On What Little Boys are Made Of...

From my husband’s recent email from Guangzhou, China:

Dinner was something called "Hot Pot" in a Szechwan style... (also got pictures) ... I could sum it up as fish head soup... but there was a lot more to it than that... you might have liked it.. but I really didn’t recognize any of the ingredients (well .. except the fish head) ... some were animal ... some were vegetable and some unknown... in fact, I asked the hostess if a certain ingredient was animal or vegetable... she said neither... :-o something looked suspiciously like tongue from its texture... and something else was identified as "part of beef".. but in the shape of fettuccini and looked like nothing I'd seen.... I'm pretty sure it had something to do with a cows digestive system. I took pictures.. which was acceptable because I said they were for my daughter... but really I just wanted to show you and get all freaked out about it later.... I found myself wishing I was blind.... and trying really hard not to imagine what each item might have been.... two eyeballs ended up on my plate and I was told it would be good for my eyesight if I had them..... of course I declined that... but I did dig into the fish brains because it seemed to be the choice cut and I didn’t want to offend. Also .. I ate all the weird veggies and stumbled into some cabbage... I was actually delighted to find cabbage...