GuangZhou Cuisine

[MarkLuvsShuPing]

I was looking for a lesson plan for my students who have chosen "Cooking" as their elective class, when I came across this article.

 

I wish I had seen it 3 weeks ago, I might have been able to talk ShuPing into a visit.

 

If anyone decides to look for this place, let me know if it's still around.

 

June 26, 2002

The Rage in China: Lunching on Wildlife, and Mao

BY ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

 

 

LIANBIAN, China "Long Live the Proletarian Revolution" screams one of the huge red banners, relics from Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution, on this vast restaurant's walls.

But the hundreds of wild animals in the cages stacked high underneath will not live long at all. The herons, flying foxes, snakes, baby deer and lynx are among the dozens of species on the menu here, all destined to end up fried, stewed or dunked into a hot pot as part of today's businessman's lunch.

 

Plunked improbably in this village on the outskirts of Guangzhou, the fantastically popular Sent Down Youth No. 1 Village Wild Flavors Restaurant is outwardly the oddest of hybrids: a kitsch theme spot where patrons can remember a miserably poor and brutally political decade in China's history while indulging the current southern Chinese rage for feasting on weird and expensive creatures.

 

But then this is Guangdong, China's boom province, a giddy, anything-goes place where consumers rule and economic success has long since supplanted Communist orthodoxy as the guiding principle of existence.

 

"I decided on a Cultural Revolution theme because in those days we suffered a great deal and never had anything to eat," said the owner, Liu Zhenhua, 51, who sports a cellphone, a shag haircut and two rings in his left ear. His restaurant is named in part for his Cultural Revolution experiences as a "sent-down youth," a city boy remanded to the countryside to learn from the peasants.

 

"Now we are prosperous and can eat anything we want," he said. "So we can remember past suffering while enjoying our current good fortune."

 

Wild animal restaurants are just one of many consumer crazes, from skateboarding to fine wine, that have gripped Guangdong in the last five years as rising incomes have left Cantonese with time and money to pursue their pleasures. Baiyun Avenue, which leads north out of Guangzhou, the provincial capital, toward Lianbian, is cluttered with opulent eateries whose billboards seem better suited to zoos.

 

So two years ago, to distinguish his place from other restaurants offering scorpion, bobcat and squirrel, Mr. Liu had an inspiration: he erected a huge statue of Mao by the roadside, plastered the restaurant walls with slogans, old photos and 1960's propaganda posters, and dressed his waiters in vintage 1960's military garb. Presto! Mao, the outdated Great Helmsman of the Socialist Revolution, was transformed into a marketing device.

 

 

 

In this part of China, Mr. Liu was rewarded rather than criticized for his innovation. Local farmers, impressed by his ability to make money, elected him village chief by a huge majority ?his baggy jeans and earrings not considered a liability.

 

To judge by the perpetually packed dining room, Mr. Liu has hit upon a formula irresistible in Guangdong, which has been notorious since ancient times for both adventurous eating and irreverent politics. People here will eat "anything with legs other than the table," an old saying goes.

 

"Wildlife restaurants are a sign of our prosperity," said Kuang Zuoqiao, 51, a slightly scruffy farmer who joined two relatives for cheap cigarettes and expensive chunks of wild boar here on a recent Tuesday afternoon. "It's fun and exciting to see what new animals taste like."

 

He said they splurged on wild animal meals two or three times a month, adding, "When you see an animal, it's only natural to wonder what kind of flavor it has."

 

His distant cousin, Kuang Yanyao, 53, said there was a tinge of vengeful pleasure in feasting under the watchful eyes of plaster Red Guards. During the Cultural Revolution, they plowed through China's countryside in posses, ransacking temples and beating those deemed to have anti- revolutionary tendencies.

 

"The Cultural Revolution was not a happy time here," Mr. Kuang said, sitting under a poster that proclaimed, "The Revolution Depends on Chairman Mao Thought."

"We ate just rice and tea ?we were always hungry. So it is very satisfying to be able to eat here, like this."

 

At the restaurant's entryway, well-dressed customers in sport shirts and silk dresses surveyed the cages, picking out lunch.

 

The house specialty is "Dragon, Tiger, Phoenix," a stew of snake, wildcat and crane popular for its supposed health benefits as well as its flavor.

 

Rats are popular, but only in winter, since they "carry too many diseases in summer," a waitress explained. But some customers averred that, like a fine sherry, a well-prepared rat knows no season. "To me, it doesn't matter what time of the year," Kuang Zuoqiao said.

 

Mr. Liu's is certainly not for the animal lover or the faint of heart; there are Chinese who feel that the people of Guangdong have now taken the sport of extreme eating too far.

The central government, noting that wealthy locals here are now paying top dollar to eat protected and even endangered species, is cracking down on the trade. Just this week, the owner of a nearby restaurant was sentenced to five years in jail for serving pangolin, a kind of anteater.

 

Mr. Liu says he carefully adheres to government laws on wild animals, sometimes purchasing from Southeast Asia animals not available here. "Rare owls and crocodiles used to be popular but you can't get them anymore because the government has banned that," a waiter said.

 

But for many customers, a trip to Mr. Liu's is as much about political catharsis as culinary experimentation, an attempt to come to terms with a bygone time.

"I receive a lot of support from old people and other sent down youth who, like me, don't want these things forgotten," he said. "They come down here for reunion dinners and by the end of the evening they are filled with tears."

[tonymasiello]

It would be interesting to learn if the place is still open since the article is pre-SARS. I remember hearing that a lot of these places were forced to close at that time.

[rogerluli]

I suspect that Tony is right. I first visited my SO in GZ in November 2003, post SARS, and I asked to go to the market where all the wild and unusual animals were sold and she said it didn't exist anymore.

[BobandNicole]

Ye Cats!!! And I thought the factory food around here was bad.. Haven't seen a cat in a cage outside a restaraunt for a while. Saw dog hanging in the local Park N Shop, but that's a whole nother story.

Bob

[DaveR]

I know when I was in Korea in the 1986 and 1990-1992, that dog was considered a delicacy. I know they were trying to discourage the practice, but I do know it continued. I do not think I ever ate dog, but I did eat in some out places that were off the main drag. So I cannot say for sure. And the Soju probably killed my tastebuds.

 

Dave

[pkfops]

My so told me about monkey brains once.

 

The top of the skull is removed while the monkey

is still alive and then hot oil is poured in to cook.

 

Never tried it though.

[rogerluli]

I've heard of that also. There was a special table so that the monkey's brain was exposed at table level while the shreiking simian was bound underneath. Then you go at it with your chopsticks. ..

 

Think I'll go vegetarian tonight..

[Feathers268]

I know when I was in Korea in the 1986 and 1990-1992, that dog was considered a delicacy.  I know they were trying to discourage the practice, but I do know it continued.  I do not think I ever ate dog, but I did eat in some out places that were off the main drag.  So I cannot say for sure.  And the Soju probably killed my tastebuds.

 

Dave

I saw grilled dog meat on the menu at a resuraunt in Suzhou. Didn't order it so unless one of Jen's relatives did I did not try it. That wasn't disturbing like the picture in the menu of the broiled pig's face.