Baked newt

As promised (in an earlier post), here are some pics of a shop in Tokyo that sells newts...urrrh...baked ones, that is!



It's called "kuroyaki" (characters for "black" and "bake/fry"), and shops like this are very scarce nowadays. In fact, this may be the only one left in Tokyo.



Passersby can see what's on offer through the window. Only one of those jars has newts in them (Cynops pyrrhogaster).



Venturing inside, the shopkeeper is only too happy to show his merchandise (for there are very few customers these days).



I didn't inquire as to how the newt is baked, but how it's used is as a love potion ("hore-gusuri").

It's supposed to be crumbled into powder by the amorous guy who purchases it, and then slipped into the food or drink of the girl he is trying to seduce. Something along the lines of a Mickey Finn, I guess.

Uuuuh, that brings back "fond" memories from visiting China where you can (among many other critters) find dried caudates in traditional pharmacies. What I saw might have been Hynobius. And Tylototriton is also known to be collected commercially for this purpose. I didn't managed to find out what they are actually used for/against though.

I've also seen a bit of everything in Chinese pharmacies and animal markets (out of the corner of my squinched eyes of course!), but not yet sallies. Did they look anything like this? (not my pic by the way)



These are also also Hynobius. I actually bought one of these secondhand years ago in the Japanese countryside to keep as a newtophile "collector's item" but it soon went sour on me and I felt terrible.

Edible sallies sold at a few hotspring resorts, skewed and fried, I hear. I plan to take some pics of this phenomenom, perhaps for an article.

By the way, I read somewhere about Chinese giant salamanders appearing "regularly" in restaurants in Macau/o but have yet to confirm this. And you?

I'm glad there aren't many shops left like that and few interested customers , the ones that are interested are obviously mentally ill !!

Here are some examples of Hynobius-on-a-stick...

Mmmm crunchy. Don't show those to Henk Wallays - he'd have a breakdown *grin*.

That's heinous.

Imagine how slow and painful that death must be.

Yep, pretty inhumane (and unappetizing!) but arguably no more so than what producing fish, beef, pork, chicken, fish, etc. in the "civilized" West entails.

I certainly wouldn't want to be one of those sals but -- to put things in perspective -- nor would I want to be any of the creatures they ate prior to being caught and eaten themselves.

Which leads one to wonder whether people who eat them whole like this ever pause to consider they are also consuming whatever's in the sals' stomachs...(worms, flies...)

Anybody for tempura?

Thats so rotten. SO.