One of the many things that I’ve learned about the Japanese since moving to Tokyo is that they love to eat.
Of course, unlike Americans who seem to take extreme pleasure in enormous portion sizes of incredibly fatty food, the Japanese are much more refined in their culinary choices.
Indeed, Japanese society is structured around the fine art of sharing food with friends, which is perhaps one reason why the quality of meals over here is arguably the best in the world.
So, you can imagine the havoc that is spreading through Japan this week following the news that 175 people checked themselves into the hospital after dining on deadly dumplings.
How potentially deadly where the dumplings in question?
Well, not that deadly – unless of course you consider pesticides to be an acceptable condiment!
Delicious. Nothing like a few hundred milligrams of an insect-killing chemical concoction to cleanse the palatte and settle the stomach!
Jokes aside, the case of the deadly dumplings is actually an incredibly serious matter that might possibly endanger the future of Chinese-Japanese economic and political relations!
(I told you that eating was a very serious business in Japan!)
So, let’s start off with something simple – what exactly is a dumpling?
Good question!
Dumplings in Japan are known as gyōza (餃子), and are generally comprised of some mystery blend of meat and vegetable that is wrapped into a thinly rolled and sealed piece of dough.
Gyoza are generally served with three dipping sauces – soy sauce, rice vinegar and hot chili sauce – though each gyoza aficionado generally mixes up their own special blend of the three.
Anyway, let’s get back to the story….
Two weeks ago, the Chinese government launched a fourth-month campaign to eliminate “non-food materials” from their food exports.
What exactly is a non-food material you ask? Well, simply put, anything that isn’t a food material, like industrial dyes, pesticides and fungicides.
Getting hungry yet?
Despite this pledge however, Chinese-made dumplings containing pesticides sickened 175 Japanese, which has created a huge scandal that is impossible to ignore in a society that is borderline obsessed with their personal safety.
Last year, the Chinese exported a whopping US$56.7 billion of food to Japan, though analysts are warning that this lucrative industry is about to take a huge hit.
According to Minoru Morita, a Tokyo-based economist, “Japanese consumers, already distrustful of Chinese products, may stop buying them.”
Just ask Hiroko Date, a 38-year-old mother of two in Tokyo: “It makes you scared to buy imported food — you worry about your kids.”
So, for the time being, it looks like there won’t be too many plates of dumplings gracing the dinner tables of Japan for quite some time.
With that said, if you’re reading this article somewhere across the Pacific Ocean in North America, you also probably might want to pass on any pre-packaged dumplings you might find at the local supermarket.
Sigh – looks like I might have to find another favorite drunk food, though fortunately ramen is still safe!
** The images of the delicious dumplings were courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons Project **
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