A Day In The Life: Part 3

Things that Make You Say, Hmmmm.

Hmmmmm.

We live a pretty precious sort of a life in the US. Reality check, most American's buy their meat in shrink wrap. And rarely transport it in largish possibly still pulsing chunks on the back of motorcycles.

In the US there is an entire g'vment machine employing who knows how many hundreds of thousands of people that is dedicated to food safety. Okay, maybe the FDA does drugs and food, so maybe not totally dedicated, but the point is, there are rules around food handling. Starting with how you are allowed to move animals to the slaughterhouse, the conditions under which they are moved on to greener pastures in the sky, the conditions under which the meat is processed, the temperatures it must be stored, how it is wrapped, shipped and how many days it is allowed to sit around in your supermarket before it is considered no longer fit for human consumption. And then there's a whole 'nother segment of people keeping track of what goes on in restaurants. 

There aren't any rules around here. Wait, maybe that's not fair. Maybe there are rules, but it's kind of like driving. Those traffic lights and lines on the streets are presumed to be guidelines rather than anything hard and fast. But I am digressing. Back to the topic at hand. Once Mrs. American picks up her shrink wrapped chicken, she generally hurries home to get that puppy in the fridge if she is planning to cook it that day, or re-wrap it properly and place it in the freezer for later consumption.

Around here, there is a casual kind of attitude toward meat and its care and keeping. Very casual, as if the gutted pig on the motorcycle didn't make that totally clear. For example, perhaps the individual who owns the meat below doesn't have a refrigeration unit. Or maybe this is some sort of meat that is meant to be drying. But it's hanging out with the laundry. I find this fascinating, and a little disconcerting. Part of me wonders who has it right. The FDA, that insists, for example, that all eggs must be refrigerated at 45F. Or most of the rest of the world who leave eggs at room temperature for a few weeks at a time.

And then this.  I knew (a) it was a food stuff and (b) it was out drying. I figured it was some vegetation, perhaps some sort of seasoning. A friend of mine sidled up to me while I was snapping photos and whispered "We think they're intestines." Intestines?? Okay, I get it. For making sausages. That makes total sense. But whose intestines???? Fish?? How big exactly are fish intestine?? Frogs?? Chickens?? I was at a totally loss as to where this volume of intestines are procured.

And the drying of food happens all over on good weather days. I have seen strings of fish just hanging out next to someone's fresh sheets. And dried fruits of all sorts, just lying around, maybe strung up in the bushes by the fountain at our old apartment. 

It goes without saying that the street butchers and the street restaurateurs and the vendors who sell all manner of baked, fried, pork, rice, egg and all sorts of other assorted goods on the street are unlicensed and unregulated. They are also pretty successful. While the street food may not measure up in my eyes to, say, chocolate crepes on the Champs-Elysees, it has a certain utilitarianism that I quite admire. Nothing goes to waste, all calories are used, and there is a practical use of materials at hand.

And there it is. Things that make me go hmmmmm.

Comments

[Margo]

Even with the problems it may have...I'm feeling much much better about (and thankful for) the food processing and handling in the US now, thanks! I'm not particularly squeamish about things, but at least I'm pretty confident that my meat hasn't been riding around on the back of a motorbike.

Margo (from COTH BB)

[Jen]

just to add to your knowledge, generally pig intestines are used for sausage casings, so that's prob what was on the line drying. Chicken guts are pretty little. Yes, my grandmother made sure I knew how to gut and butcher a chicken.

[Ellen]

It just seems like a lot of pigs would need to die for that much intestine! Not that it isn't possible that half a dozen pigs get processed in that particular back alley every week or so, but it just seems like a lot of intestine. I was thinking something smaller, like chicken or fish, because so many of them die every day, generating the veritable mounds of intestine we see here. But, what do I know? I raised chickens and chauffeured them to their doom, but I let Processor Bob actually do the dirty work for me. I never saw their intestines.

And Margo, I am never confident that my meat hasn't been riding around on the back of a motorscooter. So, while life in a serviced apartment might not technically qualify as "wild and wooly" there are some aspects of living in China that are just always going to be very, vastly, dramatically, hugely, and some days unbelievably different than western living.

[Mary]

Heard about pigs flying...but riding motorcycles...that's a new one.

[Faith]

Intestines are very LOOOOONG. Think surface area for absorption. The longer, the more absorptive. Granted, that's prob more than one pig. But, i bet the dryer buys the intestines from the butcher or IS the butcher or the butcher's family.

I just wonder, considering the whole sanitation thang, if the intestines are WASHED OUT. I'll just leave you with that thought... : )