RED IN TOOTH AND CLAW

VE THE GUTS WOULD YOU HA TO EAT THESE STREET FOODS? words Frank Kasell art Ru Brown

he West may be able to trace the renaissance of toeto-tail dining back to Fergus Henderson’s St John restaurant but in China, offal and offcuts never went out of fashion. On the streets of every town and city, hawkers grill, steam and fry up all sorts of animal innards and extremities. Frank Kasell can vouch for this. In visiting 50 cities across China, he sampled hundreds of street foods, gnawing on everything from snout to claw. We asked Frank to select his favorites.

rabbit heads 兔头 tutou Chengdu, Sichuan province

Rabbit heads, found on the streets of Chengdu, are typically arrayed on a tray, staring at you like an undead rabbit

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army. Some vendors spice them with a mala sauce, while others simply roast them. When you place an order, you receive one rabbit head and a pair of plastic gloves. To access anything worth eating, you are required to take this head apart, piece by piece. You’ll probably want to begin by grabbing the rabbit’s lower jaw in one hand and its upper jaw in your other hand, and wrenching them apart as if opening up a stapler for reloading. Then you’ll have to pull all sorts of sections of bone away. The hardest part to access is the brain. I was instructed to bite the top of the skull to crack it open like an egg. Be careful – it turns out that rabbit skulls have very sharp bones. Once inside, you are expected to eat everything that isn’t bone: the jaw muscles, the tongue,

the upper palate, the eyes, the brains, and any miscellaneous flesh that you can find. What sets rabbit’s head apart from other high-energy, low-yield dishes is the variety of different tastes and textures each part offers. I was particularly fond of the jaw meat (brown, gamy, succulent) and the tongue (chewy and mild). My verdict? Definitely worth a try.

pig brains 猪脑 zhunao Harbin, Heilongjiang province

Science tells us that pigs are among the smarter quadrupeds on the planet – even smarter than many dogs. It’s only natural to have a few reservations about eating the seat of intelligence of such a clever creature. Until you take your first succulent bite. In Harbin,

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you can purchase a plate of three roasted pig brains for about RMB 10. Each wrinkly, brown brain is about the size of a young child’s fist. They are soft enough to slice through with chopsticks, yet firm enough to pick up with those same utensils. Harbin’s pig brains boast a creamy texture and a mild flavor – almost like a smoked Gouda. These little organs are further proof that every part of a pig is delicious. They can be somewhat difficult to find these days in Harbin, but they are worth seeking out.

chicken necks 烤鸡脖 kao ji bo Dalian, Liaoning province

Fans of chicken legs or wings, take note: Roasted chicken necks taste just the same. But there are a lot more bones to contend with and a lot less meat. The chicken necks sold on the streets of Dalian are spiced, lightly sauced, and roasted on a long grill. When you eat them fresh off the grill, they are hot, dry on the outside, juicy on the inside, and oh-so-tender. Eat them slowly so that you don’t accidentally swallow a bone and you will find a delightful chicken snack.

roasted crocodile 烤鳄鱼 kao eyu Nanning, Guangxi province

There is no misidentifying this street food: Just look for the vendors with an entire alligator sitting on their cart. For a mere RMB 5, you are served a freshly grilled skewer of either alligator meat or alligator skin, seasoned with a sprinkling of chilli salt. Take my advice and go for the skin. Although you might expect it to be tough and leathery, it turns out that alligator skin is a real delicacy: soft and chewy with a rich, fatty taste. These skewers are not particularly filling, so try them out when you’re looking for a quick snack. On an ethical note, several sources assured me that the alligators sold as food in Nanning are sourced from farms, where they are raised for meat and leather. Nonetheless, the species in the wild is not doing very well, so if you are nervous about accidentally eating an endangered wild animal, you might err on the side of caution and skip this one.

