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| -Lurid Crime Tales- |
| Report: Cardboard Main Ingredient in Chinese Neighborhood's Steamed Buns |
| 2007-07-13 |
| Chopped cardboard, softened with an industrial chemical and flavored with fatty pork and powdered seasoning, is a main ingredient in batches of steamed buns sold in one Beijing neighborhood, state television said. The report, aired late Wednesday on China Central Television, highlights the country's problems with food safety despite government efforts to improve the situation. Countless small, often illegally run operations exist across China and make money cutting corners by using inexpensive ingredients or unsavory substitutes. They are almost impossible to regulate. State TV's undercover investigation features the shirtless, shorts-clad maker of the buns, called baozi, explaining the contents of the product sold in Beijing's sprawling Chaoyang district. Baozi are a common snack in China, with an outer skin made from wheat or rice flour and a filling of sliced pork. Cooked by steaming in immense bamboo baskets, they are similar to but usually much bigger than the dumplings found on dim sum menus familiar to many Americans. The hidden camera follows the man, whose face is not shown, into a ramshackle building where steamers are filled with the fluffy white buns, traditionally stuffed with minced pork. The surroundings are filthy, with water puddles and piles of old furniture and cardboard on the ground. "What's in the recipe?" the reporter asks. "Six to four," the man says. "You mean 60 percent cardboard? What is the other 40 percent?" asks the reporter. "Fatty meat," the man replies. The bun maker and his assistants then give a demonstration on how the product is made. Squares of cardboard picked from the ground are first soaked to a pulp in a plastic basin of caustic soda — a chemical base commonly used in manufacturing paper and soap — then chopped into tiny morsels with a cleaver. Fatty pork and powdered seasoning are stirred in. Soon, steaming servings of the buns appear on the screen. The reporter takes a bite. "This baozi filling is kind of tough. Not much taste," he says. "Can other people taste the difference?" "Most people can't. It fools the average person," the maker says. "I don't eat them myself." The police eventually showed up and shut down the operation. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #22 Roasted rock cornish hens with wild rice stuffing -- yum! |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-07-13 22:27 |
| #21 I eat Wild Rice when I can get it. It is usually mixed with long grain rice. When fully cooked it has sort of a crunch to it, and when used in stuffing it holds flavor better than other rice. I stuffed and baked green peppers with it and frijoles, but didn't think that worked well. |
| Posted by: McZoid 2007-07-13 21:27 |
| #20 Has anyone tried long-grain black rice? I believe you may be referring to wild rice. It is actually not a variety of rice but one of a totally different New World genus, Zizania aquatica, and is related to real rice only in the same way that wheat is related to oats. Wild rice (Zizania palustris L.), Poaceae is native to North America and grows predominantly in the Great Lakes region in shallow lakes and rivers (Martin and Uhler 1939). This large-seeded species, one of four species of wild rice has been gathered, dried (Fig. 1), and eaten by people since prehistoric times (Johnson 1969). Early North American inhabitants, especially the Ojibway, Menomini, and Cree tribes in the North Central region of the continent, used the grain as a staple food and introduced European fur traders to wild rice (Jenks 1901). Manomin, the name they gave wild rice, means good berry. Early English explorers called this aquatic plant wild rice or Indian rice, while the French saw a resemblance to oats and called it folle avoine (Steeves 1952). Other names given to wild rice include Canadian rice, squaw rice, water oats, blackbird oats, and marsh oats. However, the name "wild rice" persisted and today it is the common name for the genus Zizania, even though the wild type of rice (Oryza) is also called wild rice. Most famous as a stuffing for game birds, only in recent times has cultivation begun on a large scale level. Previously, its production was the strict domain of native American Indians in the Minnesota and Great Lakes regions. True wild rice, called by its Indian name, "manoomin", has a more pronounced flavor than the more hardy agricultural zizania cultivars. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-07-13 20:49 |
