Fuchsia Dunlop

My paternal grandfather emigrated from Italy & as a child, I observed him dining delightfully on things that gave me nightmares. I’ve since learned that many are truly delicious, but I still love to laugh about them.

Warming or no, the only dog I might consider feasting upon is one little spit-stain of a Pekingnese I knew years ago & that was entirely personal. However – the rest of the menus sound wonderful (US astronauts got baby food & “Tang”!).

Hi Blue
Your comment about possibly eating a small dog for personal reasons (!) reminded me of my cousin Katie. From early childhood she was an animal lover and a strict vegetarian… until once, as a teenager, she was attacked by a crazed chicken. She went home that day and ate the roast chicken her mother had cooked with enormous relish. And that was the end of her vegetarianism!

Talking of revenge eating, though, I do feel that after all my outrageous omnivorousness in China, it would serve me right if one day I did get eaten by a larger creature. I mean, faced with the jaws of a crocodile or a shark, I couldn’t easily take the moral high ground, could I?

Hi Fuchsia

The heck with the moral high ground. Be careful where you swim & eat a lot of garlic:) We’re all part of the universal food chain anyway.

That little Pekingnese named “Teddy” (I’m sure they named him after the serial killer Ted Bundy) was a vicious little beastie. Every time I delivered a package I had to run out the gate & count my fingers. The owners (childless) fussed over that fur covered colon like he was the second coming. They had to put up a 5-foot cyclone fence because he could jump straight up at least 2 feet from a standing position.

Ironically, I used to encounter him when I was visiting one of my dearest friends, an 83-yr-old vegan animal rights activist. This is the God’s honest truth. Yes, he used to bark at her too, but she wouldn’t have sauteed him.

The owners ultimately bought Teddy a female companion & last time I saw HER she was shaking like a leaf under a bush & obviously needed counseling, although she was physically unmolested. I would have gotten him a miniature Doberman.

Ha. That’s awesome. I never thought about what Chinese astronauts might eat.

American space food always seems so bland and unexciting. Less exciting that the food many people eat at home.

Do you think to the average Chinese person the Chinese space menu is every day food?

Genie – I’m not sure if you can talk of an ‘average Chinese person’ when it comes to food, given the vast regional differences! But the menu certainly looks fairly luxurious, with plenty of protein dishes. And they’ve included things to keep people from different regions happy: hairy crab etc for any Southern Yangtze astronauts, a bit of spice for any astronauts from Sichuan, Hunan or Guizhou, sausage for anyone from Harbin, a lotus root porridge which I imagine would satisfy any Cantonese astronauts. Can you imagine the bad mood on board the spaceship if the caterers had shown a bias towards the taste of one regional cuisine?!!

That makes sense. I did suspect it was on the luxurious side of Chinese cuisine but that’s cool that they many different regions for them to eat (even if they could choose to eat their region only). I’ve just finished reading Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper. Love, love, loved it.