How I ate mushrooms.

So I mentioned I ate mushrooms while in China. I will share that story.

The last weekend I was there, my host professor invited me for dinner with his family. We drove to the restaurant, which was an old mansion. These buildings are fairly rare in Beijing, as most were destroyed during the cultural revolution. Upstairs is museum quality furniture, tapestries and paintings and downstairs is the dining area. All the waitstaff is dressed as servants throughout the Chinese dynesties in embroidered silk, elaborate headresses, makeup and odd shoes. The wife would tell me the Ming, Zhu, Qing dynasty outfits.

Along one wall of the restaurant was a stage. There was an hour long performance of trditional chinese opera, firebreathers, acrobats and other performers. Dinner was served in many courses. I couldn't identify them, but they were all delicious. There were scallops, bacon and some grey tofu galic paste which looked awful and tasted divine, dumplings, sweet peas, stuffed dates, spare ribs, pumpkin soup-served in a pumpkin and about a dozen other plates. Then the second soup came-A big tureen of mushroom soup with some extra mushrooms. I eyeballed it and ignored it. The wife served us all a nice bowl of soup. (Everthing except the soup we we take off communial dishes).

I looked at the soup swimming with mushrooms. Now I'm not allergic or anything. I just really, really dislike them. They make me gag. I remember having something that was cooked with a can of mushroom soup and tasted evil icky mushrooms on my burps for the rest of the day and feeling all gaggy.

Up at the front of the stage a 6 year old girl was contorted into into this odd postion and balancing a dozen lighted candlesticks off her feet, hands, mouth and forehead. I figure I could handle the mushrooms. The soup was very hot and the broth was tasty, which helped. I swallowed the small bits whole. I drank wine with the large bits. I smiled. I got the strongest tasting food I could find and I finished every single drop. I was a little worried that it might make me actually ill(which would be so embarrasing), but I made it through with no problems. The rest of the meal was utterly wonderful.

And that is the story of Bob eating mushrooms