Oh, great. The list of weird food items that I have to try just keeps getting longer. And I haven't even tried cheese ramen and live lobster sashimi yet. Damn it.

So what is this latest item? The good people of Shanghai call it Purple Orchid Three. And what the hell is it exactly? Oh, nothing really. It's just a potato. Except that it's purple. And why the hell is it purple? Because it's grown from seeds mutated by exposure to space radiation while carried on a spacecraft. Um, waiter, why is my potato salad giving off a purple radioactive glow? And why is blood oozing out of my eye sockets?

Of course, the Chinese are no strangers to strange food. On my first and only trip to Beijing a few years ago, I saw sidewalk vendors hawking what looked like fried crickets on sticks. I was about to buy one when the tour guide stopped me. "Street food is not safe," she said. "You can get diarrhea." I had to walk away sadly. You know what's even sadder? I got diarrhea anyway on that very same day. Stupid tour guide. She reminded me of my mother, always telling me not to do this and not to do that. Why can't I draw a mustache on Mao Zedong's portrait? That would have been hilarious....

I think I'm drifting off topic. Where was I? Oh, right, the Chinese and their strange food. I can understand fried bugs, but potatoes mutated by space radiation? Really? Where do they draw the line between what is edible and what is not? What if they take an egg into space and expose it to cosmic rays, then weeks later, the egg hatches and a three-eyed purple chicken pops out? Will they eat it? My guess is no, but I can't be too sure. After all, these people have no qualms about eating purple mutant potatoes.

Mmm, a nice baked purple mutant potato.... It sounds so wrong, but my cursed Chinese genes sure seem to be craving for it.