How it started was that I taught class tonight from 7pm until 9pm. I was busy putting the finishing touches to my charts befoe that, and so I didn’t have time for dinner (only a banana). Afterwards, I had to get back to my room for a call with a new business partner, and one of my students wanted to go over a plan for her project, and so I didn’t eat then either. Actually, I’d forgotten that I hadn’t eaten, and didn’t realize until I was downstairs taking the trash out.

I decided that I’d take a walk to ensure that I met my NikeFuel fitness goal, and that maybe I’d pick up a snack along the way. It’s turned very cold here the last two days, and so ‘Snack Street’ was quiter than usual. I did a first pass, and not seeing anything I liked, I walked around the whole block, coming back around for a second inspection. In the end, I got fed up with being indecisive, and just went to the first stall that was selling a mix of fried fish and meat.

The street was very dark and the stall was lit by something like a 10W bulb, and so it was hard to make out what the choices were. At first, I thought that the option I tried was chicken quarters, but as I pointed to it, I noticed that it was something that had been butterflied. Still thinking that it was some form of poultry, my mind jumped to quail as I found myself nodding my head, as she lifted a circular cover and dropped it inside. She then put the lid back down and started to use all of her weight to squash down whatever it was.

As it started to sizzle, I looked back at the other portion that was still sat on the slab. Hmmm.. remember those scenes in Alien and other sci-fi movies, when you suddenly realize that the skeleton isn’t like anything you’ve ever seen before. That’s how it felt when I realized that it definitely wasn’t chicken. After a couple of minutes, we got to really load sizzling, and so she pulled it out, and before I could take a closer look, she used a pair of tongs and a wallpaper stripper (if you’re not sure what I mean, think wide putty knife) to chop it into pieces.

She motioned if I wanted any spices, and after I nodded again, she liberally covered the contents of the doggy bag with the contents of two different shakers. When I got back to my apartment, I started thinking through strategies of how I could get rid of my snack, if I either chickened out (I wish!), or found that I really didn’t like the taste.

Surprisingly, I found that I really loved it. That’s probably to do with how much cumin was in one or both of the spice mixes, but what little meat there was on there tasted like a cross between bacon and yes, you guessed it.. chicken!

Just as I was finishing it, one of my students popped up on QQ (the Chinese love child of Facebook & Twitter, with a striking resemblance to crusty old uncle AOL IM), and I asked her what she thought I’d just eaten. She’s not that sure that it was frog, and after checking the images that come up when you search for ‘crispy frog’ or ‘crunchy frog’, I’m not all that sure either.

Again, I’m probably not going to enquire any further at this point. There are some things that are just better left unknown!

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