Bon appetit

I was reading this article from the Times yesterday, about how some chefs in New York are ordering whole cows and pigs and butchering them themselves. And my first thought was "so what?" Being in China, even for just a month, has really changed how I think about food. Yes, you can go the supermarket and get a container of ground beef, frozen pre-cooked shrimp, or even a bag of frozen chicken nuggets. But then you turn around in that very supermarket and you see a wall of fish tanks (including live turtles) and a half a cow hanging from a rack. Not behind a counter near a friendly, red-aproned butcher, but right on the floor, so close that you might have to step behind it to avoid a tiny child in a shopping cart car.

And this is the fancy expensive Japanese supermarket, which is great for the selection and for nervous foreigners who like their meat refrigerated. Most people don't get their groceries there. On the street behind our apartment is a series of stalls and markets. We have no problem shopping for vegetables or fruit down there, and there's a stand with amazing vegetable and pork steamed buns that I'm getting hungry just thinking about. But we also have the option of big cuts of raw meat sitting out in the 90 degree heat, or all the drying fish and shrimp you could possibly want. So far we have resisted those temptations.

Also on the same street, there are two restaurants we often go to for cheap lunches and dinners. There's the "pick and point" where you get rice, soup, and three random vegetables or meat that you point at (for about 1 American dollar) and its neighbor, Muslim noodles - delicious noodle dishes cooked and served by women in headscarves. In between them on the sidewalk is a crate of live chickens. Not only does this guarantee your meat is fresh, it provides dining entertainment when people come up to purchase one. China is not a land of Purdue chicken tenders. When you want to buy a chicken, you pick one that looks delicious and wait for a nice-looking young woman to kill and pluck it for you. If watching this while you eat makes you uncomfortable, just make sure you get to the table first so your chair faces the opposite direction.