Steamed Platypus

Take a platypus, kill it and hang it upside down for about an hour to drain the blood. Please note that you should use a silver knife and cut from under its mouth to make sure the point of entry is as small as possible. After draining the blood, put the platypus in water heated to 75 degrees Celsius to strip the hide. Then carefully remove the innards, the liver, the heart, and the eggs (if there are any). Use special care when removing the liver, making sure you don't puncture the gallbladder. Otherwise the playtpus will become inedible and useless. Take out the intestines and turn them inside out to clean thoroughly with salt water. Then wash the mouth and feet with boiling water, rub off the rough shell over the beak and the rough skin between the toes. Make sure to keep the webbing between the toes intact. After cleaning, lightly cook the innards in hot oil and stuff them inside the platypus. For sauce, add salt, garlic, shredded ginger, chili pepper, sesame oil -- remember not to use any MSG -- and slowly cook over a low fire until it turns dark red and gives off a peculiar odor. If the situation permits, saute the eggs and innards together, then stuff them back inside the platypus. If there are larger, better-formed eggs, you can make them into a separate gourmet dish by following the recipe for braised turtle eggs.

(from The Republic of Wine by Mo Yan, Penguin Books, 2001)

The All Donkey Banquet

In this excerpt from The Republic of Wine, we rejoin our narrator in the famed Yichi Tavern on Donkey Avenue, where he and his guests are treated to a rare culinary event, the all donkey banquet.




Several dwarfs come up to pour tea and alcoholic beverages and to set the table with plates and chopsticks. They whirl around the table as if they were on wheels. The tea is Oolong, the liquor Maotai, no local flavor, but easily state-banquet quality. First to be served are twelve cold delicacies arranged in the shape of a lotus flower: donkey stomach, donkey liver, donkey heart, donkey intestines, donkey lungs, donkey tongue, and donkey lips . . . all donkey stuff. Friends, sample these delicacies sparingly and leave room for what follows, for experience tells me that the best is yet to come. Take note, friends, here come the hot dishes. You, the lady over there, be careful, don't burn yourself! A dwarf all in red -- painted red lips and roughed cheeks, red shoes and a red cap, red from head to toe, like a red candle -- rolls up to the table carrying a steaming platter of food. She opens her mouth, and out spills a flurry of words, falling like pearls: 'Braised donkey ear. Enjoy!'
'Steamed donkey brains, for your dining pleasure!'
'Pearled donkey eyes, for your dining pleasure!'
The donkey eyes, in beautifully contrasting black and white, lay pooled on a large platter. Go ahead, friends, dig in. Don't be afraid. They might appear to be alive, but they are, after all, just food. But, hold on, there are only two eyes but ten of us. How do we divide them up fairly. Will you help us out here, miss? The red candle girl smiles and picks up a steel fork. Two gentle pokes, and the black pearls pop, filling the platter with a gelatinous liquid. Use your spoons, comrades, scoop it up, one spoonful at a time. It may not be a pretty dish, but it tastes wonderful. I know there's another dish for which Yichi Tavern is famous. It's called Black Dragon Sporting with Pearls, The main ingredients are a donkey dick and a pair of donkey eyes. Today, however, the chef has used the eyes to make Pearled Donkey Eyes, so it looks like there'll be no sporting by the donkey dick this time. Who knows, maybe we're eating a female donkey.
Don't be shy, brothers and sisters. Loosen you belts, let you bellies hang out, eat till you burst. There'll be no toasting, since we're all family. Just drink to your hearts' content. And don't worry about the bill. Today you can bleed me.
'Donkey ribs in wine, for you dining pleasure.'
'Donkey tongue in brine, for your dining pleasure.'
'Braised donkey tendons, for your dining pleasure.'
'Pear and lotus root donkey throat, for your dining pleasure.'
'Steamed and fried donkey intestines, for your dining pleasure.'
'Stewed donkey hooves with sea cucumbers, for your dining pleasure.'
'Five-spice donkey liver, for your dining pleasure.'
. . . and so on . . .
A medley of donkey dishes flows onto our table, filling stomachs that are now stretched taut as drums, and drawing rumbling belches out of the diners. Or faces are covered with a film of donkey grease, through which weariness shows, like donkeys worn out from turning a millstone, Comrades, you must be exhausted by now. I stop an attendand and ask, 'How many more dishes are there?'
'Twenty or so, I guess,' she replies. 'I'm not exactly sure. I just bring out what they give me.'
I point to the friends around the table. 'They're nearly full. Can't we skip some of the dishes?
With a show of reluctance, she says, 'You ordered a whole donkey, and you've barely made a dent in it.'
'But we're stuffed,' I plead. 'Dear young lady, won't you please ask the kitchen to just bring out the best and forget the rest.'
The lady says, 'You disappoint me, but, OK, I'll talk to them.'
She is successful. Out comes the final dish.
'Dragon and Phoenix Lucky Together, for your dining pleasure. Enjoy!'
She wants us to enjoy the sight of the dish before beginning our dining pleasure.
One of our group, a sourpuss of a woman -- and not very smart, either -- asks the attendant, 'Which part of the donkey is this made of?'
Without hesitation, she answers, 'It's the donkey's sex organs.'
The woman blushes, but, unable to control her curiosity, asks, 'We only ordered one donkey, so how could there be . . .' She puckers up her lips to point at the 'dragon' and 'phoenix' on the plate.
'The chef felt terrible that you missed over a dozen dishes,' the waitress replies, 'so he added a set of female donkey's genitalia to create this dish.'
Please dig in, ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, don't be shy. These are the donkeys' jewels, as delicious as they are ugly. If you don't eat, it's your loss. If you do, it's still your loss, sooner or later, if you know what I mean. Come on, dig in , give it a try eat eat eat Dragon and Phoenix Lucky Together.

