liuzhou

Saw this and immediately thought of @CantCookStillTryand her husband, although I don't remember any key involvement there. (I wish to point out the appalling grammar ain't be down to me!

I wouldn't want to give the impression that China is ALL homemade and artisan sausages incorporating exotic meats and made like this: This image is of the packaging of the yak meat sausages above. Far from it. While there are great sausages, there are also a number of companies which have perfected the art of taking pork (and chicken) and turning it into a wide range of products, all labelled with the names of the different styles they are, while simultaneously making them taste exactly the same. Of nothing. The worst offenders are those who make these revolting objects or as I call them "train sausages". Made from mechanically recovered meat and preservatives and with the texture of wet cardboard, they were for many years all you could buy on long, slow train journeys (the longest I ever took lasted five days!) along with your instant noodles. Today, China has the world's most extensive high speed train service and somewhat better catering. Yes, these sausages persist. I have no idea who eats them. They tend to come in two flavours - pork or chicken, but taste of neither. The quality of the sausage is reflected in the price $4 USD for 90 sausages (approx 4½ pounds). And that is overpriced!

Looks terrible, I know, but tasty. Soy sauce braised chicken legs with stir fried yak sausage and cabbage over rice.

Horse meat is eaten all over China, especially in the north and in the far western province of Xinjiang. It is also popular in Guilin, Guangxi's tourist city where there are many horse restaurants. These are usually identified by a no messing picture of a horse on their signage. There is at least one here in Liuzhou. Their horse noodles are very good. Horse is one of my favourite meats, only slightly pipped by donkey, but that's a tale for another day. Adjacent Horse Meat Restaurants, Guilin, Guangxi These horse meat sausages 咸马肠 (xián mǎ cháng) or 熏马场 (xūn mǎ cháng) are from Xinjiang and are heavily smoked. Smoked horse meat jerky is also popular.

By long standing tradition and precedent, 'food' here is allowed to encompass drink.

Stornoway is just over 9,000 miles away from me, so not very local. It was more local when I was a child - a mere 186 miles. I assume you mean morcilla. It is made more like the Chinese version in that it uses rice. No. I can buy any part of the pig, except its squeal.

Most people probably think of yaks as being Tibetan, but their habitat stretches much wider. Also parts of China other than Tibet itself are on the Tibetan Plateau, including Qinghai, parts of Yunnan, Gansu and Xinjiang and western SIchuan provinces in west China. Yaks are also found in Inner Mongolia many miles away. These sausages are yak meat from Sichuan. Apart from the yak meat they also contain chili, Sichuan peppercorn, salt, baijiu (Chinese liquor), chicken seasoning, spices, sugar, MSG, and preservatives in a natural yak intestine casing. They come in three categories. Lightly spiced (by Sichuan standards that means quite spicy), medium (very spicy) and extra spicy (incendiary). These are the medium version. The packaging says to wash them and then boil for 25 minutes. I don't do that. I fry 'em (preferably in yak butter ghee). Alternatively I may place some on top of my rice in the rice cooker. They really flavour the rice. Recommended storage time after opening vacuum pack: Fridge 3 days; Freezer 180 days. I freeze them, but have never gotten close to 180 days.

There are very seldom snails in the dish. They are used in the broth but then discarded. That said the image looks like a very underwhelming luosifen. It should be bright red from chili!

I know! I know! It's friendly aliens trying to protect us from evil!

I read that Los Angeles based chain Qin West Noodle is featuring luosifen on its menu (stupidly labelled in English as 'Liu Zhou Soup'. In fact, all their English names are somewhat silly.) Anyone close to one and willing to take one for the team? I'd love to hear about it. Or not.

There are several rice cooker cookbooks out there. There ar emany things you can cook in a rice cooker. For example The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook: 250 No-Fail Recipes for Pilafs, Risottos, Polenta, Chilis, Soups, Porridges, Puddings, and More, from Start to Finish in Your Rice Cooker (eG-friendly Amazon.com link)

I have never known anyone to make stock from Bovril. It would be too overpowering, I think. It has a very strong flavour. Nothing like you get from a stock cube. Both Bovril and Marmite are used in the same ways. They are both spread on toast and used to make a drink. Drinks are more common with the Bovril; on toast more common with Marmite. Bovril drink are de rigeur at football (what you might call 'soccer') grounds. Bovril even mentions the drink on the label by saying "Simply add one good teaspoon [to boiling water]", while Marmite also suggests adding it to hot water, surprisingly for soup. I've only known people to drink it as a hot drink.

A round up of pics of some of the more rare meat sausages found here. The camel comes from Xinjiang, the ostrich from Shandong and the crocodile from Shanghai. We also get donkey and horse meat sausages from Henan Province.

