# You thought your school lunches were bad **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** food-cooking\ **Created:** [June 21, 2023, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-thought-your-school-lunches-were-bad/985888 "2023-06-21T14:14:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2023, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-thought-your-school-lunches-were-bad/985888/1 "2023-06-21T14:14:34Z")
Chinese school lunch officials are forced to concede that a mysterious chunk of meat found by a student in a school lunch was not a piece of duck neck (apparently a delicacy) but rather a rat’s head. > **[Strange thing found in student's meal is rat head, Chinese officials rule...](https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/21/china/china-rat-head-student-food-intl-hnk/index.html)** > > A strange object found in a school meal in China was the head of a rat, Chinese authorities have concluded, overturning previous official reassurances that it was duck neck in the latest twist to a food safety scandal that gripped the nation for... But for quite a while, they were adamant it was a valid piece of desirable meat, even convincing the student to publicly repudiate the claim it was a rat head. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2023, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-thought-your-school-lunches-were-bad/985888/2 "2023-06-21T14:21:47Z")
> [@gnoitall](#): > > piece of duck neck (apparently a delicacy) Mmmmm, duck neck! I don’t get it. When I cook turkey or chicken giblets and necks for our dogs, the necks have very little meat on them. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2023, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-thought-your-school-lunches-were-bad/985888/3 "2023-06-21T14:24:41Z")
Keep quiet, or everyone else will want one! ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2023, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-thought-your-school-lunches-were-bad/985888/4 "2023-06-21T14:26:41Z")
This is making the Chinese social media #WhitePeopleLunches trend of posting plain ham sandwiches and carrots sound like good eating. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2023, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-thought-your-school-lunches-were-bad/985888/5 "2023-06-21T14:41:23Z")
Duck neck, rat head, seems like a lateral move to me. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2023, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-thought-your-school-lunches-were-bad/985888/6 "2023-06-21T14:44:24Z")
On the list of strange things Chinese people eat, duck neck probably doesn’t crack the top 100. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2023, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-thought-your-school-lunches-were-bad/985888/7 "2023-06-21T15:43:01Z")
^^ But what about rat head? ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2023, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-thought-your-school-lunches-were-bad/985888/8 "2023-06-21T16:11:35Z")
My brother’s son lived in China for a bit (teaching English) in a village that survived by fishing. He thought it was going to be grande, seafood for dinner each night. But the reality was different. Scrap from the processing of fish was what the people survived on. Two bouts of dysentery. He probably had a few rat heads. > **Summary** > > Then things got bad. His employer had only gotten him a tourist visa , so he wasn’t supposed to be working. One day soldiers armed with machine guns kicked in his door and he was dragged out and taken to the airport. > > He managed to call his dad (my brother) who was living in Germany for work. My brother wired him money for a plane ticket to Germany, where he slept on his parent’s couch for a while. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2023, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-thought-your-school-lunches-were-bad/985888/9 "2023-06-21T16:18:35Z")
I had to click on the article link to see for myself just how much it looked like a rat’s head in the pic. But oddly, in the full-size pic the mystery meat between the chopsticks has been pixelated out, so you can’t see details. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2023, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-thought-your-school-lunches-were-bad/985888/10 "2023-06-21T16:20:45Z")
> [@solost](#): > > the mystery meat between the chopsticks has been pixelated out Probably to avoid squicking out the reader, but it does dull the impact a bit. Still, I’m sufficiently icked just reading the story. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2023, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-thought-your-school-lunches-were-bad/985888/11 "2023-06-21T16:36:38Z")
Carol Cleveland (voice over): ‘ONE SLICE OF STRAWBERRY TART WITHOUT SO MUCH RAT IN IT LATER’. ---
**Author:** ![InternetLegend](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/internetlegend/32/13154_2.png) [@InternetLegend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InternetLegend)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2023, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-thought-your-school-lunches-were-bad/985888/12 "2023-06-21T17:09:21Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > > [@gnoitall](#): > > > > piece of duck neck (apparently a delicacy) > > Mmmmm, duck neck! I don’t get it. When I cook turkey or chicken giblets and necks for our dogs, the necks have very little meat on them. My mother always told the story of how my grandmother would invariably take the chicken neck, claiming it was her favorite piece. (She would tell it while discarding the neck of the chicken she was cooking; apparently there’s a limit to the economies Depression babies absorbed.) ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2023, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-thought-your-school-lunches-were-bad/985888/13 "2023-06-23T05:57:00Z")
> [@Ike\_Witt](#): > > On the list of strange things Chinese people eat, duck neck probably doesn’t crack the top 100. > [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > ^^ > > But what about rat head? Currently rat’s heads are at #113. But that could change as people find it less strange after seeing this story and then go out and try one.