fact or fiction

Is it a fact or is it merely fiction? Fact or Fiction explores the lesser known truths in the food universe.

Fish-Head Drinking Isn’t a Shandong Rule. I Lived There 40 Years and Never Saw It.
Last winter, in a small restaurant in Jinan, a fish stew in an iron pot had just arrived. A Shandong man turned the fish head toward me and asked, “Is fish-head drinking really that fierce in Henan?”
By Jinabout 18 hours ago in Feast
Crocodile Feast
Everyone knows that a smile makes the world go round. It’s true! A smiling bride always looks beautiful. Strings of smiles connect and brighten our days. During COVID, masks weakened that social connection. How wonderful to again enjoy showering smiles as we go on our way.
By Angie the Archivist 📚🪶a day ago in Feast
I Cooked 16 Flowers in One Spring. One Numbed My Tongue.
Eating Flowers The first time someone told me daylilies could be eaten, I put my chopsticks down. The plate was already on the table: green-yellow buds, thin and straight, mixed with pork slices. I asked, “This is a flower?” Nobody answered. My aunt took a piece and put it in my bowl. I ate it. It tasted like a mushroom that had learned to be tender. I ate three bowls of rice.
By Jina day ago in Feast
I Ate My Way Through China’s Ethnic Minority Cities. Here’s What You Should Order.
Chinese ethnic minority food is not on a menu. It is by the fire pit, in the night market, in the morning wet market, outside a tent on the grassland, between a mother’s palms. You have to go to the city, walk into the alley, sit down, and accept a bowl of steaming food to understand it. Flavor is how a people live with a piece of land.
By Jina day ago in Feast
I Was Broke Every Payday Until I Quit These 3 Buying Habits
Street interview. A reporter asks, "How much savings do you have?" People say, "Money comes, money goes. I can't save anything."
By Jina day ago in Feast
Closing the Emotional Buffet.
The word mistress implies a secret. It suggests a woman hidden away in the dark, kept under lock and key, brought out only when it is convenient, and tucked back into the shadows when the real world demands attention. But an emotional mistress doesn’t hide her body; she hides her soul. She is the woman who leaves the door to her mind wide open, allowing broken, fragile, hollow men to walk inside, dust their boots off, dump their heavy baggage on her rug, and drink until they are full.
By Syl De'Vil3 days ago in Feast
The Long Egg Tart: A Love Story Told in Leftovers
The bakery sold a tart as long as a ski. Mei saw it on her phone at 11:40. By noon the line bent around the corner. Her phone died at three percent. At the counter, the card reader blinked red. She dug through her bag and found coins. Not enough. The man behind her set a bill on the counter. Kai. She turned. “Next time you queue,” he said. She wrote her number on the receipt. He folded it into his pocket. The cashier slid the box across. It was longer than the counter mat. Kai carried it out. Mei followed.
By Jin4 days ago in Feast
Why Mars Will Never Be Our Mid-Autumn Moon
The moon shows up every year. Mars shows up when it feels like it, walks backward, and makes us wait 780 days. On Mid-Autumn night, the moon rises. The mooncake on the table is cut into eight pieces. The old man says, Look, there is a rabbit in the moon. The child looks for a long time and says, No. The old man says, There is. You will see it when you grow up.
By Jin6 days ago in Feast
A Cheese And Jam Butty And A Coke Float
These are two things that you will probably never see on a restaurant menu, but they are often eaten and drunk by me, firstly because I like them, and secondly, they are very easy to make.
By Mike Singleton 💜 Mikeydred 7 days ago in Feast
Sugar-Free Mooncakes Are Not a Free Pass
A week before the Mid-Autumn Festival, the supermarket shelves were packed with mooncakes. Tin boxes, paper boxes, lava-filled, snow-skin. One row said “sugar-free,” and the price was about thirty percent higher than ordinary mooncakes.
By Jin7 days ago in Feast
Why Zongzi Start Fights and Mooncakes Do Not
Meal or snack: why zongzi fight over sweet and savory, and mooncakes do not A week before the Dragon Boat Festival, a pressure cooker appears at the door of breakfast shops in southern cities. When the lid lifts, the oily aroma of pork zongzi and reed leaves rises. Pork-and-egg-yolk zongzi, chestnut pork zongzi, sausage zongzi sit within reach. Buyers do not wait for the festival. They treat them as breakfast. One zongzi with soy milk, or with a small bowl of wontons. Glutinous rice is the staple, pork is the dish, salted egg yolk helps the rice go down. The reed leaves are packaging.
By Jin7 days ago in Feast
My Mom Mails Me Five-Kernel Mooncakes Every Year. The Rest of China Eats Something Else.
I When my mother’s package arrived, Mid-Autumn had already passed by three days. The box was from China Post, wrapped in three layers of green tape. I cut it open. Inside was old newspaper. Inside the newspaper was a tin box. The box said “Five-Kernel Mooncake” in gold characters on a red background. One corner had chipped, exposing bare metal. I opened it. Ten cakes, each wrapped in oil paper. The paper was soaked through with oil, translucent. Through it I could see bits of green and red candied strips.
By Jin7 days ago in Feast