LOVE YOUR FROGS

The other day I made mention of cooked frog, which elicited comments.
Apparently some people have a hard time conceiving of frog as food.

The specific dish was 姜葱田雞 (geung-tsung tin kai: ginger scallion frog).

As an alternative, I suggested 宫保田雞 (gong-po tin kai: Kung Pao frog), but 豆豉田雞 (dau-si tin kai: black bean sauce frog) would be just as good.
Praise-worthy treatments for the noble amphibian!
They sound totally scrumptious to me.
Apparently I'm the only one.

The suggestion that eel be used instead, yielding respectively 姜葱鳗魚 (geung-tsung man-yu), 宫保鳗魚 (gong-po man-yu), and 豆豉鳗魚 (dau-si man-yu), has so far not prompted any feedback.

Why?

I can understand that people would avoid eating frog. After all, there's Kermit.
Kermit is our friend, we've known him since we were small.
Eating Kermit may be out of the question.

Same goes for Rabbit. Many people have pet rabbits. My roommate, Savage Kitten, remembers her family's pet rabbit when she was a little girl, and consequently will not even hear of cooking a nice plump rabbit.
Despite the two of us no longer being boy friend girl friend, in deference to her feelings I shall not cook rabbit in the apartment we share.
Feel free to invite me to cook it in yours.
Just don't tell me it's name.

But eel? Eel?!? No one has EVER had a pet eel when they were young. Eels are not warm and huggable. Nor do eels have intelligently bemused or quizzical facial expressions, like Kermit - eels do not speak to us.
Eels do not even have much personality.

Go on, eat the eel.

You know you want to.

Eat. The. Eel!


RIBBIT! RIBBIT!

Several years ago a friend and myself noticed frog on the menu of a local restaurant. When queried, the waitress brought out a large basket with live frogs for us to choose from.
The biggest one leaped out and hid behind my foot.
He was clearly the obvious choice, given his dimension.
But at that point I did not have the heart to 'finger' him.
Given his boldness, determination, and obvious intelligence, I rather hope he made a clean get-away and escaped off into the night once the restaurant closed.
Perhaps living to a ripe old age in the wilds of downtown San Francisco.


We didn't eat frog that evening.
Instead we had something else. Chicken, I think.
Chickens, very much like most eels, have scant personality.
It's a toss-up which one is more psychologically twisted, but in my opinion the chicken wins 'psychopath-of-the-cooking-pot' hands down.
Chickens radiate cold degenerate evil.

[Besides, I can't remember where I put the plank with the nail sticking up which I use for skinning and gutting eels, so it will just have to be chicken.]

The flawed character of a chicken is improved immensely if treated thus:
姜葱雞球 (geung-tsung kai kau), 宫保雞球 (gong-po kai kau), or 豆豉雞球 (dau-si kai kau).

Bon appétit!

If you want to, you can pretend it's frog.


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