| #19 Arkansas is the biggest rice producer in the US. Production ranking in millions of pounds: 1. Ark 8611 medium and long grain 2. CA 4352 mainly medium grain 3. LA 2440 medium and long grain 4. MS 1286 long grain only 5. TX 1434 medium and long grain 6. MO 963 medium and long grain US agriculure report June 2002. I doubt if the rankings have changed in the past five years altough the production figures may have changed. |
| Posted by: GK 2007-07-13 20:01 |
| #18 In India, Basmati is sold as "perfumed rice." I think it smells like dirty socks, and I don't detect any taste difference from the regular stuff. I have seen huge rice paddies in Texas. I don't know what percentage of of the US market comes from that state's producers. I like Thai sauce mixed with rice. Has anyone tried long-grain black rice? It grows in shallow lakes in Minnesota and surroundings. Natives would place their canoes under rice bushes and then shake rice grains into them. That practice is still done in some places. |
| Posted by: Theater Barnsmell4761 2007-07-13 17:57 |
| #17 China is where the US was in the 1880s. The US cleaned up our act through laws and civilization. We can't force the Chinese to do so but if they start to lose access to our market they may start to reform themselves. Time to stop coddling them because we're desperate to sell to the emerging market. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2007-07-13 17:12 |
| #16 Hmmm... I wonder if Dr.Mengele ever considered cardboard instead of the sawdust he fed to concentration camp prisoners? OTH could sawdust be used in making baozi? I'm thinking that the cardboard baozi does NOT have a Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture certification. |
| Posted by: GK 2007-07-13 16:20 |
| #15 And how is this any different than Quaker "rice cakes"? This reminds me very little of a classic Guindon cartoon depicting various fruits and vegetables looking on during a tearful airport reunion. The caption reads: "A rice cake is reunited with its birth mother, a styrofoam cup." |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-07-13 15:07 |
| #14 I rather like steamed buns. I wonder if I can eat one again without thinking "cardboard? sodium hydroxide?" |
| Posted by: John Frum 2007-07-13 15:03 |
| #13 Indian basmati is the best. Actually, it has a close relative in Iran who is still better. |
| Posted by: JFM 2007-07-13 11:14 |
| #12 And how is this any different than Quaker "rice cakes"? |
| Posted by: ed 2007-07-13 10:55 |
| #11 Indian basmati is the best. |
| Posted by: Bob Omoluger4182 2007-07-13 10:40 |
| #10 Yep! And, then they'd hang the new head of the Food Security Division! |
| Posted by: BA 2007-07-13 10:23 |
| #9 you get in bed with the godless chinese and dont be surprized how "barbaric" their daily thinking and actions are. |
| Posted by: Ebbinemble the Fat6855 2007-07-13 10:23 |
| #8 g: This is what you're up against in China. Some guy who just doesn't care one bit that he's poisoning people. If questioned, he'll say that "I'm just trying to work" and he'll get defensive that you're trying to threaten his livelihood. Actually, it goes beyond this. It's more along the lines of "everybody does it - and the difference between me and everyone else is that I got exposed". |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2007-07-13 10:07 |
| #7 Probably would have been a big hit in Leningrad [now known again as St. Petersburg]. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2007-07-13 09:08 |
| #6 Clearly these are the low calorie version, right? |
| Posted by: Whiskey Mike 2007-07-13 09:05 |
| #5 A friend of mine grew up in China. Her hated mother is a pretty well positioned member of the scientific/technical elite - and a party member too. Sunny got out and managed to get here with no job or school position waiting. Took citizenship here as soon as she could and has stories about China that would set peoples' hair on end about life there. |
| Posted by: lotp 2007-07-13 08:37 |
| #4 Mao would have had him shot. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2007-07-13 08:30 |
| #3 Ha ha ha. Try telling that to a Chinese. They are astounded when they find that rice is grown elsewhere. And there's no way that it could be as good as Chinese rice. For a rice country (the southern part, anyway), Chinese rice is really blah. No flavor. And I'm not surprised one bit about cardboard in the baozi. the shirtless, shorts-clad maker of the buns This is what you're up against in China. Some guy who just doesn't care one bit that he's poisoning people. If questioned, he'll say that "I'm just trying to work" and he'll get defensive that you're trying to threaten his livelihood. |
| Posted by: gromky 2007-07-13 02:16 |
| #2 I don't even buy rice from China. In any case, Texas rice is best. |
| Posted by: McZoid 2007-07-13 01:46 |
| #1 Report: Cardboard Main Ingredient in Chinese Neighborhood's Steamed Buns Remember, they ship us the rejects. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-07-13 01:25 |