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our China travel special
I’m visiting the Guo-li-zhuang restaurant, a specialist penis and testicle
emporium that caters mainly to wealthy businessmen and Communist party
officials (who, truth be told, are often one and the same).
It offers every conceivable John Thomas you could ever want, which probably
isn’t very many. Nonetheless, the menu is both extensive and impressive.
The place looks like a smart kaiseki ryori (Japanese haute cuisine)
formal restaurant, complete with underfloor stream, separate secluded dining
rooms and hushed, discreet staff. I have come determined to avoid euphemisms
- we’re making a current-affairs programme for the BBC - but I’ll admit the
temptation is strong.
I ask a chef to show us the preparation of a penis first, so that I can get a
feel for the process. He enters holding aloft an eye-wateringly large yak’s
knob. It’s about 45cm long, but thin, so thin. It’s been boiled gently and -
I can’t believe I’m writing this - peeled, except for a hunk of foreskin
still clinging on to the end. He cuts the thing in half lengthways with a
pair of scissors.
As he chops through the very tip of this impressive member, I feel an
undeniable empathy twitch in my own penis and a bizarre feeling of nausea in
my groin. (I didn’t think groins could experience nausea.) I can’t help
yelping in sympathy. He then uses a knife to make hundreds of little snips
along the side of the penis and chops the strips into 5cm pieces. When these
are dropped into boiling stock, they curl up into little flower shapes that
are so incongruous, I can barely believe my eyes.
I ask the chef if he thinks it strange to deal exclusively in genitalia, but
he shrugs and doesn’t know what to say. He’s just happy to have a good job,
really. His friends don’t take the mickey, his parents are proud of him and
he does what he’s told. Okay.
Less taciturn is the female manager of the place, who says that Chinese
history is one of famine, poverty, drought and disaster, which is why the
Chinese have become used to eating every part of the animal - they have to
extract every edible morsel from the food they have. I ask if this is good
communist food, and she proudly says that most of her customers are male
Communist party members. Their meal costs an average of two months’ wages
for a dumpling-factory worker, and I ask how a conscientious Communist can
be seen here (paying up to £250 for the rarer penises) when the average
peasant is on the poverty line. She holds her hands up in the air and tells
me that they come for the virility benefits genital-eating offers.
Apparently, you can go for hours after eating a good portion of penis.
We try the water-buffalo penis first, in thin shavings. It started long and
thin, but someone has shredded this noble old chap on a mandolin. It has the
texture of squid and tastes of the mild chilli stock it’s been poached in.
We are given three sauces to dip it into - lemon and soy, chilli and soy, and
a sesame-seed paste. It’s good, and the penile nature of the meat lends an
undeniable frisson of excitement to the meal. I tell the boss that
“it’s the first time I’ve had penis in my mouth, but I like it and I’m going
to do more of it”. Well, someone had to say it.
She seems pleased, and pours me some deer-penis juice, which I’m delighted to
say is the vilest concoction I’ve ever had the privilege to imbibe. It’s as
sour as a smacked lemon and as bitter as neat quinine. My face freezes in an
agonising spasm, and Lord knows how I manage to keep from throwing up. Mr
Hoo, the driver, asks if I want any more, and when I shake my spasming head,
he grins and downs it in one. I pity Mrs Hoo - she’s going to have a busy
night.
We try goat’s penis, chicken feet, bull’s penis tip (that’ll keep you up all
night too, the boss warns), terrapin leg and all manner of radishes. I’m
offered dog’s penis (“The only one with a bone in it”, and served with a
glacé cherry placed pointlessly on the tip), but decline. All the knobs have
intriguing, delicate and bizarre textures, although the flavour is mainly of
pork braised in hot stock. My favourite dish of all is undoubtedly bull’s
perineum – a delicate piece of flesh, the size of a chicken oyster, which
has been poached, then slow-fried.
It’s sweet and crispy, with a deep taste of soy and honey.
Yan Yan, my guide, isn’t too keen on penis, but she’s adventurous in the face
of adversity, and tries most things with a curled lip. Just before we go, I
ask why the girls get off lightly. Why don’t they serve any female
genitalia?
The boss bursts into giggly, embarrassed laughter. “That’s a crazy idea - why
would anyone want to do that?”
“Well, because it’s protein and you Chinese are renowned for eating
everything.”
“Don’t be insane,” she says. Then she remembers that she’s heard of a dish of
donkey vulva, but she’s not sure where. She thinks it’s a disgusting idea.
Extracted from In the Danger Zone by Stefan Gates (BBC Books £15.99). To buy a
copy for £14.39, including p&p, call The Sunday Times BooksFirst on
0870 165 8585. The third series of Cooking in the Danger Zone begins on BBC2
at 7pm tonight
i think he meant that it was the only one served there with a bone in it.
Trish, Indianapolis, USA
Jane of Hangzhou, I don't think they mean the only on with a penile bone in existence but instead of that which they ate there. As Tom had said the vast majority of mammals do in fact have this bone; humans, horses, donkeys, rhinoceros, marsupials, rabbits, elephants and hyenas don't however.
Hunwi, Cork, Ireland
Isn't fish semen what they called "soft roe" on the original Iron Chef.
Goliano, Chicago, IL, USA
Let's clear up the back-and-forth about bones and penises. The bone is called the baculum, and it is common in MOST mammals. Fewer do not have a baculum than do. I remember as a kid fashioning home-made fishing hooks out of racoon baculum. Feel free to read Wikipedia for confirmation ( of what a baculum is, not my fishing hooks...)
Tom, College Station,
I am a chinese,I had never eat those thing.most pople around me are vegetarians.
Jane, hangzhou, china
You say that the dog is the only animal which has a bone in its penis, yet I have just finished a novel by Fred Vargas called This Night's Foul Work, which says that it's the cat which alone has this phenomenon.
Christopher Kelk, Toronto, CANADA
I am NOT going to risk going into a Chinese penis restaurant!
Have you ever seen those meat cleavers that the Chinese cooks use? Whack! Whack!! OMG... they make me literally shrivel up with fright!
"Mad dogs and Englishmen...go into penis restaurants!"
Garth Rex, Glendale Heights, USA
I want part II of this story. What did Mr. Gates do for the rest of the night... After leaving this restaurant. I feel sory for any female that crossed his path that night.
SH, Hong Kong,
Doubly, triply glad I'm a vegetarian.
JLTucker, Cleveland, OH
Well, do not only single out dogs simply because they can be pets. Actually human beings are cruel to other aninals too, like pigs, lambs etc. This happens all over the world.
Lianke, China,
I am sorry to see the BBC allowing it's reporters to patronise an establishment contributing to the plight of endangered species just for a pointless report on something almost none of it's audience will want to partake of.
P D Cunningham, Camden, SC/USA
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