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[Lotus Eater]

Friends and students are arriving back, and many of them are bringing me special foods/teas from their home town.  Some of these have interesting stories.

Today, as well as sweet stuff, one of my mates brought me back some meat - a long sausage (looks vaguely bratwurst-ish - and a type of meatloaf.  The meat loaf thing is called Pan Long Cai - Dragon dish.

Apparently the story behind it it that during the Ming Dynasty it was difficult to get meat, but the Emperor, on his travels, wanted to eat meat.  The local cooks debated how to give him enough meat to make him feel full, but not show that they didn't actually have much meat.  So they created this dish, which contains pork, flour, eggs etc.  The Emperor enjoyed it, ate enough to feel satisfied and praised the cooks.  It's a little salty in flavour and needs to be steamed.  Comes from Zhongxiang in Hubei.

I think these stories are interesting and give a little bit more understanding of life around here.

Anyone got some interesting ones??