Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Qingdao street market

Just one block down from the hostel I was pleased to stumble across a market street that would easily have been overlooked. At the mouth of the street were fruit and vegetable vendors, but it quickly became more interesting.
Cooked eggs, zhongzi and other foods I don't recognize.
In the bowls are a huge variety of pickled vegetables. At the front are nuts and salted duck eggs. I tried the duck eggs once and found them to be sulfuric and inedible, I'm not sure how they are actually meant to be eaten.
Red bags containing various spices such as dried peppers.
Animal parts, lots of animal parts.
More animal parts. I see feet and noses...
Chicken feet! They are apparently a special delicacy here and can be found even in individually shrink-wrapped packages in convenience stores.
Qingdao is right on the sea. This must have been the morning's catch. Even standing right over the fish, there was no smell at all - the freshest of the fresh.
Shellfish, so fresh that these bivalves were still moving.
These little guys were squirting water out! I tried and tried, but couldn't get a shot of one in action. Unfortunately, it didn't occur to me to use the video option.
Again, missed an action shot - the vendor was handling these crabs when I walked up. The crabs have beautiful colors on them, indigo and purple on their legs.
I bought two moon cakes in the market to take home with me, one filled with bean paste and one with taro paste. Moon cakes are a traditional sweet and I think are associated with a festival, but seem to be available all year round.

5 comments:

  1. Chicken feet add tremendous body to stock (from the gelatin, if I'm not mistaken).

    -Janna

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  2. Yup Chicken feet have lots of gelatin for stocks :) As long as they are clean (oh my)...

    I would be stuffed after walking through there, I'd have to try so much stuff :)

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  3. Hi Janna, hi Chef!

    Chef, I think I left a link on your blog about stock made from chicken feet a while back.

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  4. Do you need Mandarin in s market like that, or do the vendors know enough English? =Rod

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  5. Hi Rod, no and no. You can get by rather well with hand gestures and a few words of Chinese.

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