Shanghai Street View: Critter Crackdown

I had to look to my dictionary for answers for this week’s Street View, after reading a local report that Shanghai has banned several exotic animals from sale in local markets and restaurants for health reasons. It turns out the ban applies to some seafood varieties that weren’t quite as exotic as I’d expected, including a type of hairy clams and a popular marinated shrimp dish. The reasons for the ban were simple, as these particular creatures, when improperly or even properly prepared, can pose health hazards.
While I agree with this kind of ban in principle, I do also think there’s cultural value in many of the dishes and critters that are fast becoming endangered species on many local menus in China. That leads me to a conclusion that some may consider controversial, namely that food safety officials should avoid this kind of outright ban. Instead, they should try to find a middle road that would let some of these specialties stay on menus of local restaurants where they add color and identity to regional dining scenes.

This newest ban on hairy clams and marinated shrimp is actually two different but related matters, since the former applies to a raw ingredient and the latter to a particular prepared dish. According to health officials, hairy clams are being banned because they can spread hepatitis and even typhoid when they aren’t cooked long enough. That problem is relatively common in Shanghai, since many people believe that cooking the clams for too long depletes their flavor.

The ban on shrimp applies only to a particular kind of dish that is typically served uncooked after the shrimp is marinated briefly. That particular style of preparation can fail to kill parasites that can then infect people, the health authorities said.

These newest bans look similar to a move earlier this year that saw Shanghai forbid the sale of live chickens at wet markets during an bird flu outbreak in early spring. Health officials worried that those markets had become breeding grounds for transmission of bird flu from chickens to humans. City officials briefly discussed permanently banning live chicken sales after the bird flu subsided, but a backlash among local residents resulted in the resumption of such sales on a limited basis.

For me, the phenomenon of cleaning up China’s cluttered food scene really dates back to 2003, when SARS changed the perception of many Chinese towards exotic foods like snakes, scorpions and lizards. Many believe that SARS originated in such wild game, with civet cats often cited as the most likely source.

Many of these dishes were once considered exotic and tasty treats, with hosts often treating their guests to wild game feasts in an effort to impress them. But after SARS, many people stopped eating wild game, and now the number of restaurants and markets offering such animals has dropped sharply.

All of this brings me back to my initial point, namely the need to determine what is reasonable and what isn’t when it comes to food safety. In my view, the ban on live poultry sales in Shanghai was quite reasonable. Some may say that buying live chickens is part of local Chinese culture, and therefore should be preserved. But I would argue that these live bird sales pose not only a sanitation problem, but also a very real safety hazard due to their potential to spread bird flu that could morph into a regional or even global pandemic.

The issue seems less clear when you start to ban more common items like hairy clams or marinated shrimp. I can certainly understand Shanghai’s desire to prevent dangerous diseases like hepatitis, which is highly contagious and can seriously damage a person’s liver. But at the same time, it does seem like this kind of food adds a certain color and identity to Shanghai’s local dining culture, not to mention the fact that many people find these dishes quite tasty.

All that said, perhaps there’s a middle road the city could take that would allow these regional delicacies to stay on menus and in markets on a limited basis. For example, the city could allow designated restaurants and markets to continue serving and selling these items after proper education on how to do so safely, and with the firm understanding that any violations would result in immediate revocation of those rights.

At the end of the day, Shanghai and other major Chinese cities need to find ways to balance the need for food safety with the preservation of local cuisines that help to define local culture. After all, most of us would hate to see Shanghai become a city of big restaurant chains, which certainly practice better hygiene but have far less character and regional flavors than smaller local eateries.