Rat meat and Chinese food safety

[cronus]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22467484

Rat meat and Chinese food safety

The latest food scandal in China - which has seen rat meat passed off as lamb - has raised more questions about food safety in the country.

It seems that barely a day goes by in China without news of yet another food safety scandal.

But the latest case - even by Chinese standards - was truly stomach-churning.

Hundreds of people were arrested after passing off rat meat as lamb.

Perhaps, unsurprisingly, the scandal has given rise to a round of stories about rodents.

I heard one anecdote about a restaurant in southern China that serves up rat meat dishes. Believe me these establishments do exist.

At this particular restaurant, the owners reassured the customers their rats had been caught in the countryside and not in the sewers.

(continued, who is missing here again?)

[rainbow]

We in Africa often eat rat.
What is the problem?

[Thinking Aloud]

That rat meat can be passed off as lamb is saying something in itself.

[rainbow]

That rat meat can be passed off as lamb is saying something in itself.

You are right, it's much more like chicken.

[JimC]

Dwarvish delicacy in Ankh-Mopork...

[klr]

[JacksSmirkingRevenge]

We in Africa often eat rat.
What is the problem?

Looks more like a coypu to me....'cept they're S. American.

[Tyrannical]

And this is from 1992.....

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1992-0 ... u-rat-meat

Rats are all over the "Jia Lu" Restaurant. Rats in the kitchen. Rats on diners' plates. Rats between their chopsticks.

There's braised rat meat with roast pork and garlic. There's rat in black bean sauce. There's crispy fried rat. There's stewed rat.

"Jia Lu" means "super deer," a classical Chinese euphemism for rats.

The 17-table restaurant is the only one in Canton, perhaps in all of China, specializing in what its English menu sensitively calls "vole."

Rats have long been eaten by some southern Chinese in hard times. A few other Canton restaurants still cook them up now and then. But the "Jia Lu's" rats are not just ordinary rats.

"Virus-free rats from the countryside," says one of the restaurant's four owners, Wu Li Juan, 30.

"Big, fat, plump ones with bright gray-colored fur -- that means they've been eating grain. We don't want anything about half dead. Our rats are very nutritious," she says.

[cronus]

Rats+China+Food=Plague

It's only a matter of time now they've got the taste over there.

[rainbow]

Looks more like a coypu to me....'cept they're S. American.

Nope:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_cane_rat

[JimC]

I dare someone to eat the Giant Rat from Sumatra!

[tattuchu]

That rat meat can be passed off as lamb is saying something in itself.

You are right, it's much more like chicken.

There's a Chinese restaurant in town here that serves lamb. It's like no lamb I've ever tasted And looks suspiciously like chicken