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In China, people are hungry for a taste of the wild
BY HANNAH
BEECH/SHANGHAI
June 2, 2003
It turns out that few people actually enjoy the taste of pangolin—a
scaly anteater whose flesh is a blend of gristle and rubber. The
same goes for the nocturnal civet, which has a gamy aftertaste that
even the thickest brown sauce can't mask. And who really enjoys camel
hump, which tastes just as you'd expect a blubbery lump to taste?
But flavor isn't what really matters to many of the diners tucking
into China's wildlife menagerie. "Businessmen come here to prove
their wealth," says George Ng, a Shanghai-based restaurateur
who specialized in cobra and other wild animals until last month,
when local authorities declared all such fare illegal. "By spending
lots of money on game, they can close the deal with business partners
who are impressed with their expensive tastes."
With the recent
discovery that SARS may have leapfrogged to humans from exotic
delicacies like the civet cat and raccoon dog, Beijing
has launched a massive crackdown on the wildlife trade. In the
past week, police have combed wet markets in metropolises like
Guangzhou
and Shanghai, confiscating writhing bags filled with all manner
of beast. But eating yewei, or wild-flavor cuisine, is a key element
of new China's conspicuous consumption, and it won't be easy to
curb
the appetites of the nation's voracious businessmen and discerning
government officials.
It used to be that savoring strange
creatures was really common only among the Cantonese or poor rural
folk. But
these days, even Shanghai
residents are hungry for a taste of the wild. With the city's fortunes
on the rise, eating endangered animals such as the Yangtze crocodile
or Chinese sturgeon has become yet another way to flaunt one's
wealth. Restaurateur Ng says his biggest spenders forked over an
average
of $120 per diner, in a city where the average monthly income is
$130. "They order a lot of expensive things, like steamed cobra," he
says, "but then they don't actually eat very much."
Snake
is especially coveted, in part for its purported health benefits.
In May, the director of the Center for Disease Control in the eastern
province of Jiangsu was quoted in the local paper as advising citizens
to eat plenty of snake to boost their immune systems against SARS.
Despite the wildlife ban, mesh bags crawling with snakes are heaped
on plywood counters in Shanghai's outlying Fengxian district, alongside
hopping nets of wild frogs.
Endangered-animal protection is largely
a foreign concept in China. Some 40% of the rhinoceros horn poached
in Africa winds up in China,
where pharmacists tout its restorative powers. The same disregard
goes for many of China's native endangered species. "If I could
find a good way to cook tiger, I'd prepare it," says a chef
surnamed Chen at Shanghai's Guhua Garden restaurant as he hacks up
a freshly skinned king snake.
Today, even neophyte diners know not
to chow on pangolin in the summer, as its flesh reputedly warms
the blood. Toad, however, is regarded
as a perfect June-August nosh, because each bite is believed to
cool the body, like a gastronomic air-conditioner. Deer tendons
braised
with turnip are supposed to enhance a woman's beauty; barking deer
is said to cure hangovers, and a sizeable wild deer's penis reputedly
does wonders for the underwhelming man. But the most fashionable—and
expensive—morsel today is a strip of giant-salamander skin,
the reddish tinge of which exactly matches the shade of China's new
100-yuan note. In the modern People's Republic, money trumps manhood
any day.
—
With reporting by Bu Hua
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