John:
The one thing and probebly the only thing great about the Chineese food is you will definatly loose weight if you are there long!! I lost 12 pounds in the short time I was there and I was very couragous in trying just about everything they put in front of me, but there were some things that I could not hardly bear to even look at much less smell. Most of the meals we had were 20 to 30 course meals with such things as: raw frog, duck head, clams, shrimp, squid, tofu, rabit head, eal, fish intestines, crab, farm soil, dragon's eye,Sea slugs, these are just a couple that I can remember. I have eaten stuff here that I can not even pronounce and have not ever even heard of before, some was not too bad but some was just not even good to look at. You would be proud of me for at least trying some of it, but some I just couldn't stomach.
Absolutly no cheese or milk products in the country, and definatly no Jersey Cream!!! The closest thing we seen as far as milk was Soy milk made from Soy Beans, I would rather take a swig of Diesel fuel than that stuff.
I did master the use of the chopsticks!!! And learned that you never challenge a Chineese man to drinking as you will never win, even the young women, have a high tollerence for drinking.
I am very sure from the time we got there til when we left, the city of Quzhou spent well over one million US dollars on the 12 countries that they hosted there just in food alone, not to mention all the cost of the motels, private drivers, foot massages, private doctors and all the government employies and Camera people they had running along side of us they provided for all of us. It was really great but I would have traded any of them high dollar meals for simple meal at Mc Donalds or Burger King or a fresh loaf of glooten free Speltz bread.
Here is a picture of one of the Sea slugs that I just couldn't jab my chop sticks into or hardly bear to look, and I was not the only one to pass this one up!!!
I did not see one single tractor on the whole trip!! once in a while you would see an excavator or end loader but no tractors. Many people in the ffields doing everything by hand Cutting crops with a machette and standing it up to dry buy no mechonised equipment to speak of.
Not a good place to go to for Massey Mens Food!!!
Joe