Chongqing's "Bacon Ban" Eases

[Randy W]

in the Sixth Tone

After Bacon Ban, Clean-Air Pork Smoker Rekindles Tradition

Chongqing residents relieved to once again ring in the new year with smoked meat.

 

 

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During the run-up to the lunar new year holiday in late January or early February, eating homemade smoked pork was a longstanding tradition in southwestern China — especially in Chongqing and its neighboring provinces of Sichuan and Guizhou. People would typically hang their sausages or slabs of bacon above a metal bucket, into which they loaded kindling and firewood that could be set alight.

But meat-smoking became a scapegoat for pollution problems, to the point that Chongqing authorities prohibited the practice in January 2015. The smoking ban ignited heated debate, with many netizens fuming at having such a time-honored tradition curtailed.

Three years later, as the February lunar new year holiday approaches, local authorities have extended an olive branch in the form of a smoking method that doesn’t pollute the air.

According to Xinhua’s report, the apparatus consists of three parts: a metal smoking box, a cooling system, and a purification system. In cooling and purifying the smoke before releasing it into the air, its density is reduced to next to nothing.


Smoking stations will be set up in 90 locations — including markets, residential communities, and other public areas — in Chongqing’s Yubei District. To use the stations, which can hold up to 250 kilograms of meat at a time, residents will be charged 4 yuan ($0.62) per kilogram.

[amberjack1234]

I absolutely love smoked air-dried sausage. At $0.62 per kilogram, I'll take a cargo box load of it. You can't get it anywhere near that here. As a matter of fact, you can hardly ever find it even here in the south. The health department frowns on it so much. I haven't had any in at least 10 years.

[Randy W]

I absolutely love smoked air-dried sausage. At $0.62 per kilogram, I'll take a cargo box load of it. You can't get it anywhere near that here. As a matter of fact, you can hardly ever find it even here in the south. The health department frowns on it so much. I haven't had any in at least 10 years.

 

 

Hey, that's just for the smoking - bring your own meat.