Today I worked in the recording studio of the Shanghai foreign languages university, recording some English language learning materials. Six hours of [...]]]> I haven’t been blogging much because I’ve been working flat out, and when I haven’t been working I’ve been eating, and when I haven’t been eating I’ve been recovering from all the working and eating.

Today I worked in the recording studio of the Shanghai foreign languages university, recording some English language learning materials. Six hours of reading out passages about the history of philately and the discovery of penicillin can get a bit wearying, so the boss took me and the other ‘voice’ out for dinner at his favourite Sichuanese restaurant, which was decorated in the most bizarre rococco/neon style. One of the things I like about even the simplest Chinese meal is the way foods that would never be combined in the west are eaten quite happily together. So, for example, it is common practice to have a shrimp dish, a pork dish, a chicken dish, a tofu dish and a vegetable dish all at the same time. However, it is not quite so common to blend so many meats, veg and seafoods together in a single dish, so I was quite stunned by the following concoction:

The ingredients I could detect were cockles, shrimp, cow’s stomach lining, squid, large lumps of blood pudding (source unidentified), bamboo and enough chilli to make a dragon’s eyes water, all mixed together in a delightful spicy soup. Just try imagining what that tastes like.

At the end of the meal I had quite a collection of detritus on my plate. See if you can spot the discarded bones of frogs’ legs, shrimp exoskeleton, bamboo bark, mushed up sugar cane and the side of a duck’s face: