There are a bunch of lists out there that claim to be about weird or gross foods Chinese people eat, but those lists mostly just contain slightly out of the ordinary foods that most people can stomach but just aren’t use to eating. I promise you this list will actually be about truly horrifying foods that you will make you woozy just from reading. Probably best if you don’t eat within 2 hours of reading this.
WARNING: NOT FOR THOSE WITH WEAK STOMACHS. I’M NOT KIDDING. YOU CANNOT UNSEE THIS STUFF. THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING.
1. Live Baby Mice
Let’s just dive right into it. Some people in Guangdong eat live baby mice, and it is terrifying. I even watched a video to confirm it, just for you guys. I came across a video of a guy dipping the pink, squirming baby mice into a sauce, for flavor presumably, and eating them. Even worse, this dish is called 三叫鼠 which translates to “Three Squeak Mice.” It’s called this because the live baby mice squeak three times during the meal, once when you pick them up with your chopsticks, once when you dip them into the sauce and once when you bite into them. Holy s**t.
2. Penis…all kinds
So maybe penis doesn’t initially seem so horrifying. But the terrible part comes from the amount of different kinds of penises there are to eat. So many poor, emasculated animals’ members can be placed right on your plate, ripe for the picking. Ew, I can’t believe I just said that. Let’s list some of them shall we? Donkey, deer, sheep, ox, seal, yak, snake, horse, dog, bull, tiger. The list continues. Chinese people believe consuming the genitals of another animal increase your own virlity.
Speaking of genitals…
3. Rooster Testicles
Chinese people apparently really hate to waste any edible part their prey. Rooster testicles are larger than you think, but when you realize that their job is to cater sexually to an entire roost of hens, it makes way more sense. They are so large that they are located up in the abdomen and are expertly, surgically removed from live roosters. What’s worse is that you don’t even get sauce or seasoning to hide the taste of chicken balls from your mouth; Chinese people eat them plain.
4. Unhatched Duck or Chicken Embryos
Most of us have eaten eggs before. They’re no big deal because they are unfertilized eggs that chickens lay every day for our own nutrition. There’s no baby chicken growing inside so we are okay eating it. In China, they don’t let those pesky, unwanted fertilized chicken and duck eggs go to waste. It’s called 毛蛋 (mao dan). Depending on how far along the embryo was before it was plopped on your plate, the unhatched fowl can come with feathers and a beak. Just imagine cracking open your morning egg, expecting a nice yolk to spill out, when instead an unborn bird dangles from the shell. And then you eat it.
5. Snake Gallbladder
Traditional Chinese medicine believes that the snake gallbladder can be consumed to improve poor eyesight and keep people healthy. Some Chinese people, mostly in the countrysides, will eat raw snake gallbladder and wash it down with alcohol as a disinfectant. Chinese medicine experts stress that this is extremely dangerous as raw snake can contain parasites. The proper way to consume it is to dried out the gallbladder and grind it into a powder. Nevertheless, this is an extreme measure to a problem that can be easily fixed by something called “eyeglasses,” whatever those are.
6. Rabbit Head
Truth be told, rabbit heads aren’t all that uncommon. You’ve probably come across them a few times if you’ve ventured to some very local Chinese restaurants or street vendors in Sichuan. But these furry lovable pets stripped down to their meat and bones and left on a plate for you to pick at is horrific. Just look at the picture above. If you weren’t afraid of rabbits before, you might be a little bit now. And to eat them, you rip off the jaw and eat the tongue, cheeks and chin, then bite the top of the skull to get to the brains. It’s definitely not for furry animal lovers.
7. Pig Face/Head
Pig face is a Chinese food straight out of a horror film like Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Silence of the Lambs. To Chinese people, pig head isn’t just one meal, it’s nine. It’s often served just as a whole pig head, roasted for hours with special herbs and spices. It is then the eater’s job to cut it into the several parts (face, tongue, ear, mouth, nose, etc.) like a evil doctor, all while it stares you in the eyes. Hung up on hooks at the front of the shop, pig heads will give you Lord of the Flies flashbacks.
Honorable Mention:
Bugs — China night markets are full of skewered creepy crawlies just waiting to be picked, fried and eaten. From grasshoppers and silkworms to scorpions, tarantulas and cockroaches, those afraid of bugs should probably avoid touristy street vendors.
Duck tongue — This small, fatty organ of the duck’s mouth has been said to have a intense duck flavor. You may not have been aware ducks had tongues, but you are now.
Hairy Tofu — Most of us know what stinky tofu is, but aren’t aware that it has a hairy cousin that looks like an extremely moldy sponge. It’s perfectly edible and mushy, but you have to get past the fact that it has fur.
Drunken Shrimp — Typically we like to eat cooked food, but these shrimp are literally drunk, making it easier to eat them live. They are soaked in alcohol before serving and just stumble around the plate before you pick them up and plop them in your mouth.
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