ChinaFubar

There used to be an old China Expat Urban Legend about the expat wife shopping in the fresh markets in Guangzhou.  She comes across a vendor selling live cats destined to be someone’s dinner later in the day.  This particular vendor’s practice was to pick out the cat, break it’s neck and plunge into boiling water to remove the hair.

Expat wife is horrified at the process, and takes it upon herself to at least save a couple of the cute little kittens from their inevitable culinary destiny.  She offers to purchase 2 of the more “cute’” kittens, but requested the stall owner to not boil them.

Stall owner complies and pulls the cats out of the cage, wrings their little necks and holds the now dead cats out to the expat wife.  Rumor has it she fainted.

Courtesy of Danwei, we received news that cats have now again become a popular dining staple,  Seems that stray cats from Nanjing province are rounded up by “cat fishermen” and shipped to a market in Dongguan, where they are sold to smaller vendors, and eventually wind up in Cantonese restaurants in the area:

Of course the Netizens in China are responding, with no small amount of anger, as China.org reports. In part:

Many people have condemned the eating of cats, claiming they are human beings’ friends.

According to an online survey conducted by the website of Southern Metropolis Daily yesterday, 661 out of the 886 netizens who voted considered dining on cats “ruthless”, while 207 said it was okay.

Almost 400 said they have never eaten cats, while 170 said they have or want to try.

The article goes on to mention:

An official with the animal hygiene supervision institute under the provincial health department, who preferred not to be named, told China Daily yesterday that his institution supervises chickens, geese, ducks, horses, cattle, sheep, donkeys, mules, pigs and dogs, but not cats.

“Unless they (the cats) are suspected to have caused an epidemic, I don’t think we are in a good position to interrupt the business,” he said.

Donkeys?  Mules?  What exactly does donkey or mule taste like?  I’ve eaten ostrich, reindeer (sorry Santa) but not donkeys, horses or mules.

Now before you send me a bunch of nasty comments, China Fubar is pretty neither a cat hater nor particularly condones the eating of said creatures.  Actually, I’ve heard cat tastes similar to rabbit, and although I’ve had rabbit, I’m not particularly fond of the taste, even when prepared using my mother’s tried and true recipe of marinating it in wine overnight.

I’m basing the rabbit comparison based on an experience from one of my first after school jobs in high school, busing tables at a neighborhood Italian restaurant.  The owner called cats “roof rabbits” and mentioned one night that they were pretty tasty.  Later that night he drove me home, and during the drive observed that “there were sure a lot of cats in my neighborhood” as the old lady down the street tended to feed all the neighborhood strays.

A couple of days later, I noticed no cats, and a new daily special on the restaurant menu.

Also, judging from the cat population at our apartment complex, I have a feeling there’s not much meat on the animals being sold.  To tell the truth,  neighborhood cats vs neighborhood rats would be a fair fight, even money.

As it is, ChinaFubar wonders, with the lack of hygiene supervision of cats as food, will we be subject to the same sort of disease outbreak similar to SARS, which, if you remember, was caused by infected Civet Cats out of Guangzhou.

China Fubar can’t also help but recall the parody of Harry Chapin’s tune, “Cat’s in the Cradle”

I’m watching out for any  new daily specials in the local restaurants.