Eating Baby Mice – “San Zhi Er” aka Three Screams

Traveling around Southeast Asia, I have definitely seen a lot of strange dishes. The other night, while having a couple of beers at a dirty bar, I heard a particularly brutal dish. This is called the “San Zhi Er”; the literal translation in Chinese is Three Screams.

This dish consists of eating newly born baby mice; they are so fresh that they are still blind and are hairless. The reasons why it’s called the Three Screams is because the baby mice would scream once when they are picked up with chopsticks. Its second scream comes when they are dipped in the sauce and seasoning. The final scream would occur when they would be put in the eaters mouth.

I try to maintain a “Try Everything” policy on my travels, but this dish may require an update to the policy. Only time will tell.