Baby bird 串

[valikor]

I was unfortunate enough to go to the badaling Great Wall today and saw some fascinating looking 肉串. It appeared to be 4 bird fetuses on a stick. Though it looked absolutely foul, I decided to get one, in the spirit of always trying the most radically different foods.

Aside from the horrible visual, and the crunching of bones (they told me I could eat EVERYTHING), the taste was actually pretty good.

I'm trying to figure out what I actually ate, though. One person I talked to said that it was probably dove or pidgeon... can anyone give any insight? When I asked the salesperson, they said something I didn't understand. When I asked again, they simply said 小鸟

I will post a picture if necessary.. though I'd need to find one.

Anyone have experience with this?

Thanks

David

[anonymoose]

How do you know they were fetuses? If so, well, how do you know it wasn't chicken?

In a certain part of Shanghai, there is a town where they serve sparrow 串 and also quail 串. Perhaps it could have been either of those.

[valikor]

I have no way to confirm that they were fetuses... it was perhaps more accurate when I described it as "baby bird" They were, however, extremely small -_-

Could have been chicken, but I think they would have told me that when I asked, and I would have understood...

But thanks for the info about sparrow and quail.

David

[Don_Horhe]

I had a chuanr with baby birds in Beijing last year and the guy said they were sparrows, but it could be anything.

[in_lab]

I've had 小鸟 before, but not nearly as small as what you're talking about. I'd like to see the picture. How much did that cost?

[HashiriKata]

I have no way to confirm that they were fetuses...

There's no way that they're fetuses. Not necessarily young birds even, just a small bird variety (but it makes good business sense to refer to them as "young birds" )

[anonymoose]

There's no way that they're fetuses.

Why is there no way? They eat them in other countries in Asia (see here).

Still, I suspect they were probably just small birds, most likely sparrows.

[HashiriKata]

Why is there no way? They eat them in other countries in Asia (see here).

What we're talking about here are roasted/ fried birds and what you've shown us are boiled eggs, and that's a huge difference. Edited February 26, 2010 at 11:34 AM by HashiriKata

[anonymoose]

What we're talking about here are fried birds

Where has anyone mentioned fried birds?

[HashiriKata]

You normally get them fried or roasted, similar stuff. The difference is that they are birds, and not eggs!

[roddy]

Makes a mental to never visit Hashirkata's for breakfast.

Chinese term is 毛蛋。 I know you get chicken ones, but you'd probably need the services of a forensics lab to figure out what it was you actually ate by now.

[valikor]

Picture attached (for what it's worth)

Probably too big to be fetuses (unless it was of a very large bird). I should have chosen my words more carefully.

But, an interesting discussion has arisen here -_-

[valikor]

And someone asked... I think it was 3 yuan.

[anonymoose]

From the photo, I'm fairly sure it is sparrow.

[HashiriKata]

Chinese term is 毛蛋。

Another confused laowai!

毛蛋 are the eggs as shown in anonymoose's link, and not the stuff in valikor's photo.

[skylee]

People like to eat 禾花雀. Take a look -> http://images.google.com.hk/images?hl=zh-TW&source=hp&q=%E7%A6%BE%E8%8A%B1%E9%9B%80&oq=%E7%A6%BE%E8%8A%B1&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=OMeHS-SuFsuHkQXJ_J3zDw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=5&ved=0CCIQsAQwBA

[roddy]

Yeah, I think I was probably referring to the photo that had been posted rather than the one that hadn't. Confused, maybe, psychic, never. Laowai, always

[valikor]

Some of the confusion in this thread would have been avoided had I not poorly (probably inaccurately) described it as "bird fetuses".

The confused laowai in this case was actually me. Anyways, this was an educational experience. Perhaps some day, I can eat the pretty yellow bird in skylee's photo -_-

[imron]

Another confused laowai!

It's a good thing there are so many unconfused laowai to point out corrections.

[liuzhou]

I can believe that there are non-eggular bird foetuses. Not easily, but I have faith.

I can believe that anything on a 串 is possible. No faith required.

But an unconfused laowai?

Don't be ridiculous!