Rat Meat Shish Kebab or Chicken?

Mem: 生病, sheng1 bing4, to get sick. Don't eat street-food.

In my first few months of living in Shanghai I was warned by my wife’s local friends never to eat street food. The meat is 老鼠肉 (rat meat), they say. The oil they cook it with comes from the dirty plates of uneaten food in restaurants, they say. It was filled with cigarette butts before they filtered it, they say. But damn, that stuff tastes good. Is it really worth avoiding such delicious food just for the sake of a few wives’ tales?

Apparently, yes. Rats are a very cheap source of meat, are easy to farm and can be made to taste like other meat if marinated for long enough in the blood and fatty juices of another more appetizing animal. No joke. Especially not funny after you’ve eaten it, or when you’re in the toilet praying for flow, or when you’re in hospital squirting nothing but clear water out from both ends because you’ve flushed everything else out of your intestines by vomit and diarrorhea. Yes, my wife and I have both been there, and on separate occasions too: my wife, by eating a KFC burger, and me, by pizza bread from a bakery. Admittedly, not by rat-meat shish kebab sold on the street corner, but that only makes it scarier, because you realize you’re still not safe even if you avoid the obvious dangers. For a while it was on the news not to eat any chicken, and so people all over China were avoiding the stuff. I still do.

Now I’m not a drinker, but neither am I a fan of the dreaded laduzi, or dire horror as they say in English (diarrorhea). If it looks dodgy but you still want to risk it, have a few mouthfuls of strong liquor with your meal, and the alcohol content will kill any germs. Try 'baijiu', the drink of choice among the locals - it'll make your eyes water, but you'll have the assurance while it kills your brain cells that its also killing the parasites in your stomach. One mouthful is enough, no need to get drunk. I made a mistake when I first heard this advice, I drank the liquor a few hours after lunch when my stomach was already starting to hurt. But it was too late, you have to drink at the time of your meal. This is a matter of preparation in advance! 

All in all, this is pretty universal stuff for travelling, go anywhere overseas and you’ll have similar problems. Just remember to avoid the street food no matter how yummy it may be, and the chicken. And for the love of Mike, don’t touch street food chicken with a yard pole; it’d be safer to stick with the rat meat.