Swallow Live Baby Mice

 

Source: Pet-Mice.com


For many of us born in the 60s or earlier, particularly Chinese ‘uncle’, the story of swallowing baby mice is not new.

I first heard about baby mice swallowing from my late grandfather when I was just less than 10 years old in Kuching.

Rats were common in most households in those days, and baby mice were easily found in many corners of the wooden house, as they couldn’t run; one of my cousins said to me, they could easily find baby mice in their messy wooden drawers.


Source: culinaryschools.org


Grandpa had swallowed many live baby mice! He took live baby mice because he believed baby mice were good for health, especially if one had some ‘internal injuries’; the baby mouse swallowed alive would help free up those injuries as it ‘moved’ about the body before it got digested!

Such was my grandpa belief & his understanding of human body! His term of ‘internal injury’ was close to usual body ache & pain due to long laborious works as subsistence farmer.

My elder cousin (about 70 years old now), as teenager, who was close to grandpa, took twice of this baby mice course as grandpa though he was weak & required such treatment. The baby mouse was supposed to be swallowed alive, without chewing, to get the best result. Few years back, the cousin recalled the incident as unbelievable, disgusting & terribly awful!

Recently my friend, five years older, as we gossiped on earlier days after jogging, recalled of his baby mice meal in his childhood. He too mentioned of finding those baby mice in old drawers in the house!

As oppose to the China’s ‘Three Squeaks’ live mice dish (三叫菜) rumors quite a while ago, the local mice meal was quite simple; baby mouse was searched, caught & held at the tail, threw to the mouth & swallowed, that’s all, as I had heard from my grandpa & cousin.

Locally, the Borneo natives has no such cuisines! Grandpa was from Fujian Province in China, the practice likely had been passed down from his elders. The recipe should have changed as time passed & environment transformed.

There are reasons or cultural causes of our many different exotic or weird food in our world today. 

Exotic cuisines or related can be a very sensitive issue amidst today’s public health challenges, mass population movements, rapid transfer of infectious disease and potential for global pandemics.

Alike a species through natural selection, such tradition or cuisine shall transform or extinguish itself with the current confrontational habitat.


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