Blood-based Foods for Every Type
Halloween may be over, but I’m still feeling the Dracula vibes. I’m talking about the bloody good food that’s readily found in Chinese cuisine. Sound weird? Perhaps only if you didn’t grow up with it.
I remember during one of my first visits back to China, my family and I went for a hot pot dinner and my mom ordered blood tofu. For 13-year-old me, that was not only confusing but also gross. I didn’t know whether blood tofu was tofu infused with blood, blood that looked like tofu, or simply red-colored tofu. The sheer thought that blood could coagulate so much that it turns from a liquid to a solid was baffling. No one bothered explaining it to me.
Years later, after moving to China and exploring local food scenes, I learned that blood couldn’t just congeal into tofu. In fact, consuming blood is super common in China, where it can be boiled, steamed, fried, mixed into sausages, infused into alcohol, and sometimes even drank straight.
When buying meat from supermarkets in the US, you rarely see the whole animal (thankfully) and tend to forget that there are a lot more parts to them that don’t end up on the dinner table.
But in other parts of the world, meat isn’t just purchased from supermarkets on plastic-wrapped trays. It’s purchased at wet markets, where it’s freshly butchered. And you’d better believe that no farmer is going to let the majority of their stock to go waste just for a few prime cuts of meat. In China, when animals are slaughtered, every part of them gets turned into food.
In Europe, animal blood is famously consumed in sausages, where it’s mixed with other ingredients. In China, blood is consumed in a more raw state. No, not drinking it straight out of an animal’s vein. We’re not vampires here.
In China, the two most common sanguineous foods are blood tofu, usually made from duck blood, and blood sausages, which uses pig blood.
It has actually been trending lately as a home recipe because it’s a good source of iron. Preparation is relatively simple: combine equal parts blood and water
(or a 1:2 ratio if you’re looking for a smoother texture), season it with shallots and ginger, then strain the seasoning out before giving it a quick steam.
People like to season it with their own sauces, which usually contain soy sauce and chilies, and eat it straight. While it sounds daunting, blood is actually pretty mild, once you get over the idea. It doesn’t have a strong smell or taste. The only thing that makes eating blood a bit odd is the slightly grimy feeling you get on your teeth and a bit of a metallic taste.
So? Are you game to try some bloody interesting snacks?