Sea cucumber is a delicacy. I've eaten it in almost every day in Peking for 75 days, I also had it in Chicago and in Toronto.

This animal is an inverterbrate that lives on the sea bottom. It turns itself inside out to eat its prey.
It is caught, dehydrated and rehydrated prior to cooking.


It is an acquired taste and and you need a big set of stones to eat it and not gag.
The friends I have had it with were all Han Asian. The talk was whether it was good or not today.
The only occidentals that I have seen eat it had a postage stamp sized piece. No balls!
A plateful must go for about $50 today.

Anyone tried it? Anyone care to go out and try and then tell us? You often have to ask for it special beforehand (order ahead of time).

I have eaten it twice, cooked it one time so that is 3 times I have tasted it, the first time it was way to salty , but the taste was ok, the second time it was in a royal the egg custard on top was over done & hard, but again the taste was ok, the only time I was able to help prepair it , we had a salad with a rice wine dressing & I did like the taste & texture , the aroma was masked a little by the dark oil that was in the dressing, a roasted pumpkin oil I think. I have enough stones to taste almost anything, I have tasted cobra & zebra ( not together) about the only thing I havent had so far is Puffer fish, Fugu I think it is called, I just didnt have the stones to eat some thing that might kill me , other than that I am game for almost anything, not a lot of it but I will taste it ( up to a point) . Enjoy, Vince

I found that sea cucumber was challenging to pick up with chop sticks.

Same thing with brewed eggs.


Slippery & unweildy to pick up. Like a fishy pealed kiwi fruit.

In China, your hosts serves you and deposits all the expensive delicacies on your plate.
Here have some more sea cucumber!

What a laugh to see these one day guests ALL claim they had big breakfasts and were not hungry.

What a laff to listen to the Chinese hosts LAFF & TALK about all those one day guests that HAD BIG breakfasts and were only hungry for white rice & tomatoes.

Grown men will lie just to avoid eating food.

Use the unlacquered bamboo chopsticks instead of lacquer finished ones.

I can eat jello or individual grains of rice with it. M&M's are another story.

I like a fork my self !
Enjoy, Vince

I pick a fly out of the sky with agood set of sticks.

I don't like the pointed ones.

or just stab it with the chopsticks.

I've had it hundreds of times. I didn't think it was all that hard to eat for Westerners. It looks a bit scary, but usually it's chopped up so it's not so intimidating. The taste is not particularly strong either. I suppose it must be the consistency that is unfamiliar.

Chopped up?
You do not mean mashed or pureed do you.

I always ate it in small mouthful sized pieces.

Chopped up into bit size pieces relative to its intact size, which is quite vulgar.