This World Cooking in the Danger Zone BBC4 China Tx Date: 15th August 2006 10.00.00 Cooking in the Danger Zone theme music 10.00.03 Stefan Gates I’m a TV cook. 10.00.04 Music 10.00.06 Stefan Gates I like to think I’m pretty adventurous when it comes to food. 10.00.09 Music 10.00.14 Stefan Gates But now I’m heading off on a very different kind of adventure. 10.00.18 Music 10.00.21 Stefan Gates To places where food and how it’s made present some of the world’s biggest challenges and threats. 10.00.25 Music 10.00.27 Stefan Gates This time I’m going to be Cooking in the Danger Zone. 10.00.31 Music 10.00.33 Title Page Cooking IN THE DANGER ZONE 10.00.37 Music 10.00.38 Graphic CHINA 10.00.45 Music 10.00.47 Stefan Gates The Chinese built the Great Wall to keep foreigners out. Even today the all-powerful Communist Party remains highly suspicious of outsiders. It took me three months to get clearance simply to make a film about food. I wanted to see if food can help us understand China’s startling transformation from austere Communist state to modern capitalist superpower. 10.01.09 Music 10.01.10 Stefan Gates First stop was Beijing’s famous night market where the food literally comes alive. 10.01.21 Stefan Gates Oh it’s alive, oh my God, that is… 10.01.25 Chef Super good, delicious… 10.01.31 Stefan Gates I’d never eaten scorpion kebabs before. 10.01.36 Stefan Gates The scorpions were swiftly dispatched by being boiled in hot oil. 10.01.52 Stefan Gates Crisp on the outside, smooth in the middle. 10.01.56 Chef Healthy. Delicious. 10.02.00 Stefan Gates Yeah, yeah. Slightly disturbing but delicious none the less. 10.02.06 Chef Very, very good. 10.02.07 Music 10.02.08 Stefan Gates Away from the scorpions, Beijing feels like a very modern city. This place is changing at a bewildering pace. 10.02.14 Music 10.02.16 Stefan Gates China is experiencing rapid urbanisation and the cities are bristling with skyscrapers. Currently it’s a bit of a building site; Beijing is preparing to host the Olympics in just two years time. 10.02.27 Music 10.02.29 Stefan Gates This new urban lifestyle means less time to stop for lunch and this has caused a fundamental change in eating habits. 10.02.36 Stefan Gates This is the Kong Fu fast food restaurant right next to the familiar golden arches of McDonalds. And up there you’ve got Bruce Lee about to kick the golden arches into submission. And these guys have very kindly agreed to let me muck about in their kitchen to find out how Chinese fast food is made. 10.02.55 Stefan Gates Hello! Hello. Hello. Help there’s lots of people staring at me! Hello; I’m Stefan. I’m very pleased to meet you. Is that for me? 10.03.07 Manager Voice over Can you put on the uniform please? 10.03.09 Stefan Gates How do I look? 10.03.13 Stefan Gates So; wet my hands first, three squishes of that. 10.03.19 Manager Voice over We’re not allowed to wear any jewellery, everything must be taken off. 10.03.23 Stefan Gates No jewellery. Sorry darling. 10.03.27 Stefan Gates You’ve always wanted to go in somewhere that says ‘Staff Only’. The bowels of the operation, my Lord. Hello! 10.03.34 Stefan Gates This is an example of China’s new pragmatic mix of ideologies; a private company in a Communist state. 10.03.42 Manager Voice over This is the boiling position used for boiling noodles and stuff. 10.03.47 Stefan Gates Unlike the American rivals next door, Chinese style fast food means healthy steamed meals with lots of vegetables. 10.03.56 Manager Voice over These are meatballs. Every meatball has to be exactly twenty grams, can’t be more, can’t be less. We need speed; we’re a fast food restaurant so you have to be fast. 10.04.12 Stefan Gates Ok! Ok! 10.04.14 Manager Voice over The steamed egg dish has to be prepared within ten minutes. It has to be a full spoon, it can’t be half. 10.04.23 Stefan Gates Otherwise people will be very upset that they didn’t get their full portion. 10.04.30 Man Voice over This is one of the most popular dishes here. 10.04.35 Stefan Gates The egg and pork dish is then steamed at precisely one hundred degrees. 