pig intestine noodles 肠旺面 chang wang mian Guiyang, Guizhou province

This noodle dish is one of Guiyang’s best-loved street foods. The soup base is not particularly unusual in China – oily and red, topped with either pork or chicken. The key ingredient here is a generous portion of pig intestines. Thick and chewy, they add both texture and taste to the dish, moving it from ordinary to …

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well, not extraordinary, but pretty darn tasty. The egg noodles, slippery and kinky, closely resemble ramen noodles. A handful of crouton-like bits on top adds an unexpected crunch to the bowl of noodles. You get slippery, chewy, soft, and crunchy – all in a single bowl. These spicy noodles will fill you up handily, making them a very fine choice for a lunch or dinner in Guiyang.

blood sausage 血腸 xuechang Lanzhou, Gansu province

Blood sausage could probably use an image consultant. Despite its off-putting name, it’s a satisfying treat that deserves some recognition. The version known as xuechang can be found with minor variations in Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, and Tibet. Like most sausage, the animal’s intestinal casing is stuffed with a filling of its own meat: usually sheep, sometimes yak. The filling also includes barley and the namesake blood. As a street food, it is usually sliced thickly and stir-fried with some combination of potatoes, chives, (bloodless) sausage or chewy tubes of wheat or barley dough. The result is fabulously savory, rich, aromatic, and greasy. Blood sausage is, naturally, the star of the dish. It’s a bit less salty than regular sausage but more peppery in flavor and somewhat drier and grainier in texture. If you can get past the name and give it a shot, blood sausage offers a truly scrumptious reward.

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sheep offal stew 羊杂碎 yang zasui Yinchuan, Ningxia province

In an interesting linguistic mix-up, the characters 杂碎 (loosely translated as “miscellaneous fragments”) refers to different foods in Cantonese and Mandarin. In Cantonese, it came to mean chop suey, a mishmash stir-fry that became synonymous with Chinese food in the US and beyond. In Mandarin, however, the word means “entrails,” which could be a nasty surprise if you were hoping for chop suey. It can refer to the organs of various animals, but sheep innards were what I came across most often as a street food in China. One of my favorite versions of yang zasui was found in Yinchuan. Typically eaten at breakfast time, the offal is served up in a bowl of thin, murky soup and topped with some chilli powder and perhaps some green onions or parsley. Most bowls include some

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combination of kidneys, intestines, lungs, hearts, and liver. A big, steaming bowl of yang zasui is a mouthwatering way to start the day, particularly in the cold winter months.

not use chopsticks or a spoon to eat chaogan, but rather drink it straight from the bowl, but you can certainly get away with using a spoon these days. Researchers claim that

pork liver stew 炒肝 chao gan Beijing

As far as I’m concerned, liver is the finest of all edible organs, so it was with great pleasure that I came across chaogan on the streets of Beijing. Chaogan is essentially a starchy, brown soup with a glutinous consistency. Suspended within this brown goop you will find slices of pork liver – soft and spongy with that rich, nutritious iron taste that you either love or hate. Many vendors also throw in other pork offal as well as some vinegar and heaps of garlic. Tradition states that you should

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chaogan evolved directly from several offal stews popular in the Song Dynasty. Others suggest that it was invented during the Qing Dynasty, by the chef at Beijing’s famous Huixiangju restaurant, to circumvent the then-common belief that eating hearts and lungs together in one dish would make a person simpleminded. Will it keep you from becoming simpleminded? I don’t know. What I do know is that if you like the taste of liver and garlic, chaogan is bound to be a highlight of your time in Beijing.

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beef offal stew 化州牛杂 Huazhou niuza Maoming, Guangdong province

For my money, the little-known Huazhou niuza found on the streets of Maoming is the tastiest beef offal dish in Guangdong. Beef

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stomachs, livers, hearts, kidneys, intestines, and other miscellaneous innards are chopped into bite-sized pieces and boiled with a carefully selected blend of spices such as star anise and cloves. When you order a bowl, the vendor will scoop up a few chunks along with a splash of the soup for flavor. For extra flavor, you can add in coriander, spicy red and orange peppers, or vinegar. What makes Huazhou niuza so delicious is the freshness of the ingredients combined with the dynamic interplay of spicy and sour flavors. The mix of organ meats offers a tantalizing array of textures, including springy, spongy, chewy, tough, tender, and firm. Everything is so juicy and well-spiced that you’ll finish the whole bowl before you know it. Folk recipes don’t get much better than this local favorite.