(from The Republic of Wine by Mo Yan, Penguin Books, 2001)

The Handsome Donkey

For your reading pleasure, a passage from The Republic of Wine by Mo Yan, published by Penguin books, 2001. Here we find a rare and colourful description of the original Hungry Donkey.


Walk slowly, enjoy the sites. Donkey Avenue is a mile long, with butcher shops on both sides. There are ninety restaurants and inns, and all of them use the carcasses of donkeys in their fare. The menus are always changing, as new dishes vie for attention. The epitome of donkey gourmandism is reached in this place. Anyone who has sampled the fare of all ninety establishments need never again eat donkey. And only those people who have eaten their way up one side of the street and down the other can thump their chests proudly and announce: I have eaten donkey!

Donkey Avenue is like a big dictionary, filled with so much that even if my mouth were hard enough to drive nails through metal, I could never exhaust, finish, reach the end of the subject. If I don't tell my story well, it is because I babble nonsense or garbage. Please forgive and bear with me, please allow me down a glass of Red-Maned Stallion to pull myself together. For hundreds of years, countless numbers of donkeys have been slaughtered here on Donkey Avenue. You can just about say that swarms of donkey ghosts roam Donkey Avenue day and night, or that every stone on Donkey Avenue is soaked in the blood of donkeys, or that every plant of Donkey Avenue is watered with donkey spirits, or that donkey souls flourish in every toilet on Donkey Avenue, or that anyone who has been to Donkey Avenue is more or less endowed with donkey qualities. My friends, donkey affairs are like smoke that shrouds the sky of Donkey Avenue and weakens the radiance of the sun. If we close our eyes we see hordes of donkeys of all shapes and shades running around and braying to the heavens.

According to local legend, late at night, when it is really quiet, when all is still, an extremely nimble, extremely handsome little black donkey (sex unknown) races from one end of the flagstoned avenue to the other, from east to west, then from west to east. Its handsome, delicate hooves, shaped like wine glasses carved out of black agate, pound the smooth flagstones, filling the air with a crisp, clear tattoo. This late-night sound is like music from Heaven, terrifying, mysterious, and tender all at the same time. Anyone hearing it is moved to tears, entranced, intoxicated, given to long, emotional sighs [...]


more later...