Chinese cuisine features a wide variety of ingredients, and some of them can pose acceptance barriers for foreigners due to differences in appearance, smell, texture, or cultural perceptions. Below are commonly encountered yet controversial ingredients, explained with their characteristics and the reasons why foreigners may find them challenging:
1. Animal Offal and By-products
- Pig Brain
- Common dishes: Chongqing hotpot, spicy pig brain, brain noodle soup.
- Acceptance challenges: Its soft, tofu-like texture and direct visual resemblance to a "brain" create psychological barriers for some foreigners. Additionally, its high cholesterol content aligns with the Western perception that offal is unhealthy.
- Chicken/Duck Offal
- Common dishes: Chongqing chicken offal hotpot, Guangzhou chicken offal congee, Wuhan hot dry noodles with offal toppings.
- Acceptance challenges: Includes chicken hearts, gizzards, and intestines, which can carry a strong odor if not properly prepared. In many countries, offal isn't consumed at all, and some view it as "waste material."
- Duck/Pig Blood Curd
- Common dishes: Duck blood vermicelli soup, Mao Xue Wang (spicy blood curd stew), spicy hotpot.
- Acceptance challenges: Its dark red color and tender texture often remind foreigners of "raw blood." Some also question the safety of animal blood products; clarifying that it's thoroughly cooked and produced through regulated channels can help alleviate concerns.
- Pig Intestines
- Common dishes: Braised pig intestines in flatbread, braised intestines, dry-pot pig intestines.
- Acceptance challenges: Strong aroma (even after thorough cleaning, a faint gamey scent remains) and fatty texture. In most Western countries, only lean meat is consumed, resulting in low acceptance of organ meats.
2. Insects and Worm-based Ingredients
- Silkworm Pupa
- Common dishes: Shandong fried silkworm pupae, Northeast-style grilled pupae, Yunnan Dai-style cold salad.
- Acceptance challenges: Resembles an actual "insect," with a hard shell and a burst-in-mouth texture when bitten. While a few countries like Thailand consume insects, most foreigners hold the stereotype that insects are "unclean."
- Bamboo Worm / Wood Worm
- Common dishes: Yunnan grilled bamboo worms, Guangxi fried bamboo worms.
- Acceptance challenges: Pale, soft-bodied larvae without protective shells create strong visual impact. Though they have a soft, oily flavor, their appearance deters most foreigners.
- Cicada Nymph
- Common dishes: Fried cicada nymphs in Shandong and Henan provinces.
- Acceptance challenges: Retains full insect morphology with a hard exoskeleton, leading some to associate it with "pests." Despite being high in protein and low in fat, the psychological barrier far outweighs any taste-related hesitation.
3. Fermented and Strong-smelling Ingredients
- Stinky Tofu
- Common dishes: Changsha fried stinky tofu, Shaoxing fermented dried tofu. Now widely available at street food stalls nationwide.
- Acceptance challenges: Its pungent sulfur-based fermentation odor resembles "rottenness." With no similar fermented soy product in Western cuisine, foreigners often equate the smell with "spoiled food." Even those who enjoy its crispy texture struggle to tolerate the smell.
- Preserved Egg (Century Egg)
- Common dishes: Cold preserved egg salad, preserved egg and lean pork congee.
- Acceptance challenges: Dark brown yolk and translucent, patterned white appear "unfresh" visually. Its unique alkaline fermentation flavor strikes some as "bitter" or "metallic." It has even been labeled by foreign media as one of the "world's scariest foods."
- Fermented Bamboo Shoot
Common dishes: Guilin rice noodles, Luosifen (river snail rice noodles), stir-fried fermented bamboo shoots with cured meat.
- Acceptance challenges: Its intensely sour and pungent fermented aroma is highly penetrating, reminiscent of "sauerkraut mixed with mildew." Foreigners often mistake it for "spoiled bamboo shoots," and even when served with noodles, many still find the smell difficult to adapt to.
4. Unique Plants and Seafood
- Houttuynia Cordata (Fish Mint)
- Common dishes: Guizhou cold salad with Houttuynia, Sichuan stir-fried Houttuynia with cured meat.
- Acceptance challenges: Contains distinctive volatile oils producing a combined "fishy + herbal" aroma, resulting in polarized reactions. With no comparable ingredient abroad, most foreigners find its "strange" flavor overwhelming or even "irritating."
- Sipunculid Worm Jelly
- Common dishes: Street snack in Quanzhou and Xiamen, Fujian province.
- Acceptance challenges: Made from sipunculid worms (a type of marine worm), boiled into a jelly. Though pleasantly chewy, learning that the base ingredient is a "worm" causes psychological resistance in most foreigners. Its translucent appearance revealing faint worm outlines adds to the visual shock.
- Balut (Fertilized Duck Egg)
- Common dishes: Boiled balut sold on streets in Anhui and Jiangsu provinces.
- Acceptance challenges: A fertilized egg incubated until partially developed (containing embryo, feathers, or bones). Its appearance and contents are unappealing to most foreigners. Some also consider eating embryos "inhumane," making cultural differences far more significant than taste preferences.
5. Other Controversial Ingredients
- Dog Meat
- Common dishes: Specialty dish in Yulin, Guangxi, and parts of Guizhou.
- Acceptance challenges: In most Western countries, dogs are regarded as "pets," creating a cultural consensus against eating dog meat. Even where legal, foreigners often reject it emotionally, sometimes reacting with strong aversion.
- Edible Bird's Nest
- Common dishes: Rock sugar bird's nest soup, bird's nest congee.
- Acceptance challenges: Made from swiftlets' saliva secretions, which many foreigners find "disgusting." Coupled with its high price and lack of consumption tradition overseas, most cannot comprehend the practice of eating "saliva-based products."