Forget The Spaghetti, I’Ll Have The Noodles, Instant Ramens

[Chet]

In fact it is probably safer to eat/bring your own food when travelling. Our bodies grow accustomed to whatever local microbes we normally encounter and different ones can cause various upsets. All the warnings you used to hear about not drinking the water if you travelled to Mexico are a fine example, nothing wrong with the water there, just different.
Now all that said I am not sure what the point of travel is if you don't sample the local food. (just be prepared for a tummy ache or 2)

 

[estebandepraga]

Too many people are too worried about germs, etc and tend to live in hygenic bubbles thus having a low tolerance for any changes in their systems. While I am not suggesting that one eats from contaminated vats of oil or expired food, a little interaction with some new germs only makes one more resistant!

 

[Chet]

Too many people are too worried about germs, etc and tend to live in hygenic bubbles thus having a low tolerance for any changes in their systems. While I am not suggesting that one eats from contaminated vats of oil or expired food, a little interaction with some new germs only makes one more resistant!

100% agree. I think in fact that over sterile environment many try to live in at home contributes to a lot of the problems experienced when travelling. I was certainly happy to see when I moved to Argentina that one can still buy 'just soap' here, there are places where every single brand is 'anti-bacterial' etc. etc.

 

[Hybrid Ambassador]

Much better pic here.

http://www.echinacities.com/news/Chinese-Aunties-Pop-a-Squat-Chow-Down-on-Instant-Noodles-outside-Gucci

Also, the mainlanders coming over to Hong Kong in a buying spree when they are finished, all shelf are empty
Honk Kong resdents protest that thy find not even baby formulas no toilet paper for their own consumption.
It is known that PRC residents are paying the shopping mules tobring merchandise into Chia.

http://www.economist.com/news/china/21644465-protests-erupt-over-crowdsourced-smuggling-parallel-lives

 

[johnw100]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGTIs9fvkUA

 

[Hybrid Ambassador]

https://www.youtube....h?v=nGTIs9fvkUA

That market must be in Canton, one cantonese friend tells me, in Canton every living creatures are edible, if crawls then delicious !

 

[Hybrid Ambassador]

http://www.economist.com/news/china/21644465-protests-erupt-over-crowdsourced-smuggling-parallel-lives

HONG KONG is renowned as one of the world’s freest markets, but some of its residents wish it was not quite so open to shoppers from the Chinese mainland. On February 15th about 200 protesters, chanting "mainlanders go back to the mainland", heckled visitors to a suburban mall who appeared to be compatriots from across the border on a buying spree in the territory. Resentful Hong Kongers call such shoppers "locusts" because they strip shelves of goods and clog public transport, often as part of organised rackets involving the resale of their purchases on the mainland. "Parallel trading", as this dodgy practice is described in Hong Kong, is fuelling a backlash.

 

[Matt84]

That market must be in Canton, one cantonese friend tells me, in Canton every living creatures are edible, if crawls then delicious !

The version I heard was "If it moves you can eat it" and "The fresher the better" which has some awful sashimi connotations.
Certainly that was either Canton or a thematic part of the city because Han Chinese do not (normally) eat scorpions and the like.
Same with yellow dog, it's supposed to be eaten in Southern China and in Korea but not in the vast swath of land in between.

 

[Hybrid Ambassador]

The version I heard was "If it moves you can eat it" and "The fresher the better" which has some awful sashimi connotations.
Certainly that was either Canton or a thematic part of the city because Han Chinese do not (normally) eat scorpions and the like.
Same with yellow dog, it's supposed to be eaten in Southern China and in Korea but not in the vast swath of land in between.

Matt84, you know that the Sashimi served back home, has to come from the morning catches to be served for lunch and dinner, if the fish is not flippin' and its tails wigglin' no Sashimi for customers...
Do you know why every Chinese dishes are to be cooked in super hot woks bathed in oil? In order to mitigate and blend the not so fresh ingredients with the somewhat fresh ones..I have been to th "el campo" regions of Ibaraki prefecture agro business farms.They do have as guests
Chinese agro business apprentices and have even been invited to have a dinner with the hosting families, then noticed the Chinese students shuns away from eating raw veggies even..I asked why not try the fresh veggies which been harvested with non fertilizer used nor pesticides
fresh salads...They answered, in China everything has to go through the hot Wok stir fried before consumption or will die, thus no raw green salads!

 

[Matt84]

Matt84, you know that the Sashimi served back home, has to come from the morning catches to be served for lunch and dinner, if the fish is not flippin' and its tails wigglin' no Sashimi for customers...
Do you know why every Chinese dishes are to be cooked in super hot woks bathed in oil? In order to mitigate and blend the not so fresh ingredients with the somewhat fresh ones..I have been to th "el campo" regions of Ibaraki prefecture agro business farms.They do have as guests
Chinese agro business apprentices and have even been invited to have a dinner with the hosting families, then noticed the Chinese students shuns away from eating raw veggies even..I asked why not try the fresh veggies which been harvested with non fertilizer used nor pesticides
fresh salads...They answered, in China everything has to go through the hot Wok stir fried before consumption or will die, thus no raw green salads!

I hear Yunnan is the exception to that rule! The land of the eternal spring... or so they say

By Sashimi I did not mean the Japanese version but something I saw in Chinese and Korean documentaries: Fish being fried while alive and eaten while it's still dying and moving. I've also not only watched remotely but had confirmation that Koreans eat live squid.
I was going to let the beautiful Islands off the hook until I remembered Ikizukuri.

In some regions of France it's traditional to give a goose some cognac as well as unhealthy food scraps to make it develop hepatitis in order to make Pate de Foie Gras. And that was back in the 19th century, I have no idea what they're doing now but I imagine it's worse not better. The result is delicious though.

I guess China has an ambivalent relation with food: I understand they consider it "heaven on Earth" (so do the French: "Bonne Cuisine et Bon Vin, c'est le Paradis sur Terre" - The Good King Henri IV ), but at the same time they have such a gigantic population to feed with so little arable land that it's not surprising they can't get enough fresh milk or even greens. Now that I think about it the ratio of population/arable land is not that much better in Japan, maybe it's worse. But Japan has the World's greatest Fishing fleet.

China and Japan seem to me like a perfect example of the struggle between Quantity and Quality.