Ready to brake your brain for the weekend? Before that, here is a last exercise for you. Check out these food items: think and make your best guess. WHAT ARE THESE?
A local gastronomist's favourite dish they will make. Known as "Lap Aap", (literally, Salted and Dried Duck) they always make a powerful sight to my eye for their identical pattern and flattened outlook. I wonder how a fat duck can be murdered and reduced to the thickness of some pieces of paper. I can tell kids and they will readily believe me that these ducks were run over by a trucks and killed on their way back to a barn.
Seriously, these ducks are deboned, salted and dried in the open air. A winter delicacy available in local delicatessens, 
they are most sought after for the leg parts. If you have tasted a smoked pork hock, the Lap Aap is similar in taste but more chewy. The usual way of serving is to steam a tiny piece with rice.
(A delicatessen selling the Lap Aaps)
Salted food is popular among the southern Chinese. The more famed one is "Harm Yu" (Salted Fish). Like the salted fish in the coastal towns of the Mediterranean, North America and other countries, Harm Yu is a time-honoured dish invented by the ancient people before canning and refrigeration were invented. It was a food for the poor people in the old Chinese Kingdoms.
(Five Fish Out of Water: They are caught, dried and hung on the railing in an open market neighbouring a busy road)
The choice candidate for Harm Yu is a threadfin. There is a whole array of dishes served with Harm Yu: the eggplant pot with Harm Yu and minced beef, fried rice with dices of chicken meat and Harm Yu and the simplest steamed Harm Yu, to name a few. It is worth mentioning that salted food is tested to contain nitrosamine, an agent casuing nasopharyngeal cancer. Next time when you consume salted food, take it with a grain of salt.
(All Salted of Food: From up clockwise – salted fish, dried fish guts, two trays of dried squids, three trays of salted fish of other kinds)
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