Food Chinese like but Westerners tend to avoid

Recently, media reports show that Chinese have shown an increasing appetite for imported lobster. Last year, it’s found that China imported 14 million pounds of lobster from the United States, especially through e-commerce purchases.

Chinese consumers are fond of lobster and other kinds of shellfish, and they particularly prefer fresh, high quality seafood products. Stephanie Nadeau, owner of The Lobster Co in Arundel, Maine, told AP, ''American lobsters tend to be cheaper in China than other live seafood, such as spiny lobsters and geoduck clams. It''s kind of an affordable luxury.''

This is one way Chinese menus are evolving, but traditional dishes remain, For many foreigners, it can be a big challenge to adapt to some delicious Chinese dishes, which tend to be extremely different from local Chinese takeout like Panda Express in some cities of America.

That is to say, if you are now dwelling in China or expecting to visit, there are at least five surprises that could pop up during lunch, so here are some things to prepare for... or maybe things to avoid.

Duck feet and chicken claws

In Chinese food culture, feet of different animals are valuable as well as nutritious, which can be simply processed into snacks. However, things like duck feet and chicken claws have been underestimated by many westerners. Until about two decades ago, animal feet were pretty valueless for US chicken companies. But thanks to huge demand in China, animal feet have become big profit points. According to Times, the US now exports about 300,000 metric tons of chicken claws every year, which brings some American companies in more than $40 million of revenue.

Animal blood

In many westerners’ minds, it’s hard to understand why a pudding-like cube is actually duck or pork blood. When they visit Nanjing, a historic city located on the end of the Yangtze River, and taste the duck blood and vermicelli soup for the first time, most of them will be suspicious and freak out. However, it’s the way Chinese cuisines have developed and the shock and experience you can feel on a food tour in the amazing country is unique.

Animal organs

On a hot reality show called Master Chef, for people who want to win the prize and become a top chef someday, an obstacle is to figure out how to use weird animal innards to complete their cuisine in an hour. However, this task is simple and easy for Chinese. Many people in China have eaten banquet specialties, including cow''s lung soaked in chili sauce, goose stomach, fish lips with celery, goat''s feet tendons in noodles, shark fin soup, monkey''s head, turtle casserole, pigeon brain, snake venom and deer penis.

It’s normal to find things on restaurant menus like “goat genitals soup”, “pig hoof gruel”, “fried goose intestines”, “spicy ducks’ heads” or “lover’s lung”, though many of which are weird translations.

Although sometimes feeling surprised, amazed or unbearably disgusted, people from other countries still want to explore Chinese food and know more about this ancient and mysterious culture.

Food is all about culture and daily lives and differs across the world. For some Chinese, cheese is generally not as welcomed by some, and escargot is also unfamiliar, let alone guacamole and burritos. Food is an indispensable part of each culture and civilization and a way to get to know a country.