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chicken skeleton 糖醋鸡骨架 tangcu ji gujia Jilin City, Jilin province

The Chinese name of this food translates roughly to “sweet and sour chicken skeleton,” and nope, it’s not a mistranslation or a euphemism. How could a chicken skeleton be considered food, you ask? Well, first you strip the substantial meat from a whole chicken until all that remains are the bones with some scraggly pieces of flesh hanging onto the hard-to-reach spots. Then you break up the skeleton, coat it with a sesame seed-infused, honey-sweet, vinegar-tangy sauce, blacken all of it on a grill, and serve it up. To get at the meat, you have to do a lot of digging with your teeth and fingers, leaving your hands, lips, and chin greasy and sticky. The good news is that the taste more than makes up for the mess. The sauce tastes quite similar to American barbecue sauce (with the addition of sesame seeds), which naturally goes well with the char-grilled flavor. The biggest difference is the ratio of sauce to meat. At only RMB 8 per chicken, this is a cheap and flavorful snack or meal. Just be sure to bring some napkins.

pigs’ blood 猪血汤 zhuxue tang Haikou, Hainan province

Pigs’ blood soup is a hard sell. If you are willing to keep an open mind, though, this should definitely be on your list in Haikou. The pigs’ blood here looks like blocks of rusty red tofu. One bowl will hold 70

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about 15 or 20 blood cubes, as well as a salty, syrupy soup base and some perfunctory sour cabbage. The congealed cubes of blood have a smooth, slippery surface with a firm yet porous tofu-like texture. When you bite into a cube, rather than getting mushy or crumbly it bursts into smaller and smaller discrete pieces. Its rich, meaty flavor pairs well with the sour and salty flavors of the soup. Zhuxue tang is not destined to be a favorite of many travelers, and that’s all right. Even if you’re not a huge fan, it’s an interesting taste of the local culture in Haikou, and that’s all one can ask for in a street food.

beef tendons 烤筋皮子kao jin pizi Changchun, Jilin province Because grilled beef tendons don’t have too much flavor on their own, these glistening ivory-colored tendons are sprinkled with chilli powder and caraway seeds before serving. Unsurprisingly, they are tough, chewy and slippery, like gristle. The caraway seeds add a subtle anise flavor, while the chilli powder gives it a bit of oomph. These tendons are definitely more of a snack than

a meal, so order up a few to nosh on while you wait for a more substantial dinner.

pigs’ feet 猪蹄 zhu ti Kunming, Yunnan province

I’m not afraid to admit that I consider pigs’ feet to be one of life’s great guilty pleasures. Just hear me out. Compared with the pallid, pickled variety you find in the United States, Kunming’s grilled pigs’ feet are a revelation. Watch as these vibrantly colored hunks of meat and bone are cut down the middle, grilled, and seasoned before your eyes, then served hot, fresh, and oozing with grease. Pay close attention to the generous layer of fat between the skin and the bone, as well as the thick skin. There are no two ways about it: This is not a healthy food. The skin is rubbery and chewy, while the meat (or fat) is soft and greasy. The seasoning is mildly spicy and the flesh has a nice meaty sweetness to it. As you eat, your mouth gets coated with a thin layer of grease, giving your tongue, teeth, and cheeks a sticky, waxy sensation. Before you know it, you are left with bones on your plate, contentment in your stomach, and half-regret in your brain. Don’t let the regret get you down, though. It’s important to indulge in guilty pleasures now and then. Everyday foods like spinach sustain life; guilty pleasures – like pigs’ feet – are what make it worth sustaining.

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