Hidden away behind the palatial Beijing Hotel, in an alleyway tucked between two rather larger and newer (and therefore uglier) shopping centers, lies a seedy little market street.
The place is an unapologetic tourist trap. You will find no trace of old Peking here, no sacred remnants of Chinese culture, no bastions of traditional art, handicrafts, or culinary delights. Everything that's here is for tourists, and tourists alone.
Eagle-eyed women and smirking men stand near their stalls, verbally lassoing suckers and sapheads as they stroll by: "Hey, mister, you want medallion? Or maybe coin purse? Hey, look, nice deck of cards! I give you special deal!" The stuff they're hawking looks even cheaper than Insadong and is equally pricy.
So why go there?
For the scorpions, of course.
You know me—I'm an epicurean. I exist to fly airplanes, travel the world, read great novels, write great novels (and short fiction), mix drinks, brew beer, and eat the weirdest foods I can get my hands on. All the stuff that makes me feel happy and alive, in other words.
Nobody in China eats scorpions on a stick. The food stalls in Donghuamen are just as much a part of the tourist trap as the souvenir-mongers selling decks of Chinese emperor cards and laser pointers and faux-jade figurines.
But you know who does eat scorpions?
Me, that's who. So, on our first night in China, we marched a few of Beijing's long blocks south from the Novotel Xin Qiao and straight into Donghuamen's profiteering heart. We bellied up to a visually challenging scorpion-and-starfish stall near a bunch of trash cans that reeked to high heaven.
Having survived this little preview, I prepared myself and dove in headfirst. And this was the result:
Let's settle the bet now: they weren't alive when I ate them. The scorpion-monger dipped the stick into a vat of boiling oil, lightly killing the arachnids before they ever got near my mouth. He also salted them up plenty, which explains my popcorn comment in the second video.
One foreigner whose accent I couldn't place (southern European, if I had to guess) walked up to us and asked if he could watch as I ate. I told him, sure, heck, why not? He stood there, a half-amused, half-revolted grin on his face as I bolted these suckers down. It's him I'm speaking to in the video when I say "You should try them."
And then I was done. Three scorpions down. An item on the bucket list scratched off. I returned to the hotel and slept...not very deeply, 'cause the mattress was harder than a slab of jade.
Charles tells me it's the number-one surefire gross-out food for most foreigners. Most people can't stand the sight of it. For me, it's a dream come true. I like octopus; why bother to waste the time cooking it, or even waiting for it to mature? Just take some baby octopi, slice 'em up into bite-size chunks, then grab some chopsticks and some sesame oil and eat them, still wriggling.
That's sannakji: live baby octopus.
As soon as we learned of this delicacy, Adam, Jeff and I knew we had to try it. Come on: how many times in your life are you going to get an opportunity as bizarre as this?
I'd like to restate the principle of the thing for those of you who might be skimming this article in search of the juicy bits: sannakji is
LIVE BABY OCTOPUS,
EATEN WHILE IT'S STILL WRIGGLING.
Is that clear? Splendid. Let there be no further speculation on it.
Sannakji was on the "must-try" list for Korea. However, being Newbies, we were unsure where to go to obtain some. So we asked Charles, who, being Korean himself, was our resident expert on all things Korea-related, especially food. He said he'd look around. His first recommendation was just to waltz into any seafood- or fish-related restaurant and order up. We heard rumors about a full plate of bulgogi and sannakji served up at some eatery over in Deoksan, a burg somewhere between Gohyeon and Okpo, but didn't act on it.
Then Charles found something more material: sannakji being sold out in the local sijang (market). After some scheduling mishaps (Jeff, the poor sap, is being "rented out" to kindergarten by his employer; his mornings are taken up with teaching now as well as his afternoons), we managed to set a meeting time: Wednesday noon across from the market, outside Lotteria. I awoke that morning agog with expectation, and everything I turned my hand to seemed charmed. It was certainly charming weather, a warm and sunny spring day with a breath of cool breeze to tone down the blossoming sunlight. I donned my most gaudy Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses, took a long walk, then went back to the apartment to fetch the camera. As I rounded the corner of the block the market sits on, I descried Adam standing in front of Lotteria, in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, his cap pulled low over his eyes, smoking a cigarette and surveying the market in front of him. Both of us acknowledged that we might need some water to wash some enterprising octopus down our throats, so we went in search of a convenience store. We'd heard that sannakji can be tenacious, wrapping their tentacles around your teeth or attaching themselves to your gums with their suckers. Adam's drink-sniffing nose led us to a shop just a minute or so up the street; we nabbed a couple of water bottles and nipped back to the rendezvous, where Jeff had arrived in the meantime. Soon Charles rolled up on his bicycle, and the three of us walked across the street to the market. We located our quarry after only three steps.
Charles, ever watchful for an opportunity for me to practice my Korean in a practical setting, called on me to conduct the transaction.
"Sannakji eolmayeyo?" I asked.
The woman held up four fingers (swathed in pink rubber gloves).
"Nemari man won," she replied. Four octopi for ten grand. We took out our billfolds and started up a collection for the Mollusk Consumption Foundation. Without further ado, the woman snatched four wriggling baby octopi out of the basket, sliced them into chunks, put them in a bag, and handed it to us with a container of wasabi. As we left the market and strode back to where Charles had parked his bicycle he suggested we adjourn to his place; he could procure some sesame oil and we could eat in comfort and peace. This we did. We installed ourselves and our precious haul of raw mollusk under a pavilion in a playground next to Charles's apartment (the same ill-fated playground in which I'd lost my wristwatch during a drunken dive out of a swingset after the housewarming party). Charles dumped his stuff off in his apartment and reemerged with paper cups of sesame oil and chopsticks. Then we opened up the container and went to work. Inside was a moist, gelatinous mass of tentacles and amorphous chunks of octopus, the color of brain matter. Most of it was still writhing. Lesser men would have balked at the mere idea, to say nothing of the sight; but we set our teeth and went into the breach. It was interesting eating. Uncooked octopus tastes and feels a tad rubbery, but regardless I believe that intoxicating oceanic flavor that pervades seafood (especially mollusks) was still present, and appreciable. My first bite wasn't moving perceptibly, either. So I made sure to nab a motile tentacle the next time around. This is most visible in the video.
The feel of a tentacle writhing away in my mouth, scraping roughly against my tongue, teeth and cheeks, is a feeling not soon to be equaled in this lifetime or the next. I strongly suggest you try it, if only once. I wound up eating a load of the stuff. Jeff took a huge bite the first time out and the magic sort of went out of it for him; Adam's views on the subject are perhaps best summarized by this picture, taken shortly after the one above.
Nonetheless we all continued to pick at the stuff. We'd come this far. By now, at least, it had stopped moving. Finally everyone declared they'd had their fill and I was left to finish the remainder.
I'm known as something of a walking garbage disposal in these parts. Jeff is the accomplished master in dealing with leftovers; it is my lot to eat any and all strange, odd, unusual, revolting or disturbing foods. Put us together and we'll eat anybody, anywhere out of house and home.
So ended the Trial of the Octopus. We came, we saw, we sampled. For us all, it was the realization of a dream; we'd finally gotten our chance to challenge and master sannakji and the principle of stuffing still-moving food into our gullets. For me, moreover, it marked the first steps toward the completion of a pet ambition (sample the weirdest food of every country I visit, and then write a compendium).
We said a hearty thank-you to Charles, our guide, teacher and minister, then departed for our respective apartments.
