…and it’s in a Chinese supermarket snack aisle, then it probably isn’t meat.

(Click on any image to view it in high resolution.)

I’ve been spending a lot of time in Flushing lately reworking my local ethnojunket, so I have the freedom to wander through every single aisle in sensational supermarkets and tell myself I’m working rather than just indulging my culinary whims. I confess to being a sucker for the snack aisles at Asian supermarkets; the treats are subdivided into savory and sweet categories and frankly, it’s a bit of a gamble – some are truly remarkable and beg another bag, some, well, not so much. More about that in an upcoming post.

These diminutive wannabeef barbecute skewers fell into the former category; the two chunks impaled on each wooden stick measure about 3¼ inches taken together. The four “flavors” available on this visit were Exoticism, Passion, Enjoy, and Soar; I selected Enjoy because they were identified as spicy on the back label: “Beancurd String (Spicy Flavor)”. Aside from the incredible shreddable texture and true chew, it was sufficiently spicy to give it a pass as well-seasoned meat.

I understand that these are marketed as snacks, but I’m inspired to incorporate them into some home cookin’. We’ll see. Of course, there are actual dried fish and meat jerkies to be found in the same aisle as well, but I’ll save those for another post.

More Flushing snacks to come. Stay tuned.