at a seafood restaurant and he was horrified that ppl ate lobster and shrimp. He said that it was like eating insects.
The person who mentioned that some ppl in the world think that it's weird that we (in the US and Canada) drink cow's milk is right. Some ppl in the world think it's weird bc drinking milk in many parts of the world is done only by children, not adults in their 30s, 40s, 50s and up.
If you don't like a certain kind of food, don't eat it!
Being relatively subjective here, are we?
China has a big population, and people need to get their proteins somehow. If a cattle were to pump out 5 calves every 10 mos, that would be great, but that doesn't happen. These other animals do...They are quite abundant. That's why PORK is one of the most popular cuts of meat (if not, the most). The Chinese do know their pork. I never heard of eating owl before and I think scorpions are more medicinal.
The Chinese are frugal people. I just wished Americans were a bit more, as well. Ever had chicken feet? They are quite delicious, surprisingly. I just find it funny that you should eat things for weird purposes, (i.e., don't eat chicken when you have a cold because the inner chicken will crow, or something like that. But you know the benefits in scientific study.) But be nice. If you're starving to death on a deserted island (I'm not implying that the Chinese are, although their socialistic Communism leads to that), roasted anything will sound delicious.
I've never had them and I have a diverse tolerant palate. I rather have pork, beef, and chicken offals before having a slice of roasted dog. I do know about their culture, but that doesn't mean I have to accept it. I'm not going to eat rats. You don't have to. Understanding it is good enough as do the Chinese to yours.
I never did care for shrimp or lobster. They look like sea cockroaches. Did you know that lobster was so abundant back then, that the Native Americans used them for fertilizer, and was used by the early settlers to feed slaves? Now, they sell for $50 a piece?!
it may sound gross but it is actually quite good. My favorite is frog legs!
Well all I can say here that fact is true and accurate. Not only Chinese people eat dogs, Indonesian people do the same. There is a province in Indonesia that they even really eat bats (!)
Sometimes they even eat cockroaches, grasshoppers or beetles even... I think you cannot judge Chinese people east horrible things like that. That's so American.... typical.
You need to know WHY they do that. It's all about the tradition and culture in there. They don't eat those odd stuffs every single day. Only in their special occasions when they want to celebrate or commemorate something in their culture and life.
Why Americans love hamburgers? :)
The fact is many of those odd foods are oddities. Sure there are some people that eat them but they are the few and rare.
with all the cultures throughout the world, just about everything is eaten. From termites in Africa to snakes in the north american desert. Chinese is the only great ancient civilization that still stands today (think roman's, ottomans, etc tec) along with it is it's culinary history. Now.. given that... all the those ancient foods that were eaten at one point in time for some reason or another has been preserved somehow, even if it is obscure.
These days, labor in China is extremely cheap. Farmers only make 2000-3000 RMB (250-400 USD) a year. Now just think how little it costs to grow scorpions? Not very many ppl eat stuff like that, but think of the entrepreneur who wants to make that extra cent, selling to the very rare person who eats that kind of food.
There are a variety of factors IMHO, but 99.9% of Chinese will not eat stuff like insects, rodents, terrapins, dogs and such. Snakes are much and frogs are much common... they are even eaten in the south of US.
I was in Beijing and for one hour I didn't one person buy a roasted scorpion skewer despite a thousands of people passing by. Sometimes they are there for attraction and entertainment. When you see a scorpions, you start to look. the attraction value and the business it bring by itself is good enough. I was quite entertained... as well as with other thousands of Chinese passing by.
So you tell me, how was your vomit? was it bitter? chunky? did it still taste like food you recently ate?
correctness,It's Non-profit and only for informational purposes.
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