After the first part's discussed on the perception of Chinese food, I suppose I should get down to the nitty-gritty of telling you all the wonderful things you can either turn your nose up to or hold your nose and try. Trying to break the choice of dishes down into meaningful parts is not easy, so I have gone for the 'Twenty Questions' approach: animal, vegetable, or mineral?

The Chinese eat a wider variety of animals and enjoy a greater selection of parts. They do have high standards of cleanliness and hygiene when it comes to eating animal products. In a subtropical island like Taiwan you have to be very careful about such things, and hundreds of years of tradition has lead to a very sharp sense of hygiene. The Chinese also have taboos concerning food and against popular belief don't eat everything, so don't worry about bringing your cat. Of course you might be skeptical of my statement that the Taiwanese observe a high standard of hygiene when cooking, especially when you visit the markets and see the butchers cutting the meat up at the road side with cars and scooters passing by. Or watch a cook slaving over a hot wok with a half burnt cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth.

The Chinese attitude to animals is the antitheses of the Western attitude. Generally I would say that what you think is the worst part of an animal to eat is the best part to them. Chicken is a prime example. I have often told the future mother-in-law that I traditional like the white meat on a chicken. I say it is the healthiest part. The opposite is true for her, she says the dark, oily meat is the best. Her justification is that the dark meat parts are where the chicken gets the greatest amount of exercise, thus making the meat tasty. This is unfortunately a bad example as in a teaching office pole half the teaching staff said dark meat, thus destroying my hypothesis in one fell blow. Nevertheless, I stick to the statement that the Chinese like everything we abhor.

Staying with chickens, a part that gets the greatest amount of exercise and is the best part is the parson's nose, or to refer to it another way the chicken£¾|s posterior. Yummy, it is the best part, but don't believe me, as I have never worked up the nerve to try it, try it for yourself, and then please send me your comments. If you are hungering to try, the best place to go is any of the fry stalls you find in night markets or along the roadsides in shopping areas. You will be able to buy five or six on a skewer, which the vender will fry, and season to your taste. I usually come across it when the mother-in-law cooks me 'Chicken in rice wine,' the recipe is easy.

Ingredients:
One Chicken. Freshly killed and plucked, cut into chunks. All the parts present except lungs, gizzard, intestine, bladder and bowel. That means you keep the head, feet, parson's nose, liver, heart, and kidney (Only one and it looks like a bow tie. The last two you can also buy skewered at the fry stall.)

Root ginger. Sliced thinly and lots of it.

Rice wine (|?¢Xs) 12% alcohol. Six liters.

Instructions:
Put everything into a wok and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and let simmer until the meat is cooked. Then serve, but please remember not to drive afterwards.

I am quite used to this dish now, and usually the mother-in-law prepares it solely for me. It is a bit of a task to finish off the whole thing, but in three sittings, and with the aid of an extra bottle of rice wine to keep it fortified, I can make it. Apparently the dish is good for protecting the body against the winter chill, and my students tell me I should be better able to keep the fiancee happy at night as well. I of course skirt the head, ass and feet of the chicken; sometimes others in the family will help me eat those parts, as it would be a waste of the best bits. Watching one of the future brother-in-laws pick and polish off the head is a sight I can tell you. If you are interested in trying the feet, your handy 7-Eleven should have some. I have once tried one and all I can say is that it wasn't a satisfying experience. The skin is tough and chewy; there is no flesh but plenty of tendon and cartilage. The foot is full of little bones and claws which all have to be spat out. Chicken's foot is of course a popular delicacy.

Fortunately the Taiwanese stick to mature chickens. I remember on my first visit to the Mainland, I was at a famous night market in Beijing just to the East of Tiananmen Square. There I saw a delicacy I can only name as 'Chick on a stick.' This little treat was an a chick, removed from its egg a day or two before it was ready to hatch, skewed through the beak and out of the ass, and bar-b-qued. It looked scrumptious in the hands of the pretty young girl who was walking along crunching on its bones.

Moving away from fowl and on to beasts. Cattle, goats, and pigs are the prime animals raised for the butcher's slab. As with the chickens the Taiwanese eat a lot of the sweet meats. Traditional cattle were not eaten as they were always considered the friends of the farmers since they were used extensively on the farms for ploughing and hauling produce. Goats and pigs were raised for eating. Of course, the Western love of steak has invaded the island and the place is littered with steak houses of all varieties. The only thing to remember when buying a steak, is to ask them not to but a fried egg on top if you don't like that sort of thing. How fried eggs started appearing on top of steaks is a question I don't know the answer to, but at least they don't also cover them with corn.

