Sea Worm Jelly

Though it may sound unappetizing, most translators end up calling Xiamen's 土笋冻 (tŭ sŭn dòng) “sea worm jelly.” Perhaps you think this is a colorful euphemism, or a lost-in-translation moment. In fact, sea worm jelly is exactly what this is.

The primary ingredients are sipunculid worms harvested from shallow water and muddy beaches on the coast of Fujian.

Here's what they look like. Photo credit: Wikimedia User:Vmenkov

A bunch of these worms are boiled, which releases a slimy collagen into the water that functions similarly to pectin. As the water cools, it is poured into small molds to set like gelatin. A short while later you’ve got small, firm, wiggly mounds of cloudy yellow-gray gelatin in which are suspended long, white worm carcasses. Before you receive a bowl of tŭ sŭn dòng, the vendor will cover it with some combination of chili sauce, mustard, wasabi, soy sauce, vinegar, and cilantro to give it some strong flavors. So what does sea worm jelly taste like, I hear you asking? Frankly, not too much on its own. It tastes and feels like cool, smooth, unflavored (albeit mildly sour and briny) gelatin with some slightly chunkier textures within. The real flavor comes from the sauces on top, which can give it a powerful, sinus-clearing kick. One of the joys of street food is finding truly novel things to eat, and a gelatin made from boiled worms dug up from beach mud is likely to be mightily novel for most people. For a uniquely local street food experience, you really can’t go wrong with tŭ sŭn dòng.

Funny Things in China Part III

In my continuing series of funny things seen in China, I offer you Exhibit C:

This is a public restroom in Fuzhou. I want to draw your attention to the scrolling LED displays above the door, which tell you if the stall is occupied or not (you can see the word "Occupied" starting to scroll across on the right stall). What caught my attention was that if a bathroom was, in fact, occupied, the display also listed a running count of how long it had been occupied. See the display over the left stall for an example of this (six minutes and counting!). I'm not sure if this is a ploy to shame folks into not taking too long or if it's meant to be a helpful tool for those trying to decide which door to line up in front of. If they had the former goal in mind, it seems to me that the process could be improved by having a video display in the stall that shows this video after, say, five minutes.

Hua Sheng Tang

I was only in Xiamen for a few hours between train rides, but I managed to get some great eating done during that time. One of the highlights was the Hua Sheng Tang (花生汤) (peanut soup). Different shops have their own recipes, but in general you can expect exactly what the name suggests--a peanut soup.

When I ordered my hua sheng tang, the vendor cracked a raw egg into the bowl before ladling in the soup. Due to the heat of the soup, the egg was quickly cooked (mostly). The soup was full of flavor, and a mix of different textures, from the soft peanuts to the viscous soup base to the slimy, chewy drips of egg.  It was the tiniest bit sweet, and really quite delicious.  This is a must-try if you are in Xiamen.

Goopy, yet delicious.