Street Food Documentary

Here's a neat documentary created and published by CET Academic Programs about street food in Beijing:

The video starts with some man-on-the-street interviews asking folks some questions about street food in China, including questions about the health and provenance of the food. Unsurprisingly, most people enjoy the food but are skeptical about the quality of the ingredients. The video creators took it upon themselves to talk to some vendors about where they got their supplies, and then they went to the market to talk to the suppliers. I was pleased (as I'm sure you will be) to hear their conclusion (around 8:37 in the video):

"We thought that visiting Xing Fa Di would unearth some underworld of street food mayhem. We thought the market would be a mess of chemically treated vegetables and rotting meat, but it wasn't. Contrary to popular belief the vegetables were clean and the meat was fresh.  It's true, not every street vendor is as picky about buying ingredients as the vendors we talked with.  But, Beijing street food is more or less clean." (Emphasis mine.)

As regular readers will know, this has been my experience, too. There's no doubt that unscrupulous vendors are out there deceiving people about the quality of ingredients, lying about what they are feeding customers, using gutter oil, or otherwise harming consumers, but these nefarious nogoodniks are the exception rather than the rule. For the most part, if you use common sense you will be fine.

This documentary is an interesting look at a side of Chinese street food that we don't often see; it is definitely worth a watch. Great thanks to CET Academic Studies (and CET China Studies in particular) for creating this video and for their permission to share it here. Keep up the good work, CET!

Misconceptions about Hong Kong Food

CNN International shares an interesting list of 5 Misconceptions About Hong Kong Food. Lovers of street food will be particularly pleased to note misconception #4: the prevalence of thousand-year oil (also called gutter oil). For those uninitiated, I've written about the topic before, but the basic idea is that unscrupulous street food vendors reuse the same cooking oil day after day in an effort to save money. Though the practice does exist, it's likely less common than people think. The CNN article describes it as a "bogeyman," and I think that's a pretty apt description. The same way well-intentioned American parents often exaggerate the risks of, say, walking to school unsupervised (kidnapping exists, but it is extremely rare), parents in Hong Kong seem to be exaggerating the risks of street food. In my experience, most street food vendors are good folks just trying to make a living. Plus, as Mrs. Ho, the owner of Chuen Cheong Foods in Hong Kong, notes: "I have to face the smoke and grease from cooking everyday. I'm more afraid of getting sick from it than you are!"  So there you have it. Don't let a bogeyman stand in your way of enjoying some great street food.

From: CNN International