What's That? Wednesday 11/2/2011

Mmmm, this week's What's That? Wednesday is yummy "purple bread".  When we first moved here I was perusing a bread store at the Incity mall and saw a loaf of bread that was a very interesting shade of purple.  Because I have two young girls at our house, purple bread seemed to be the perfect after school treat.

The girls were hooked from the first slice.  I couldn't accurately describe the tasty swirl running through the middle, but it was slightly sweet and very good.  It wasn't until the October holiday when LBean ordered some purple ice cream from a shop in Tongli (that listed the English names of the ice cream) that we figured out that the purple flavor was tarot root.  LBean was not a fan of the purple ice cream and we kept asking her "how bad can it be, it's ice cream?"...it was bad, the flavor was way too strong.

Of course we should have known the mystery ingredient was tarot root!  C'mon why didn't we figure that out earlier?!  Actually we knew that tarot was popular in China and we had a tarot root pie from McDonald's (like the little apple pies in the States) at Family Day in September, so we shouldn't have been so surprised. Here's to tarot root!

What's That? Wednesday 10/5/2011

Take a deep breath.  And again.  Do you smell it?  Oh come on, try again!  This week’s What’s That? Wednesday is the Asian delicacy, stinky tofu.  The dish comes by it’s name honestly.

We have spent this past week exploring some of the local Suzhou sights.  Because it is a holiday week, there were many people out exploring and celebrating.  Part of the celebration included favorite foods such as stinky tofu.  

We got our first whiff, literally, on Monday when we were on Walking Street in Suzhou.  The smell is so overwhelming and terrible, there really isn’t a nice way to say it.  Jamie likened it to China’s blue cheese and my mom suggested sauerkraut.  

From what I understand, the smell is terrible, but the taste is mild.  I’m not brave enough to find out if that is true.  The best way to describe the smell is rotten flesh with a little manure mixed in...and then fry it in hot oil.

After we got back from Walking Street, I felt as if the stinky tofu smell was clinging to my hair and wouldn’t let go.  Not a pleasant thing!

We were so fortunate to smell it again on Tuesday as we visited Tong Li, an ancient water town south of Suzhou Industrial Park.  The tofu was fried in hot oil and then put on skewers for people to munch on as they toured the town.  I think our family will pass on this treat!

Frying the tofu.  I think the small, round canisters have
dipping sauce in them.

Time to dig in!