Scandal leaves a foul taste in the mouth
Print Edition
Chinese people generally love munching on chicken feet — fengzhao, as they are known — but Beijing-based editor Han Jing recently found the delicacy a little bit nauseating.
Han had been a huge fan of the tasty snack until chicken feet became the center of a food scare. In China’s latest stomach-churning scandal, central China’s Hunan Province busted two smuggling gangs with chicken feet among 800 tons of frozen meat seized in a case worth about 10 million yuan (US$1.6 million). Police have detained 20 people.
“I almost vomited when I opened the compartment containing the smuggled feet. The putrid smell was disgusting,” said Zhang Tao, customs officer in Hunan’s capital Changsha.
Customs officials said that the smuggled meat never went through quarantine procedures and that some of the chicken feet had long expired.
Chicken feet, often served as a cold dish with a beer, enjoy wild popularity in the country. Packaged chicken feet can be found in supermarket and convenience store.
Supply can hardly keep pace with demand, chicken feet are being illegally imported from abroad, processed in local workshops or small factories before being sold to vendors across China.
In Hunan, one of the suspects surnamed Li said he and his family had smuggled at least 100 tons of pig trotters and chicken feet in the past year.
Yang Bo, deputy head of Changsha Customs, said smuggled products contain bacteria and blood. Importers soak them in hydrogen peroxide, a banned food addictive, to make them look healthy and fresh, and to extend their shelf life.
Staff at Guangxi entry-exit bureau on the Vietnam border said disease is easily transmitted through unchecked frozen food, even H7N9 bird flu. Bacteria can live at low temperatures for a long period of time. And Guangxi witnesses numerous cases every year.
The topic is a rage online with more than 112,000 comments on web portal 163.com. A new term “Jiangshi Fengzhao” (zombie chicken feet) has been coined and others sarcastically suggest that the infected talons might have a “flavor of history.”
It is not the first time chicken feet have been a center of public clamor. In 2013, police in Guangxi confiscated more than 20 tons of chicken feet from a frozen meat warehouse, some of which were more than 40 years old. In April and June, the General Administration of Customs launched two campaigns against smuggled frozen meat.
But Han Jing, like many Chinese consumers, remains suspicious. “I don’t think I will ever try chicken feet again,” she said. “They make me want to throw up.”
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