Big in Japan: Deadly dumplings injure 175

by Matthew Firestone on

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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Prague 101: How to order Czech dumplings

by Iva Skoch on

Whenever friends from abroad are visiting Prague, they always want to eat dumplings. The problem is, they just want to be able to say they have had dumplings so they order them randomly as a side dish to–say–schnitzel. See, that doesn’t really work. Schnitzel is dry, dumplings are dry. Now, if you ordered a side of steamed cabbage/sauerkraut to smother your dumpling in, you could MAYBE get away with that…but it is a strange combo.

We are talking about “side dish” dumplings here, typically either bread or potato dumplings (not about dumplings filled with fruit — that’s dessert). The advantage of dumplings is that they soak up the sauce, so they should always be ordered with a “saucy dish”, for example:

  • goulash
  • svickova (roast tenderloin & sour cream sauce) – see picture
  • vepro-knedlo-zelo (pork roast with cabbage; cabbage is just wet enough to pose as “sauce” here)
  • Beef with creamy dill sauce, mushroom sauce, tomato sauce…you name it.

Sauce is the magic word. So please don’t walk into a restaurant and order a chicken fillet with dumplings. You would like it about as much as a hamburger with rice.

Prague Restaurants Serving High-end Czech Food?!??!

by Neil Woodburn on

Sorry, folks. But no one visits the Czech Republic for the food. Sure, I grew to like it when I lived there, and it was cheap, but unless you like rather bland meat, potatoes and dumplings, then save your palate for finer fare elsewhere.

That’s simply the way it’s been for many years now.

According to a recent New York Times article, however, the Czech culinary scene is surprisingly changing. A number of high-end Czech restaurants serving traditional Czech food (!) are popping up all over Prague. Instead of $1 plates of goulash, the chefs are serving up escabeche, beef tartare, “white tomato meringue, topped with honey and aged balsamic vinegar,” “ravioli, stuffed with diced beef lungs,” and much, much more. Just check out the slide show here!

Journalist Evan Rail recently took a culinary tour of the Czech capital and his review was something I’d expect to find in a place like France or Belgium. But instead, it was all about the long-established doldrums of the culinary world where high-end Czech restaurants are now offering up first class, traditional meals that can run seven courses long and cost hundreds of dollars.

Man, things have come a long way since my first visit in 1990 when they used ketchup to top their pizzas.