Some of you might know some of you might not but the Guangdong people are well known for their special cuisine and the tendency to eat practically everything.  So when Jamie told me to organize something culture-related, my mind quickly jumped from calligraphy lessons to cooked snakes on the table. Creepy, right? That’s why it seemed so appealing to me! So I shared my ideas with Philippe and we decided to go for it. However, I must admit I didn’t even know where to begin. I was and still am fairly new in town, so all the Chinese local places were rather out of my supermarket list! However, my colleagues as always came to help!

I lived in Beijing for four months and yet haven’t been to the place which would be anything like Gongbei market. I was rather fascinated and disgusted by it at the same time.  All the smells, food, livestock, crowds of people and simply the pace they worked seized my attention completely. The guy fully dissected the frogs in three moves: 1. Cut their head 2. Peeled the skin 3. Took the insights out. I was merely able to count to five before he was finished with one frog. Killing the chickens was way easier than that – took them about 2 seconds to cut the chicken’s head.

As Gongbei market is particularly small compared to the one they have in Guangzhou, we couldn’t find the snakes, however I bought a live eel, which was sliding in the bowl, its body glittering in the water. Did not cook it though, just put it in the glass jar on the table for a slight entertainment.

So when the party started we had cooked shark, frogs, the most disgusting eggs in the world and some other stuff. Alas, there were no cooked snakes so they are still on my list! And…. About the eel… The little buddy escaped from its jar at night, slided down all the way from the table and was found on the floor in the morning! Pretty creepy to wake up and see its long glittering body on your living room floor. It spent the next night in our balcony and was returned to a swamp next day, so we can wish it the best of luck!

Have a look at some pictures from the party guys!

My best wishes!

Beata