Bonkers Food of the Week

Wuhan Duck Neck

                     This food is a little bit bonkers, but I found it pretty delicious. Me and some work mates were on holiday in Suzhou during mid-Autumn festival last year in Suzhou (China), which is a city just north of Shanghai. The streets were heaving with Chinese holiday makers, taking a break from their tough work ethic to tread the streets of what is, with just a soupcon of poetic license, known as the Venice of the east. I saw there one of the common street food sellers peddling her wares on a pretty little street called Ping Jiang Lu. I couldn’t tell what she was barbecuing, but I thought it looked like sausage-you can imagine my excitement at having found barbecued sausages that didn’t look like the sludgy red little sugar laced Taiwanese nightmares so unfortunately ubiquitous to China. I trundled over and bought some, she asked “la de ma?” (do you want it spicy?), to which I replied “dui” (emphatically yes). I bought the food and took a bite. What’s that? A crunch? Yes, the crunchy resistance of barbecued cartilage, the tasty crispiness of duck skin and the delicious smokiness of the barbecue itself. Not what I was expecting-an extremely common occurrence when getting food in China-but a very tasty snack nevertheless. I can imagine it would be a great spicy accompaniment to a glass of ice cold beer. Having enjoyed Suzhou so much last year I now live there and work at EF with my girlfriend Celia. It was here that one of the Chinese staff named Jojo reliably informed me that the streets of a city called Wuhan in Hubei province are virtually paved with barbecued duck neck. The alleys are nigh on permeated with the neck laced smoke of the multifarious barbecues. I shall endeavour to visit this place one day and chomp upon the necks of many of these unfortunate creatures.

                        I wish now to give a quick explanatory coda to this description. As an Englander and being familiar with breeds such as the Mallard I would expect a duck neck to be disappointingly short. However, the ducks in China have necks more akin to that of a goose, they are good and long and thus are able to provide more than adequate sustenance as a snack. I thought this was a necessary explanation as I did not wish you to denigrate the nutritional capacity of the aforementioned piece of Chinese tapas (or xiao chi if you prefer-pronounced sh-aow chu).