TAIWAN: A 58-year-old Taiwan eatery features tender rat meat as winter tonics to welcome the year of rat

Record ID: 589493

  • Title: TAIWAN: A 58-year-old Taiwan eatery features tender rat meat as winter tonics to welcome the year of rat
  • Date: 10th February 2008
  • Summary: (L!1) CHIAYI, TAIWAN (RECENT) (REUTERS) RESTAURANT CHEF LIN KUEI-CHIEN IN THE KITCHEN LIN KUEI-CHIEN CHOPPING RAT HEAD LIN KUEI-CHIEN CHOPPING RAT BODY LIN KUEI-CHIEN TAKING TWO PLATES OF INGREDIENTS TO COUNTER TOP LIN KUEI-CHIEN PUTTING RAT MEAT INTO A BOWL OF SAUCE RAT MEAT IN A BOWL RAT MEAT BEING COOKED ON STOVE CHEF STIRRING THE BOWL CHEF STIRRING RAT MEAT AS IT TURNS
  • Embargoed: 25th February 2008 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
  • Reuters ID: LVA5XYYT87CENXVDE5Z5BX69LCMW
  • Story Text: Diners at Taiwanese eatery smell a rat each time they sit down to eat. And they love it.
    The Ho-la Diner, a rural eatery at Taiwan's Chiayi county, is offering their renowned rat meat dishes as winter tonics for the Year of the Rat, which begins on Feb. 7.
    Hairless rat carcasses are on display in their kitchen windows, before their heads are chopped and the rest of their body is thrown into pots with basil and sweet, black sauce.
    The 'Three Cup Rat' is the customers favourite rat meat dish. It is cooked with sesame oil, rice wine, and their home-made medicinal wine.
    Chef Lin Kuei-chien is proud of his sauce and he keeps the recipe under strong guard.
    Customers are often old patrons who cannot resist the delicacy.

    "The tender meat tastes better than any other meat-- especially when stir fried with this basil, chilli, and ginger, the aroma is really nice," said a customer, Liu Shi-shou.

    "It tastes better than chicken, because it has thinner texture, and it is more delicate," Chang Jue-tseng added.
    Rat meat, also eaten in China, became popular in rural Taiwan around six decades ago among people who could not afford chicken or pork. Then the flavour caught on.
    Lin Ming-chih, the restaurant owner, said he and his father began the business when local farmers asked them to cook the captured rats that were harmful to the crops.
    With their special recipes, rat meat at Lin's place soon gained popularity. And now, because of the Chinese year of the rat, there is a rising demand for the meat.
    the past, around the 1940s and 1950s, women in Taiwan's rural south could not afford to eat chicken that helps them recover after giving birth.
    Therefore, farm rats were their most important source of supplements,"
    said Lin, 54, whose father opened the diner and whose son cooks the rats.
    The rats are bred on crops from fields surrounding the 18,000-population village of Lucao in Chiayi county -- which means they are not like dirty rats from sewers, Lin said.
    Ho-la serves 10 rat-themed dishes, including rat soup , black pepper-dipped and deep-fried rat.
    Despite a sustained following of local customers, other rat meat restaurants have shut down due to lack of business, with the most recent closure about five years ago.
    The diner goes through around 18 kilogrammes (40 lb) of rat meat a day.
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