Swine are the animals of choice and raised in their millions all over Taiwan. The best bits of a pig fortunately do not include its ass, but do include its intestine, stomach, trotters, knuckles, and ears. I often eat the intestine, which is usually served in soup and sliced, in short sections. It looks white and is chewy, but very nice. The ear is usually cured and sliced in thin strips. It is served as an appetizer and is difficult to recognize, on the whole it is not bad, but again is chewy because of the cartilage in it. The pig knuckles I avoid at all costs, I have had them and never find them appealing. They are too fatty and oily for my taste and I don't like the texture of the skin. They are usually boiled in a savory sauce for a long time to make them tender which to me makes them all the worse. The Taiwanese also like the fat and cook strips of pork with the fat and skin attached. The meat, fat and skin is boiled with lots of soy sauce until everything is tender and ready to eat. Just eating the flesh and leaving the skin and fat is a waste, as you will be missing out on the best bit.

Goat is goat and I usually don't get much of it, so I don't know what parts are considered the best parts, but I am sure you can guess. On menus goat is normally referred to as sheep meat. Mutton I suppose is the better description, as I don't think the Taiwanese have are preference to only eating lamb. But then again, I have not seen few sheep in Taiwan and mostly goats, so unless Taiwan imports all its mutton then it must only be goat meat and I can't imagine there is much meat on a kid.

Sticking to the land of a while longer, I have to mention snakes. The Chinese culture has long regarded snake has a potent medicine and aphrodisiac. As I mentioned in a previous letter about prostitution in Taiwan, snake meat is a strong impotency cure. Many of the larger night markets have stalls with cages of live snakes ready to be butchered and cooked. The most famous place in Taiwan for snake is in Taipei. The place is called Snake Alley (£g?|?£go) and is well known by all the taxi drivers. Here you can witness the snakes being butchered, they are kept alive as long as possible, so removing the skin and intestines is done without first killing the animal. The vendors let you watch as they collect the blood and bile, remove the heart and skin them. If you want to try any snake you have to buy a complete meal of soup, bile and meat. No £¾?snake on a stick£¾| to go here. And after you have enjoyed your meal there are plenty of middle-aged women loitering around to give you a good time. Don't go there hoping to spot cute young girls milling around waiting for some action, as the snake is for those who have the desire but can't work up the steam. So, expect lots of lecherous old men instead.

If at Snake Alley the snake is not to your taste you can try terrapins. In one store I watched the cook carefully tease the small terrapins to bite onto a wooden rod so he could stretch out their necks and cut their little heads off. He had a few terrapins to slaughter and two boxes. One full of little terrapin heads and the other full of little terrapin bodies, each a mass of moving parts.

Slithering from the land and into the water we come to one of the delights of Taiwan, its seafood and fresh water life. As mentioned in part one of this letter the Chinese consider the head and tail of a fish as the best parts. When they consider the flesh, the best area to eat is just behind the gills. The Taiwanese also like raw fish and eat it like the Japanese, sliced into thin strips and dipped in a mixture of soy sauce and 'Washabi' (Japanese green mustard.) I suggest you have plenty of liquid on hand to drink, but I thoroughly recommend you try some. The Taiwanese also like the intestines of some of the larger fish, and as with the Cantonese, they savor the taste of shark's fin. This delicacy has to be simmered for a long time allowing most of it to break down into a gelatin like substance. On the whole, I don't know what they rave about as I find this dish boring, so don't worry about trying it.

The Taiwanese don't stop at the marine life that just swims. Clams, muscles, oysters and all sorts of mollusks decorate the dinner table. If you like the first then get ready for sea snails. When eating these don't forget to drink the broth in the shell, as it is the best part by far. I can say this with confidence, as the rest of it is an unforgettable experience of chewing on something that has the consistency of vulcanized rubber.

Squid and octopus also adorn the Taiwanese table. These though are delicious and I find it hard to remember why I never had any back home. Maybe it was the cultural perspective that squid and octopus were rubbery. I especially like the baby octopi, a bit of soy sauce and washabi, and I am a pig in muck.

Sea cucumber is a different story. This seabed dwelling creature, as its name implies, is shaped like a cucumber, but that is where the comparison stops. For better words it is very soft and slippery with a grayish blue skin that has the texture of frog skin. It definitely looks worse than it tastes and I am slowly getting use to it. If you can get past putting it into your mouth and biting on it than the rest is easy. And if you are really lucky no one will tell you what it is, until after you have had some. In Part Three I will continue the exploration of the different and exciting things you can eat in Taiwan.