Living Abroad, Food, History and Culture, Asia
There are a lot of weird Chinese foods. I’ve heard of people eating scorpions, snakes and spiders in China. Truth be told, however, when we lived there for 3 years we didn’t see so much of these stranger foods.
Admittedly, China (being a big country) does have a wider variety of foods than we see in the west. But then, when we asked around, we found that most Chinese would stay well away from cats, dogs and bugs.
But there were other weird foods. Some of these, we didn’t even want to try. Sea Worms in Jelly just didn’t take our fancy. But then, we found some foods that we’d never even thought of eating that we liked a lot.
Here’s a list of 6 weird Chinese foods that we found tasty and learned to love.
Weird Chinese foods #1: Spicy Frog Stew
We came across this by accident, due to a ‘feature’ of the Chinese language. When we were just starting out in China, we didn’t know how to navigate the menus. Often, we’d have to contend with a cascade of Chinese letters, without pictures to tell foods apart.
If you never want to try frog in China, be careful. The Chinese word for frog (田鸡 — translates literally to ‘field chicken’) is only one character away from the Chinese word for chicken (鸡). So, you can imagine our surprise when the waitress brought us a dish with alabaster white meat, that actually had the texture somewhere between fish and chicken.
The stew was a Hunan recipe, meaning it was swimming with green chillies and was incredibly spicy. This, coupled with a kind of fermented red cabbage, gave it a sour taste. It was fantastic.
Whenever we caught a cold, we found ourselves hunting down this strange Chinese dish, as it’s rich in vitamin C, makes you sweat and clears the sinuses. Honestly, if there’s one dish in China I recommend you try, it’s this.
The picture above was taken in Mrs Chou’s restaurant in Fuzhou.
Weird Chinese foods #2: Tripe Soup/Hotpot
Many are put off by tripe’s leathery texture or just the sheer thought of what it is (cow’s stomach). Admittedly, the only time I’d had tripe before China was when I had hotpot with some Chinese friends in Nice. Without knowing what it was, I tried it and quite liked it. But my wife, Ola, hated it when she was a kid. She couldn’t stand the stench of it.
Tripe in China, I feel, is done quite well. We had a local restaurant underneath the school where we taught, that served knife-shaved noodles in a spicy soup. It’s also commonly served up in a hotpot and in other types of soup restaurants.
The smell and taste blend well with the chillies and it’s usually well cooked, so you don’t notice the texture so much. This is one to try, if you have the stomach for it (pun intended).
Weird Chinese foods #3: Wormwood Dumplings (Qing Ming Guo)
We first found some local women rolling these in Chengcun village just outside of Wuyi Shan. They let us try and the blending of tastes (spicy, a spinach-like ingredient, and pork) in our mouths was tantalizing.
But we didn’t know what we had eaten until we looked it up on Wikipedia. Turned out that the spinach like taste was wormwood, the same substance they put in absinthe. After a bit of research, I’ve discovered it’s a bit of an urban myth that the wormwood oil in absinthe causes you to hallucinate.
Interestingly, wormwood is used in Chinese medicine and has also saved many lives as a malaria beating drug. So, these dumplings are effectively medicine.
They’re called Qing Ming Guo and are made every year for Qing Ming (tomb sweeping day) across the country. If you have a chance to try these, do. But I wouldn’t recommend using them as a replacement for antimalarials.
Weird Chinese foods #4: Barbecued Conch
My grandmother used to have a huge conch shell in her bathroom. As kids do, I used to place it to my ear to hear the sea inside. But my experience was only of the dead shell, which felt as lifeless to me as a rock. In those days, I never imagined it could hold food inside.
But when I tried conch on Xiamen island, in China, I really enjoyed it. They pulled the huge snail-like organism out of it’s shell, diced it up into bite-sized pieces and then grilled it on the barbecue.
If you’re in China and want to try conch, you can find a whole load of seafood restaurants, serving all kinds of interesting seafood, just off Zhongshan Road on the west side of the island. Make sure to try the oyster pancake too — a local delicacy.
Weird Chinese foods #5: Softshell Turtle
The Chinese softshell turtle is a strange creature endemic to China and Taiwan with a much longer neck than normal turtles. Nowadays, they farm this turtle in China and in many areas it’s considered a local delicacy.
We tried it in Wuyi Shan, in a restaurant adjacent to the Chongyang River. Because of its soft shell, it’s much easier to cook than other turtles. The meat inside kind of tasted like a much more tender version of braising steak. Unfortunately, there was only a limited supply of that, nestled against layers of fat.
