Illustration by Jaimie Shelton
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I am in Beijing, comfortably installed in a Western-style hotel in the eastern part of the city. Around me are foreign embassies and the occasional international brand like McDonalds or Starbucks, which I scorn and dismiss when I get hungry. Despite the contraband Mr. Noodles lodged deep in my suitcase (in case of emergencies only), I decide that I will eat like a local.
And I do. Night after night, dutifully checking with the concierge for advice and directions, I venture forth into the culinary wonderland that is Beijing. One night, I order sweet and sour eel and watch in awe as the cook casually grasps a live eel from the aquariums on display in the dining room and transports it to the kitchen. There is a resounding chop and a few minutes later, dinner is served. It is delicious.
I become increasingly adventurous. Peking duck? Certainly. Shrimp cooked whole in their shells, designed to be popped into the mouth that way? Why not?! Kung Pao chicken so spicy that it steams from your pores while you eat it? Bring it on! Each time I enter a restaurant, I am entranced by the dining room aquariums and this new version of myself, a fearless international culinary adventurer as geographically and culturally far from the meat counter at the neighbourhood supermarket as I can get.
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As my week’s holiday was about to end, I still had yet to try hot pot, a sort of Chinese interpretation of fondue. There is a place just a half a block away from the hotel and it looks fine from the outside. “Not too professional,” warns my concierge. I decide to try it anyway.
I step into the restaurant, which is empty except for another table of Chinese businessmen. A friendly waitress hands me a menu. I order classic hot pot, and settle in with a Tsingtao beer.
I notice the teeming aquariums off to the side. I expect the usual – the prerequisite fish, eels and I even saw some bullfrogs one night. I stroll over to take a closer look.
And there it is. One of those aquariums is teeming all right – but with garter snakes. Heaps of them forming a writhing pulsing garter snake ball.
I do not like snakes. Not in their natural habitats and certainly never at dinner. Although a menu from a previous night’s restaurant outing offering “Snake Three Ways” (roasted, stir fried and in a soup, fyi) should have tipped me off that snake eating is a thing in these parts.
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I return to my table. You can do this, I say to myself. You can eat your dinner with all those snakes right here in the dining room. What is the worst thing that could happen?
A cook saunters from the kitchen, reaches into an aquarium, grasps a fish. A moment later I hear a loud chop. Then the Chinese businessmen at the next table rise to check out the aquariums. My heart rate perceptibly rises. I begin to sweat from the back of my knees. What are the odds that they are not here for a nice repast of super fresh garter snake?
Not odds favourable enough for me.
I throw down a handful of yuan on the table and slink out of the restaurant. Back at the hotel, I charge past the concierge, grab a Diet Coke from the vending machine and head back to my room to heat up those Mr. Noodles. My career as international culinary adventurist is over. Time to go home.
Tracy Thiessen lives in Montreal.
