 durian ramen, frog ramen, and stir-fried rocks. Which one of these dishes is the most weird to you? And why do they even exist? Yeah, we're talking about three different articles that went viral in the West. Andrew, these are all from Chinese speaking countries, whether it's China or Taiwan. A lot of people are like, why would you do that? And of course the other question is, why not? It's just food. It's fun to us. All right guys, we're gonna go through the comments section. We'll give you our takeaways. We'll tell you which one of these dishes is probably more weird than the other ones and which ones we would wanna try. So please hit that like button, check out other episodes of the hot pot boys. Initial thoughts. These are not widely popular dishes, guys. These are done for clout for attention a little bit. Yes, people are eating them or sucking on them. We'll explain later. But it's, yeah, I don't think everybody's eating it. Also, I think it goes to show you that Chinese people or Chinese speaking people or Asian people can just make anything tasty, man. Like you made rocks tasty. Think of how good the flavoring and the seasoning in all the aromatics gotta be if you made rocks appealing. Listen, I probably wouldn't try this frog ramen how it is, but if you didn't tell me and it didn't look like that, I bet you a lot of people here, even commenting that said it's super duper disgusting, wouldn't mind it. I bet you it doesn't taste bad. Yeah, all right. So to me, before we get in the comments section, the durian ramen, not weird, I'm down to try it. It looks cool. The stir-fried rocks, I'm down to suck on those rocks. Hell yeah. The frog ramen, I'm probably gonna pass, even though frog meat, frog legs are very popular, widely used in French cuisine, Italian cuisine. Whether fried or braised. But man, keeping it like this, they didn't sear it. You know what it is, man. They didn't deep fry it. They just left it as. The reason why it went viral in the West is because it seems non-normative. Some people would even describe it as culturally deviant. And I think that it goes along with the stereotype that Asians in particular, but maybe Chinese in particular in particular, eat a lot of funky, exotic things. So anyway, make sure you like the video. We're gonna get into the comments section, Andrew. See if we can figure this thing out. Somebody said, yeah, that frog ramen sure looks good for dieting because you instantly lose your appetite. Listen guys, man, I'm not eating anything that has its eyes staring right back at me. It reminds me of high school dissection class. Man, what is going on? Most people just do not want an image of a living creature in their heads while they're eating. So this is an interesting Western thing because a lot of Western people, they eat pork but they want the pork to get ground up. Some people, you could debate whether it getting ground up at the factory with a thousand other pigs is even grosser in a way versus it being just one from one animal. Let's be honest, a lot of people are okay with a roast pig phase because that's pretty accepted in culture because roast pig is so delicious. So you give it a pass. I would say even Americans would bulk at it unless it's in Hawaii. But that's like saying, I guess the weird thing is because in the South, if they're like, yep, we got beef ribs, we got beef brisket and we got beef face. You can eat the face of a cow. I would probably say a lot of people would pass on that. And you know, there's the fact and the feeling. The fact is a lot of people eat frog legs, right? But the feeling is when you serve the frog like that with the skin on that it's mortifying, right? But you're eating the same parts regardless of it. I mean, they could have battered it up and stir fried it, sauteed it, I don't know. Listen, somebody said years ago I went to China, there were some really strange unappetizing foods. It's the first vacation where I actually lost weight. Yo, here's my question, David. Do you think the frog ramen is extra bad? Because frogs, I'm not saying they have a human face but they have a face that looks more like people than a fish does. Right, it's really easy to anthropomorphize which is like empathizing human way. Well, no, like people, some, like you know some people who are not, you know, kind of funny looking that you would say look like a frog. Yeah, yeah. That's really funny. I'm saying I guess it's in a way you can see the two eyes, you know, kind of close, the structure, the spacing of the face is like somewhat not human but you know, mammal like. Listen, somebody gotta tell me what's the chart man because I remember I was just watching this video from Beijing where they were eating a piglet and it looks delicious but they chopped the piglet up with a plate and then a lot of people were mortified but then some of the more barbecue centric, you know, Texas people, Louisiana people were like, hell yeah, that looks good. So it didn't even dependent on like what part of America you were from. I just think pigs are so delicious. That's why people make, give it a pass. Somebody said, you want a new strain of Corona because this is how you get a new strain of Corona. What y'all want Batman soup? I saw y'all eating that Starship Trooper isopod noodle soup. Hey, I'm against all bat soup, all right? Let me make that clear. And by the way, that bat soup, as