The Meats We Eat

[Drunk Monk]

So the PPFY is boasting of his grand OZ kangaroo munching (and past Emu snacking) and I must admit, PPFY was the great carnivore of his day. I only saw him balk once and that was under the incredible weight of a Hulk Burger. DM may be vegetarian now, but I'm betting DM has devoured more exotic meats than the PPFY. Remember, DM has lived for months in Asia. So what do you think, my DOOM fellows? Who do you think is the greatest DOOM carnivore?

DM'll see PPFY's Kangaroo and Emu and raise him turtle, rabbit and scorpion. What else you eaten, PPFY? What else? Tofu gazelles don't count.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

and alligator, Bambi, wild boar, pheasant, duck, ostrich, haggis...

but the truth is...I'll never beat scorpion.

Now, if you equate "greatest" with "most flesh devoured" I think I pulled ahead of you even when you were still using your canines for what GOD intended. Just one trip to Dr. Hoggly-Woggly's Mass-Extinction Bar-B-Cue would do that.

Scorpions...? You win, man.

[Drunk Monk]

Here I am, trying to bring some life to this forum on the brink of extinction by picking a fight with my ol' fencing pardner PPFY, who used to clean my clock regularly with his abnormally long reach, disturbingly quick hands (especially considering their girth) and hyper-caffinated witty repartee, all of which damned me to boxes and boxes of those crappy A.F.L.A. second place medals, here I am, trying to pick a fight, a little friendly bout, just for old times sake, and I even give PPFY all the freaking target since I'm now vegetarian and long past my stunt meat-eating days, just like as if I was aiming for foil target and he was aiming for epee target, so it should have been easy, easy as Sunday morning, and PPFY just rolls over and says "You win, man"?!?! WTF?!

I didn't even get to pull out the crickets, the bee larvae, the lizard wine, the coagulated pig blood, the turtle shell, the frog, the duck head, the slab of pig fat, the chunk of pig with hair still on it, the goat head, the gator, the snake, the sea cucumber, the venison, the barracuda-like serrated teeth fish jawbone that nearly sawed my lip off, the mutton, of worst of all, the dog.

You got me on ostrich, kangaroo and haggis though.

[cranefly]

the duck tongue?

I believe that made a big impression on you your last trip (not that I was there). Or did you balk at that one?

If you balked at that one, I'm afraid we cannot give you an automatic win.

It's in the rules. Section 8, article 11, paragraph 6. "If the apparent winner of a contest balks at doing something involving an appendage of the mouth, the contest shall be declared unresolved and will remain so until the aforesaid mouth appendage is dealt with in a satisfactory manner."

Sorry.

Oh, I ate some yogurt tonight. Top that.
--cranefly

[The Queen]

That if you ever manage to get your butts down here, we can have an amazing meat-fest at Picanha.

Polish sausage. Mmmmmmm. Much more appetizing than scorpion or cricket.

[Drunk Monk]

yeah, i tried duck tongue. on another occasion, i ate a whole freakin' duck head once. you'll find that sordid tale in Shaolin Trips: Episode 4 - A Hero Watching the Formation: Chapter Six: Xingqisan (Wednesday): Tournament, Fish Head Hot Pot and Duck Tongues with the Little Dragon's Dad and the Purgatory of Gold Mountain. Go to http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/ar...rticle=593 and scroll down to two paragraphs above the beer girl.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

...no way I'm gunna beat Scorpion, period. Duck, whatever; bee-larva, who hasn't? Pig ANYTHING, come on, I eat sausage, German sausage, blood pudding, etc., which means I've eaten every part of the pig, including bones and hair (and some insects, too) but fucking SCORPIONS?!!?!

Game over, man; a smart competitor knows when he is out-matched. I accept the silver medal with pride.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Scorpion is what you eat when you lose the bet. You don't eat it to win.

[cranefly]

A couple questions for DM.
What exactly did the scorpion dish look like?

When prepared, were the scorpions ground up or chopped up, or were they still recognizable as scorpions?

Lady Cranefly tends to be squeamish around creepy-crawlies. Do you think she would be able to eat one?

Do you think it’s polite to play with your food?

As for me, no way in hell would I go near one.

Okay, okay, enough kidding aside. This was in Shaolin Temple Village at a birthday party for Sifu Wing Lam. And yes, DM arranged the party.

Now, I haven’t eaten all that other stuff DM has downed, but I’m still going to challenge him. Because at this birthday party, I ate three pieces of cake.

And what a cake it was. Who knows where they got that speck of sugar to mix in with all the fat.

DM? Do you concede?

--cranefly

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

You eat Scorpions when you lose the bet. Yeesh. But that lady Cranefly sure has some cojones.

(In our next Cranefly lesson, how to make pictures smaller so they download quicker.)

[Drunk Monk]

Was that on a trip before or after I learned that you're not supposed to eat the scorpion stingers?

[Haggis Killer]

Just how did you "learn" that about the scorp tails?

I think I gotta roll with PPFY and Greg on this one. It's like eating the worm at the bottom of a bottle of tequila. Sure, you CAN do it, but after that much tequila you reach the point of not caring whether you're actually still alive. So, I'll probably stick with my baby back ribs, chicken & sausage.

What can I say? I'm a traditionalist. Pulled pork, baby! YEAH!

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

In response to our IM discussion, I offer this.

[Drunk Monk]

Actually, it was my Shaolin monk master who taught me to eat scorpions properly. He saw me eat a whole one, then he rather discreety directed my attention to a small pile of stingers he had gathered next to his plate. I got the message. The stingers aren't eating because they are very sharp and I remember one person getting one stuck in their gums. All the poison is fried out though, so it's just a matter of them being stickery.

For the record, scorpions are usually served on a plate of shrimp chips. You know those pork-rind like chips that are usually white, yellow and pink. It sort of gives them this surreal landscape to sit upon. Note that with CF's exmaple, they were served on a similar food substance, but in the shape of fried noodles instead of chips.

Scorpions taste a lot like Hawaiian potato chips, crunchy, salty, and greasy. They've very addictive. A friend of mine from NC says they taste like a local delicacy called Livermunch, which is some sort of canned meat that is fried.

It's also worthy of note that there are scorpion farms where they breed scorpions just like we breed chickens, pigs and cows, for the meat. I've seen footage of these farms, which are usually dark cellars. But I've also heard of people breeding them in their closets as a side source of income.

The first time I realized that scorpions were a delicacy in China was when I was travelling across country by bus. I saw these ramshackle restaurants, built of brick and straw, the equivalent of roadside diners, I imagine. Like medieval shoppes, they had hand painted murals of their offerings and many had huge pictures of scorpions on plates. I had to see several of them before I could beleive it.

I've seen two kinds of scorpions served. The one that I like is what CF has shown. The other one I've seen served on the streets of Dengfeng. It's a larger scorpion, the size of your hand, and it's served on a skewer like a popsicle. I confess, that one is beyond me. Nevertheless, I think all of you so called carnivores are in fact meat pussies, shallow nibblers who can't really stomach real blood meat, who've never been to a slaughterhouse, never seen the animal die just before it's cooked and served to you, piddly wimps who prefer factory-farmed, drug-processed poulty, pork and beef that doesn't even taste like an animal anymore and don't even look the dead beast in the eye when eating it. Might as well eat mcnuggets if you're going to go that route. wimps.

[cranefly]

Wow.
Did we all just get bitch-slapped?