The sea beast: enduring a sea cucumber in Shandong Province

Andy Hill

Although this dish is a delicacy in many parts of China, for me, it was the opportunity to stare into an abyss of absolute terror. And survive.

A coworker of mine at the school, David (his English name), asked me to come to dinner with him, his family, and best friend. With his wife and daughter in the backseat, we slowly cruised through town to “the best restaurant.” I didn’t ask if that meant the tiny town we were in, or the whole world. Arriving at the restaurant, we were greeted by his friend and his family, and ushered briskly off to a private room.

I’m not a culinary adventurer. I always find some things I like wherever I go, but I’m not one of those people that can eat just anything. This is my weakness, and it has caused some discomfort before, but I will gag and vomit all over the table if I put a duck tongue in my mouth, chew it, and swallow it. 

So, it was not with an intrepid, warrior-like fervor that I was filled when told that the grand culmination of the meal was sea cucumber. If you’ve never seen one, Google it. It looks like something that evolved in such a way as to never be touched, or even seen, by any other living being. It must be one of nature’s most anti-social creatures. But they are a cherished delicacy in many parts of China.

We continued to chain smoke and chatted while glass after glass of white liquor was poured.

Waiting for the sea cucumber, I was going clammy, and cold flashes were coming in waves over my skin. My stomach was knotted. It was like an experience of what the Hebrews call kadosh; the awful otherness of God.

With aplomb fit for an emperor, the dreaded sea-beast was brought in. My companions were beaming from ear to ear, less able to contain their excitement than children running down the stairs on Christmas morning. It had been cut into small sections, but my terror was whole and looming.

I was genuinely afraid that I would embarrass my hosts and sour their spirits, being a poor cultural diplomat in the face of their hospitality, but far more terrorized by the faintest idea of putting that thing in my mouth and swallowing it.

This was not going to be good for anyone.

I grinned with the dishonesty of a televangelist and sucked with abandon at a cigarette. It was an abhorrent sight, and childhood fears at seeing the movie Tremors came back from their repression. I was getting tunnel vision, swaying slightly in my chair, my energy centers struggling to not volcanically send everything back up onto this prized monster that my coworker most likely spent half a week’s pay on.

David gingerly took a quivering slice of the sea cucumber from the platter and placed it on my plate. With shaking hands I put it in the hot pot broth and closed my eyes momentarily, thinking of the moment when my car had flipped years ago, remembering that I had been through more difficult times before. That I would muscle up and just do this.

After it cooked momentarily I tried to invoke the fearlessness of a berzerker, got a hold of its slimy surface with my chopsticks, and noticed that the children and women had momentarily dropped their cell phones, to see the look of sheer bliss that would come over my face as I ingested this Chinese epicurean delight.

I put it in my mouth quickly and tried to think of being shot out of a cannon, or plunged underwater; anything to take my consciousness violently away. I chewed and didn’t even have enough time to chomp twice (although the moment lasted an eternity) before a drill seargeant in my mind screamed “SWALLOW IT, YOU TWIT!”

I conjured all of the methods of abstaining from puking that I’d ever had to use before, finishing bottles of rotgut whiskey in public places. Somehow, by the infinite grace of the intelligent matrix of energy that pervades the universe, what some call God, it slowly assumed its baneful way down into my guts without violence.

I think what made that moment remotely bearable was how ecstatic everyone else was that I evidentally appeared as if I loved it. It was because of that that slowly my stomach settled and with some deep, intensive breaths, I was able to calm the tempest of disgust from within that had threatened to overwhelm me.

Everyone was so proud and gaily began dishing some up for themselves. Of course David put another large piece on my plate, but in the course of the rest of the meal, I was able to surreptitiously break it apart and hide the pieces amongst more cabbage and tofu I’d put on my plate, and no one noticed. With the worst of the trembling in my loins subsided, I chainsmoked and picked at a few other odds and ends, relieved it was over.     

We soon piled back in David’s car and shuddered through the cold back to my hotel, where I thanked him and his family profusely for their hospitality and generosity. I smiled and bowed repeatedly, beaming until they were out of the parking lot.

I then walked briskly back to my room, opened a beer, and exhaustedly put my hands up on the edge of the sink, sighing with dejected laboriousness like Philip Marlowe after finishing a case, staring deep into my own eyes.