Last night, I had one of the nastiest things I’ve ever eaten (and I’ve eaten some pretty weird shit).

The folks we met for dinner (TofuPunk and her husband) had some time to kill before we were able to make it to the restaurant, so they did a bit of shopping in Chinatown. This was good and bad. Good because I got a cool little notebook with a bunch of Asian gangsta types on the front…and bad because these preserved mandarin orange peels were part of the catch from the local markets.

After we finished dinner, TofuPunk pulled these out of her bag of goodies and offered me one. They looked kind of small, brown, and furry. Being ever-adventurous for anything vegan, I gave it a shot.

Um, that was a mistake.

As I popped the little brown and furry-looking peel into my mouth, I was immediately hit with a combination of sour, bitter, and incredibly salty. I couldn’t help but make a face. It wasn’t even passably food-like, and instead seemed like some kind of US-military invention designed to torture prisoners in Abu Ghraib or something. It was truly horrible. Afterwards, TofuPunk described it as being nausea-like: kind of a creeping bitter and salty taste that lingers. Sadly, this is accurate.

My advice: avoid preserved mandarin orange peel. It sucks. (but it was nice to see TofuPunk and her husband!)