Chinatown Mystery #8

By Dyske    May 1st, 2009

what9

If I had to guess what these are, I would say dried sea creature of some sort. But then, why are they so brown? So, maybe they are the roots of some plant? Anyone?

7 Responses

  1. Frank Luo says:

    I think they are 当归 Danggui (Radix) Angelica Sinensis (roots) which are sometimes smoked during drying.

    But many dried roots look similar to each other so I am not 100% sure.

  2. Cyndi says:

    they are sea cucumbers

  3. 1st gen chinese says:

    ima guess that these are roots of some plant

  4. ftfly says:

    well, there is chinese in that pics, right?
    so as i could read chinese, that is Auricularia auricula, something you put into water for a while, then would get soft, so could cook that,
    not really herbs. just some kind of food. dried edible black fungus , u could consider that is kind of mushroom.

  5. Wendy Layne says:

    I hate to say it but it looks like petrified poop.

  6. Philthy says:

    These are dried red ginseng roots. Typically they are from Korea.

  7. Charmander says:

    According to the chinese words they’re black fungus. It sure doesn’t look like it though, the one I’ve seen (and usually eat) are flat and scrunch up a lil, like in the picture shown here: http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/special/1999/asian/fungus.html

    The common kind (according to my personal experience) is the white fungus and black fungus. The formal tend to appear in sweet chinese desserts or cooked together with bird’s nest (or substitute the real thing altogether) as they both have similar texture. The latter is common in my household as mom uses it in stir-fry dishes.

    I doubt it’s what it states to be in the picture up above. It looks more like sea cucumbers to me. Then again, I could be wrong as there’s too many variety of herbs and spices in the world.