A more informative answer. Sorry, last answer was posted at around 2 am and I was wilting. Bovril ingredients: Beef broth (50%), yeast extract* (27%), salt, caramel and various flavourings and flavour enhancers etc. The yeast extract gives it a much different and deeper flavour than you get from stock cubes. * containing barkley, oats, wheat and rye

Being of Scottish descent, I was brought up eating 'black puddng' from Stornoway. Food of the gods! Unsurprisingly, I found that impossible to source in China. - well sort of. in the late 1990s I was living in Huaihua (怀化 huái huà) in western Hunan (湖南 - hú nán) province in south-central China and found the locals make a blood sausage. This I had to try. They are known as 血肠 - xuè cháng, which you will be astonished to hear means 'blood sausage'. Unlike the Scottish version which is made using pork blood and oats, in China rice is used as the filler (no surprise there). Apart from that the taste was close enough to keep me happy. Then in the early pandemic days, supplies were disrupted, but I found a substitute. Just south of Heilongjiang is Jilin Province (吉林 - jí lín). On Jilin's south-eastern corner is 延边 - yán biān Prefecture which borders North Korea. This area is home to between 1 and 1½ million ethnic Koreans, who are recognised as being one of China's official 56 ethnic groups. And they make blood sausage, too! Korean Blood Sausage I didn't like this one so much. It was rather over-much rice and poorly seasoned. Here in Guangxi, the neighbouring town of Yizhou (宜州 - yí zhōu) also makes blood sausage, but very few make it outside the town. They are also very good, though. Luckily, the non-supply from Hunan ended quickly and I'm back to as normal as I ever get. Bloody Breakfast

No. Much more complex. Stock cubes would be a lot cheaper!

I put my rice on last night (after dark), switched on the rice cooker and my entire apartment plunged into darkness. I stumbled outside to where the fuse box thing is. There was light in the stair well. So I reset everything. I thought. Replugged in the cooker and hit on switch. Same again! Returned to stair well and I was perched on my stool to reach the reset button, when one of my neighbours ran up the stairs and said "What the f... are you doing?" Well, he didn't exactly say that. He doesn't speak English and the equivalent word doesn't begin with an 'f'. No Chinese words do! So I cooked the rice the old way for the first time in about 30 years. First thing this morning, acquired a new rice cooker. All part of life's rich.

With Etch-a-Sketches being sold on Amazon for $23 USD, I think maybe I'd need more than one!

Is this "International Take Joke Literally Week"? I didn't get the email!

The vinegar above, despite being called Zhejiang vinegar, is in fact from Guangdong Province. To my eyes, the red colour is somewhat artificial looking. So I went on a search for a real Zhejiang vinegar from er, Zhejiang. This one, to be precise, is from Ningbo, a coastal city a short way south of Shanghai and firmly in Zhejiang. It arrived by courier today. I think you can see that it is considerably darker which is more what I would expect from the Monascus purpureus yeast infected red rice. (The glass is clear in both bottles.) It also has a much deeper, more rounded flavour.

This definitely falls into the fun category. It certainly fulfills minimal practical use. Standard steamer basket as found in every Chinese kitchen (Chinese Food Myth No. 3) Nope. This one contains three lovely buns. What flavour? The only clue is "no essential oil, no fragrance" in the product description. Yep, the buns are candles. Even came with some matches to light the things! Scented buns were an option. Scents included gardenia, caramel, ice cream, peach, pear etc. No bao flavours! I suppose your dim sum can now be less dim!

黑龙江 (hēi lóng jiāng) Heilongjiang is China's northern-most province and borders Russian Siberia. It also shares a similar climate with Siberia and its freezing winters. It is most famous perhaps for the annual Harbin Ice Festival. It is also goose central! Goose meat is widely available, both farmed and wiild. And their livers are used to make foie gras and these goose liver sausages. Actually, they are pork and goose liver sausages. They taste mild but I can definitely detect the liver without effort. Delicious. These, I too have to buy on line. They cost me the equivalent of approx $7 USD / per pound. including delivery. They are one of my most frequent reorders. They are branded, but I'd be amazed if they are exported.

Sausages were invented as a means of preservation! Typical lap cheong type sausages have been cured, smoked and dried. Three different preservation methods. So yes, the hard (dried) type usually need no refrigeration. However, any responsible vendor or brand will include that information on the packaging or inform you verbally. But it seems you are stuck with your Vietnamese sausages unless you can find a passing Chinese aunty to teach you how to make them! Amazon only sell branded "Chinese" sausages from S.E. Asia for the simple reason that few people in China buy branded sausages, so there are few brands. As I said upthread, most people make their own. The sausages in that market picture were made by the vendor. They hang there all day until she sell them. In the tropics! No refrigeration.