Tried something new for lunch today. Gou pi 狗屁 as my friends called it or in english; dog’s bum. I’m willing to give most foods a go, if only once, and a I can now say for certain that I won’t be eating dog’s bum in the future.

And I can only say that it tasted like, well, like a dogs bum. Pretty chewy and greasy, with no real taste, a little like a badly cooked piece of fatty beef.

Surprisingly, I actually quite like the gou tang 狗汤 dog soup, and since I have no great admiration of dogs anyway, I don’t suffer the problems that most westerners have over eating dog meat. Most can’t bring themselves to do it, the idea of eating ‘mans best friend‘ over dinner, conjures up images of cute fluffy doggies being decapitated by the house chef. . .

Some of the more unusual things I’ve tried here in Changchun are: Dog, Camel(!), Deer, Rabit, Ox, Pigeon and Sparrow. I’m serious, there are various types of birds available. I’ve had Dove (rather chewy, mostly bones), the regular grey pigeon – like the ones that used to be in Trafalgar Square (tasted the same, no real meat), and the sparrow (that’s what It looked like anyway, just like chewing on a bag of tiny bones)

I’m yet to try snake or shark as it’s very expensive and difficult to obtain in Changchun and I draw my line at insects. I won’t eat bugs.