Imagine that you've just woken up and you are starving. What is your go-to meal for breakfast? Is it eggs and toast? What about cereal? Maybe it's something sweeter, like a package of Pop-Tarts. Here in Hong Kong, my typical morning meal is ramen noodle soup with a fried egg and ham in it, and it's a bit different from what I am used to eating at home. One thing I've realized while studying abroad is that the food I'm eating plays a large part in my experience of the culture that Hong Kong has to offer.
I've had a lot of different meals that are considered traditional dishes here in Hong Kong. This list includes foods such as turnip cakes, "sizzling plates," chicken feet, soba noodles and congee. Out of this list, I think congee was the dish furthest out of my comfort range.
When ordering my first meal of congee, I wasn't quite sure what it would look like. Congee is a rice porridge, and the bowl of it that I had ended up looking like a watery version of oatmeal. To add to the unfamiliarity of the dish, the congee I ordered had slices of fish and cubes of pig's blood in it. I was determined to try something I hadn't had before, and I was a bit curious what pig's blood looked like, so that's why I ordered congee.