The turtle was much more expensive than most foods in the area. But still, only $13 for the turtle made it well worth the novelty.
Weird Chinese foods #6: Tea Egg
Tea eggs have always struck me as a bit odd, but I’ve become quite partial to them. Basically, they’re eggs boiled in strong tea. After they’ve hardened a bit, the shell is cracked so that some of the tea leaks inside. It’s a strange mix of flavours at first, but one that grows on you.
You can find them all over China and are common with baozi (steamed buns) for breakfast. This is one of the cheapest street foods out there, while still being healthy. Just let’s not talk about the cholesterol.
And one I didn’t like: Pickled Jellyfish (served cold)
My Chinese friends seemed to love jellyfish, but it really wasn’t for me. Imagine an incredibly sour octopus without the chewiness. Or perhaps a soft jelly sweet/candy where you can feel the tentacles on your tongue. The texture just didn’t work for me.
But then some weird Chinese foods, I feel, are best left for local palates. Don’t let me stop you trying this, though. You might actually like it.
Thanks for reading my post about weird Chinese foods at Being a Nomad.
What weird foods have you tried around the world and how was it for you? Let us know via comment below.
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These are some interesting sounding foods! It’s totally better to just try things and not ask what they are! I ended up loving intestine soup before I knew what it was!
Thanks for the comment Natalia, I agree wholeheartedly. We found many expats wouldn’t go to restaurants that didn’t have pictures on the menu, but we learned to just select items randomly from a list of Chinese characters using Baidu Translate to help us a bit.
I see you’re having a great time now living in South Korea. Have you tried the silkworm pupae yet? 🙂
Interesting Chris. Having had a pond in my backyard as a kid, I’m skipping the turtle and frog 😉 Too many good memories LOL. But I am game for tea eggs for sure. Meat stuff weirds me out and really, on the road, I go vegetarian most of the time. So many options in places like Thailand and Bali, where we tend to visit.
Ryan
Thanks Ryan. I can understand entirely, we’ve often thought of going vegan or at least vegetarian on the road. More control on the diet that way.
I’ve not been to Indonesia or Thailand yet, although we hope to spend a few months in Thailand next winter. Out of interest, do they have the same tendency to put green tea in desserts like they do in China? In our last year there, we found it in almost everything sweet. They even replaced the McDonald’s Oreo Mcflurry for a green tea version of it.
People in China sure have a weird taste when it comes to food but still it’s quite interesting. I would like to try the Barbecued Conch and the Wormwood Dumplings.
As a vegetarian, this makes me wonder if I’d eat nothing but tea eggs in china! I’ve been toying with the idea of relocating to China for a year to teach English, but honestly I’m a bit worried about a lack of vegetarian options. Would you say you saw many veggie friendly options around?
These are so interesting! I’m not super adventurous when it comes to food, but some of these I might try!
I’ve never tried these foods! I would however try the conch! I’m not a fan of spicy food so not sure if I would enjoy the frogs.
Actually; I have a recipe for tea eggs at home- I’m curious about this recipe but I haven’t tried it yet, just because it takes quite some time to cook. All in all, those eggs are the only thing I would genuinely like to try from this list! 🙂
I feel like this could of been the top 100 weird Chinese foods. There are so many out there! Delicious but peculiar!
I love the two you ended with but oh my some of the previous ones, I’ve never even heard of. Tripe, of course I have, and I do keep trying it but haven’t learn to love it yet!!!
Ohhh the tripe soup! That’s something we like! As for the other food, we must admit that we’ve never heard of. But we would definitely try some of them if we get a chance to.
Id try a few of these! I’m not sure about the tea egg though, I’m not a huge fan of either of those items, so together… I might pass haha!
Eh…maybe I shouldn’t have read this while trying to eat breakfast. I’m not sure I’d have the stomach to try these. Plus I have turtles as pets, so that was a little sad to read!
Oh wow, you’re very adventurous! Or, at least, your palette is 😉 I’d definitely try the BBQ conch. Love the presentation too!
Hey Chris, these weird dishes made me remember an incident from my china trip. I had no idea about the Chinese menu and was so hungry that I ended up ordering a random dish. Unknowingly that day, I ordered something pronounced as chòu dòufu. It was basically stinky tofu. Still, the smell haunts me. But once you get comfortable with the smell it was not that bad. Thanks for sharing and making me remember my trip to China. Keep sharing.
The blogs are a wonderful source for ideas & advice. Thanks for sharing