Goat Eats

Just came across this article on donkey meat and flashbacks of eating goat in Ningbo raced back to me.  Luoning (my Chinese "dad" and the factory owner) told me on Monday that on Saturday, when his daughter came home from school, we were going to eat goat. I heard about how often people in the region eat goat because it's inexpensive and a great source of protein.  I hear about how their family cooks goat on occasion, but also eats it at restaurants a lot.  I heard about how the whole meal will be centered around the goat.

After all this build up, I was terrified.

On Saturday evening, Luoning's wife set out various plates of meat and vegetables and bowls of rice.  I tried to identify which was the donkey meat, but couldn't definitively say.

Low and behold, the donkey meat was dry aged donkey that she purchased at the market earlier in the day and sliced up.... just like every other meat we ate for dinner.  I hesitantly took a bite of the donkey meat, and realized it wasn't so  bad.  In fact, I swear it tasted like corned beef from any Kosher deli in the NY area.  Who knew that donkey meat would be so good?  I doubt it'll be a regular at home in New Jersey, but I really didn't mind it so much and will definitely try different preparations of donkey meat next time I'm in China.

It looked like this....

Definitely not like this....