Posted on 09/26/2010 6:47:52 AM PDT by mattstat
Yesterday's headlines in all Taiwanese newspapers screamed with indignation: United States Department of Agriculture To Ban Pork Blood Cake! Typical is this news report (which is in Mandarin; but you'll get the idea; word-for-word, pork blood cake = jew shiyah gao):
Pork blood cake is just that: a cake made of pig's blood and rice stuck on a stick. The rice and blood are cooked together and then left to set up; the rice binds the blood. The end results is like a sausage without a skin.
The best pork blood cake looks like a slightly melted fudgesicle. Just before eating, it is steamed or otherwise warmed, then dunked in a sweet and slightly salty black concoction which tastes of a cross between oyster and sugary soy sauce. This ersatz fudgesicle is then coated with cilantro and finally plastered with sweet peanut powder. It is almost always ensconced in a plastic bag so that the sauce can't drip on your fingers.
If you're a fan of black pudding or blood sausage---and who isn't?---then you will adore pork blood cake, which is sweet, warm, unctuous, and with a slight chewiness. It is delicious. This only goes to prove the old adage: all the best food is on sticks.
The worst pork blood cake isn't; by which I mean that inferior duck or chicken blood is substituted, but it is---let's admit it---sometimes still called pork blood cake. A telltale is usually that the cake is rectangular and hard. Real pork blood, as the saying goes, melts in your mouth. You have to apply some heavy-duty tooth friction to get duck blood to slide down the tubes...
(Excerpt) Read more at wmbriggs.com ...
Oh, and I’m comfortably numb.
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