Other items are salted earthworms, pigeon's eggs, pounded shrimps; bird's nest soup, a gelatinous article; beches de mer (sea slugs), water beetles and silkworms, the last named fried in oil after they have made their cocoons. A much admired soup, prepared for an imperial feast, was of blood and mare's milk. Oysters are very cheap in winter, selling at from five to six cents per pound. The following receipts may be of interest as literal translations from a genuine Chinese cook book: _Steamed Shark's Fins._ Take the sun-dried shark's fins, place in a cooking pan, add wood ashes and boil in several waters. Then take out and scrape the roughness from the fins. If not clean, boil again and scrape again until clean. Then change the water and boil again. Take out and remove the flesh, keeping only the fins themselves. Boil again and put in spring water. The frequent changing of the water is necessary to take out the lime taste. Put the fins into the soup and stew until quite tender. Dish in a bowl, placing crab meat below and a little ham on top. _Chicken with the Liquor of Fermented Rice._ Bone a chicken and steam until just right; take out and let cool, then cut into thin slices. Next, take gelatinous rice which has been fermented with yeast and water; cook this for two hours, add a little of the juice expressed from fresh ginger, soy, sesamum and oil. Mix together with peanut oil. Dish and add fragrant herbs. _Genii Ducks._ Take a fat duck; open and clean. Take two mace of salt, rub it both outside and inside and put into an earthen dish. Take one cup of fan spirits and put (the cup with the spirits) inside the duck--only the vapor of the spirits is wanted. Steam over water until quite tender, then lift out the wine cup and put the bird into a bowl. The most common native liquor are "suee chow," a rice brandy; "shas chin," an impure alcohol made from kauliang or sorghum; "huary chin," a yellow wine made from millet, and various spirits extracted from plums, apples, pears, etc. All liquors are drunk hot, and some of them are steeped with spices or the leaves of flowers. Although spirits are plentiful and cheap, drunkenness is rare. Tea, of course, is consumed by all classes. A curious custom annually observed is the propitiatory offering to the God of the Kitchen, who is worshipped in all parts of China, and who is supposed to report his observations to the Pearly Emperor Supreme Ruler. [Illustration: Family Offering to the Kitchen God.] He is represented in each kitchen by a slip of white or red paper (changed each year as a rule) bearing his name and title and sometimes his portrait, pasted on the wall in some convenient part of the room. Among the better classes the kitchen god is also known as the superintendent or inspector of good and evil.