Late Night Snacks, Beijing-style

When we were in Beijing a few weeks ago we had an opportunity to walk through one of the night markets near our hotel, about 10 minutes walk from Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. There were about 40 food vendors lined up.

Many of them had the same basic fare to offer: some fruit (although they serve it covered in this clear jelly goop that looks so disgusting I could never bring myself to actually buy it), dumplings, a plate of noodles, some steamed buns. I couldn't resist a plate of fried dumplings, even though we had eaten earlier. As we walked on through the stalls, though,  

it definitely got easier to resist. And harder to hold back what I had just eaten... 

Interestingly, I did not see anyone buying from these meticulously ordered displays. The one thing that I did observe someone buy was the scorpions on a stick. I missed getting a picture of that though: For about 1$ US you could buy a stick with 3 or 4 1-inch scorpions on it but the picture wouldn't really have done it justice anyway because in most cases the scorpions were still moving while skewered on the stick, before being plunged into the deep fryer. I saw a couple of what looked to be American college kids daring each other to buy them. I found myself staring as a gutsy girl engaged in her own private Fear Factor episode (although they'd probably still be alive on the real FF). "Crunchy," she said. "Bitter", she said, without so much as a gag! We moved on just as she was daring her male companions to rise to the challenge.

Walking through I couldn't help but wonder: what is the order of this food chain? Does someone go out and look under rocks and in tidal pools to harvest their inventory? Do they have to clean them like vegetables pulled from the earth before they lay them out? Are they farm raised? I can't even begin to imagine how it works. Or what it might be like to eat a deep-fried silkworm pupa. According to Born Survivor: Bear Grylls bugs ARE a great source of protein. Hungry, anyone?

And just for fun, here are some of the other interesting foods seen around Shanghai in our daily travels:

And on the lighter side, a choice for dessert perhaps:

You might notice that they are labeled as an American product. Has anyone seen them on the shelves at Kroger or Meijer lately?