It Came From Chinatown...

Well here we are... the inaugural post of the ongoing feature that's sure to be the cause of my early death. I wanted to kick this whole thing off by, frankly, doing a bit of ass-covering. I want to state, for the record, that I'm not intending ICFC to be a long-running goof at the expense of another culture. We're not here to poke fun. No, we here at ZFS! are committed to building bridges between the Chinese and the C-dog... to creating an understand of each other not through our minds or our words, but through our stomachs. I'd really like to believe, for example, that there's a guy from Hong Kong writing a blog about stuff he's eaten out of my refrigerator. Though I guess that'd be creepy because, like, how did he get into my apartment? Well, anyway, just think of ICFC as a low-rent take (rip off) on that Bizarre Foods show on the Travel Channel. This is all about learning, kids, not about mocking.

Now, let's eat some weird crap!

Our first item... GRASS JELLY



Starting off with a bang, I'd say. Truthfully, when Girlfriend pulled this out of her purse, I was thrown for a bit of a loop. I had expected her to bring home some sort of dried fish guts, or perhaps a piece of hard candy festooned with pictures of an anime character's boobs. I was not expecting something horrifyingly gelatinous. The size of the can, coupled with the inherent foreignness of the product, left me stunned. Here's a closer picture:



I like the French translation better, actually... "gelee d' herbe" has a nice ring to it. Makes it sound less menacing. Grass jelly, on the other hand, just sounds like a mistake. Well, either that or it sounds like something you'd use to help your lawn achieve a certain, possibly-demonic luster. "Phil, your lawn looks beautiful!" "Thanks, I smeared the whole thing down with grass jelly the other night. Glows in the dark, of course, but that's okay 'cause now the neighborhood kids are too terrified to walk on it. Also, I saw it eat a squirrel."

Behold, the grass jelly from Satan himself:



NOTE: That picture was totally taken by accident. Girlfriend had her finger over the camera's flash and, apparently, that's how you can make things look evil. Who knew? I'm totally using that idea for an upcoming art project, so don't steal it.

Okay so, all kidding aside, just what in tarnation is grass jelly? It can't be what it sounds like, right? Well, after doing a bit of research, it turns out.... um, yeah. It is. From Wikipedia:

"Grass jelly is made by boiling grass or leaves of the mint family (specifically Mesona chinensis) with potassium carbonate, and then cooling the liquid to a jelly-like consistency. It has a slight iodine flavour and looks like a clear, deep brown liquid with strands or cubes of translucent blackish jelly in it. "

Yikes. That sounds just awful. I really feel bad for the poor bastard that's got to eat that for his goofy-ass blog. Oh wait...



Upon opening the can, we discovered that Wikipedia wasn't lying... it's the brownest thing I've ever seen. So brown that it almost looks black. In other words, it was a color that no thing should ever be, particularly if it's a thing that's meant to be put in your mouth. I gave it the ol' smell test and... okay, here's what's really disconcerting about grass jelly: it smells like lawn clippings. Not exactly, mind you, but close enough to where eating the stuff feels weird. It's kind of like seeing a tattooed biker reading a Jane Austen novel, or watching a circus clown do math; the connection between the two can't be made in your brain.

Here's a picture of the brackish liquid from inside the can. This should help you understand how intensely depressing is the color:



Alright, so we plopped it out of the can (and there's no other word for it than "plopped") and it then begain to wiggle around under it's own power. Disturbing, disturbing stuff. Girlfriend, quite aptly, described it as "[looking] like the The Blob took a shit." Yep, pretty much:

Fingers crossed this doesn't kill me:

The first bite:

I believe this reaction shot, taken immediately after the picture above, sums up my feelings on the subject of grass jelly quite nicely:

So how did it taste? Honestly, not as bad as the reaction shot would make you think. Unsuprisingly, it tasted exactly like it smelled; that is to say, it tasted like lawn trimmings. It reminded me as well of those little globs of tapioca that you find in Bubble Tea, though much more intensely flavored. The real problem with grass jelly, and the actual reason behind the face that I'm making up there, is the texture. Sweet Jesus, the texture... slimy, slick, like holding slugs in your mouth. It had the feeling of Jello that had given up on life and was slowly dying from cancer. Judging by the graphic on the can, people in China will just eat bowlfuls of this stuff... I really don't see how that's possible, unless those that do it have palate's made of forged steel. The way grass jelly slides around in your mouth and on your tongue just feels wrong. Obscene, almost.

I did decide, in the spirit of the project, to take one more bite. To mix it up a little bit, as well as to really get the full effect of the grass jelly with as many senses as possible, I decided to eschew the spoon and just dive in face first. Also, Girlfriend dared me to:

Nope, still unimaginably foul. Girfriend stated that she refused to kiss me until I'd thoroughly brushed my teeth and given my face a good wash. I do not blame her in the least.

The final verdict on grass jelly:

Mostly for the sorrowful color and regretable texture. Like I said, tastewise, it wasn't as bad as you'd think. I mean, it wasn't good... let's not get crazy. But of all the things I'm likely to sample from the shelves and stalls of Chinatown during the course of ICFC, it's probably going to end up being one of the least offensive.

God fucking help me.