we know was not from China. That was not even from any popular like big city in Asia. It was actually a Micronesia but it was a Chinese influencer eating it in Micronesia. That's where the video went fine. Moving on, durian ramen. Andrew, somebody said just because you can doesn't mean you should. But also, Andrew, I think that the Taiwanese response or the Malaysian responses where they originally got the inspiration from will be like, yeah, you asked me why? I asked you, why not? It's cool. Yeah, you know, we like the creamy ramen so we put the creamy stinky fruit in the ramen. It's very good. No, I would try the durian, I like durian. It looks cool. Does it not look cool? Dude, the durian looks delicious. Have you ever had a durian buffet? David, when we're in Malaysia, we ate a bunch of different types of durian. They have different strains of durian. They got like Musang King. They got like E17 or something. I don't know why they named it. Oh man, y'all got that M15. I need that M15. Amen, we got that flower fire strain, whatever you call it. Somebody said they successfully offended and provoked the Japanese and the Malaysians at the same time. Do you think this is true or this is a Western person projecting their own perception? I think it's weird. In my opinion, I get why they do that. I still grew up in America. I'm very American, but like Americans want to judge other people's ramen and durian, but they themselves might not even eat tonkatsu or durian themselves, but they're judging other people for doing, mixing the two very normal things. I'm pretty sure the Japanese are like, oh, as long as the tonkatsu was boiled for 12 hours and the noodles are cooked perfectly, then we approve. Japanese, they actually treat sushi more on that level where it's hard to touch it, but ramen, they're very, very open to it, I think, because originally it came from China anyway. I will say this. Somebody said this is disgusting and disrespectful. This is haram. This came from people with certain beliefs that are more like, I guess driven by the religions and things like that. No, I think it's haram because it's pork. It's not haram because it's durian. Like the durian is like a fruit. That's straight out of anybody can eat a fruit. As far as I know, no religious texts ever said you couldn't eat certain fruits. Ever since at least the serpent and the apple thing, Adam and Eve thing, since then I think all fruits good to go. We got a check though, but I'll tell you this. I haven't heard of it. I haven't heard. Somebody said, man, this was a very cheap tactic from these places in Taiwan or China or Malaysia to get views. Not everybody even in those countries eats this or cosigns this. This makes Asians look bad globally or confirm stereotypes globally. I think there are some dishes that do look bad to the outside people. And definitely one thing I am actually against. I am, I would, if I could tell those food influencers in China to stop eating the alligators and the frog meat like that, I would ask them to stop. Of course I have no power over them, but I do think videos like that look bad. I don't think durian ramen looks bad. But I do think within that culture, people just think it's like cool to try those things. You just understand, it's weird. Like I said, it's all about fact versus feeling. I tend to view the Western side of the world. It's not that they don't care about facts, but they care a lot about feelings. I mean, do you think? Whatever just feeling that thing gave them, it's okay when Billy Bob skins the crocodile and roast it up in Florida, but if you keep the crocodile looking the same, then it's evil. Right, right. I know, it's a lot of visuals and it almost feels like people just wanna know you prepared your food. Right, right, right. I guess that's the feeling of it. Moving on to the stir-fried rocks, Andrew. This originally came from Hubei, it was driven by poverty, 1950s fishermen. They didn't have anything to eat, because they gotta sell the fish. They just stir-fried the rocks with different sauces and ginger and scallions and spices. Hey man, at least they had aromatics. A lot of people were like, yo, this is crazy, I showed this to my grandmother and she kinda cried, because in the villages growing up during the Cultural Revolution, they had to eat rocks, so they don't know how to feel about it when they see this trend coming back from the old days. Wow. I mean, yeah. What do you think about the rocks? I would try the rocks. I think one of the weirdest, I think the weirdest aspect of it is not that you're sucking on the rocks and spitting them out, it's that they often reuse the river rocks that people use, but it also makes sense if you wash them, you know, you can lick a plate, people are gonna wash it and reuse it, so I, it's... What is, there's a quote about these Hubei river rocks, right? Dude, the food stall guy, he said this, the cheeky food stall owner joked, pass on the pebbles for three generations, you may be gone, but the pebbles will still be there. Hey, like a nice pocket watch, man. You be like, hey man, my great-grandfather ate these swatio. Yeah, swatio, that means what, spit and throw away. Right, right, right. Or suck on it and throw away. Somebody said, I actually tried these in Hubei, it tastes like chicken. No, dude, I think, David, isn't that just a testament to how good Chinese food is? Because Chinese people could cook up rocks and it's delicious. Yeah. They could cook up anything and it's still, and maybe this is why Chinese people eat anything, because they're like, yeah, well, you know, I put these seven ingredients, the ginger and the aromatics and the salt and the chilies and everything is tasty. So I guess we just eat everything. Yeah, I mean, dude, it's an ancient way of cooking. I know we had a lot of Mongolian food where they cooked it with rocks inside of the goat head. Andrew, you had a stir-fried egg dish in Beijing. Yeah, yeah, there was a stir-fried, I had an egg that was cooked with a bunch of hot rocks and it was delicious. But I guess like, I mean, in a way, you look at that stir-fried rock dish and you just gotta be like, yo, that definitely came from poverty. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Like there's no way, no other reason somebody would eat that. But you know a lot of great dishes, they're coming back in 2023 from the poverty days, but obviously they're reworked with like newer ingredients and stuff like that, because it was like, you know, when you have limitations, human ingenuity. Anyway, Andrew, let's get into our takeaways, Andrew. Why do you think Asian people, and specifically, let's just say Chinese speaking people, they might even have the lowest threshold for like what Western people would say like weird looking foods. Like let's say for example, the Middle East is 10 out of 10 restricted. I would say some people in China are zero out of 10 restricted. Obviously that's a cultural difference. It causes for a lot of funny internet wars. But yeah, obviously I'm not saying everybody's zero out of 10 on restrictions, but a lot of Chinese people are like two out of 10. You know what I'm saying? I would say Americans are like six or seven out of 10 in terms of like their diet is quite restricted based off look. Yeah, I don't think that, I think a lot of it does come from economics. And you know, if you're poor, you figure things out. Obviously Chinese cuisine has a lot of different flavors in it and a deep history. I also think that religion is not, like there's not a lot of like religious background in China in the sense that there's, there's a lot of like Abrahamic religions, right? That tell you what not to eat. Right, there's a lot of rules. There really is. Like durian's not in the Bible, but like, you know, not eating this type of thing is mentioned in the Old Testament, right? So it's like, okay, don't do that. Eat it like this. This is kosher obviously as Christians in the new way. Listen man, China does not become the largest civilization on earth by throwing away a couple intestines, right? That's true. Think about it guys. They do not survive this long by being wasteful. And not only that, I think in America, people are removed from it, but a lot of people were saying a hundred years ago, my great grandfather and my grandfather used to eat all types of stuff, especially if they're from Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas. They used to eat all types of stuff there. I also think it's culture and media. You raise that certain animals are more like humanistic or humanized or personified than others. So it's like a frog is like Kermit the Frog or like ribbit, ribbit frogs. You have pet frogs, right? Right, right, right. So you don't think of them as things to eat. It's almost like anything that was in a 1920s novel around that time of the Cheshire cat. You know what I mean? Right, right. People think it's weird to eat a goldfish, which I guess it's weird, but then it's not weird to eat a salmon. And by the way, I do not support the eating of everything. You know what I mean? Like the zero out of 10 restrictions. Maybe we shouldn't be at zero. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I never had a dog. I don't know anybody who's eating a dog. I know that stereotypes exist. There's so many stereotypes. That's like saying like, is every white person like a rich frat boy or like sorority girl? Does every black person play basketball and rap? Does every Latino person go to car side shows and eat tacos? Does every Asian person eat super weird things and like love math, workbooks and anime? I mean, like these are all stereotypes, but obviously they're not true for 100 out of 100 people. You know what I mean? They might not even be true for 50 out of 100 people. Yeah. Well, we're gonna wrap it up there. Guys, let us know in the comments down below what you think about this. Which one of these dishes would you try? Which one is the weirdest one? And what are your limits? I wanna know how you judge a food. If it's battered, fried, sauteed, you can see the grill marks. Is that okay? Is it prepared to a certain level? Are you okay just eating it no matter what as long as it's cooked? I think the truth is more people are going off the presentation than they would say. Yeah. Yeah, they think it's about the content. It's what your condition to think is weird, man. It's the feelings over facts. You think the frog is weird? Well, there's still a lot of people out there that think Asians look weird, all right? So let's keep it moving. Let us know what you think in the comments section below. I couldn't even get to all the comments because everyone was so out of left field and offensive or whatever. Until next time, we'd hop up boys, we out. Peace.