10.04.41 Stefan Gates That looks pretty good doesn’t it? Ok. 10.04.50 Stefan Gates Are these special chopsticks for this food because it’s in small pieces or is that … 10.04.59 Manager Voice over No, not for children, they’re toothpicks. 10.05.07 Stefan Gates Fantastic! So this is our little, my, it looks like custard. 10.05.17 Stefan Gates That’s a very, very strange texture but it’s delicious. This is very sort of watery egg custardy consistency with, with the pork floating about in it. Really nice! 10.05.33 Stefan Gates Dishes like pork suspended in custard may seem like an acquired taste but Beijing’s upwardly mobile can’t get enough of it. 10.05.42 Stefan Gates And do you prefer this to McDonalds next door? 10.05.47 Girl Voice over Their food’s too fatty and I am afraid of getting fat. 10.05.54 Man Voice over Modern society is so fast that there’s little time for a lunch break. We like proper nutrition and traditional Chinese flavour so by combining traditional food culture and speed, the Kong Fu does a good job. 10.06.11 Music 10.06.16 Stefan Gates The numbers of foreign brands here would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. The big multinational companies are investing here because China is potentially the world’s largest consumer market. 10.06.27 Music 10.06.36 Stefan Gates Before we came to China, I have to say I was expecting some kind of level of austerity. I know that China is part of the modern world but I was expecting a little bit of lack of choice or some good old fashioned terrible service. And I’m, I’m quite shocked at how modern and how frankly capitalist this all seems. 10.07.04 Music 10.07.11 Stefan Gates Tesco’s is planning to open stores here later this year. But the French got here first; Carrefour moved into the Chinese market eleven years ago and is now the fifth largest supermarket chain in China. 10.07.23 Stefan Gates I’ve never seen that before. These are all products that are completely un-western, it’s not as though they’ve imported the whole French concept and all the French products here, this is, it’s a complete supermarket for Chinese people. 10.07.46 Stefan Gates You don’t see a lot of these fellers in London. You wouldn’t see much of this in France, it’s lots of ducklings roasted with their heads on. Big old pile of intestines or something and barbequed pigs trotters which look really, really nice. 10.08.04 Stefan Gates What are you looking for in a good barbequed pig’s trotter? 10.08.08 Woman Voice over Some like them meaty and some prefer the bones. 10.08.12 Stefan Gates How do you eat duck’s head? 10.08.15 Woman Voice over You open it and eat the brain. 10.08.18 Stefan Gates Eat the brain! Wow! 10.08.22 Stefan Gates Wandering around this modern hypermarket it’s easy to forget that parts of China still don’t have electricity let alone refrigeration. 10.08.30 Stefan Gates It’s all Dim Sum stuff. So what are all these things? 10.08.34 Stefan Gates Dumplings used to be painstakingly handmade in a process involving the entire family but these days they’re cooked from frozen inside ten minutes. 10.08.43 Music 10.08.46 Stefan Gates I left the supermarket and headed for the source of this new frozen food phenomenon, one of China’s largest dumpling factories. 10.08.53 Music 10.08.58 Stefan Gates This factory is privately owned. It’s a pretty normal concept for us but here it’s relatively new. In the old Communist China the state owned everything but now individuals can own companies and businesses but only if the Party approves them. 10.09.12 Music 10.09.24 Stefan Gates It’s mesmerising, isn’t it? 10.09.28 Stefan Gates This factory has seen business boom in the last decade. 10.09.34 Stefan Gates I had a go at making the house speciality, the pork and vegetable dumpling. 10.09.40 Stefan Gates So you have to get exactly the right amount otherwise, because if everybody uses a little bit too much then you loose millions of yuan. 10.09.51 Stefan Gates That’s not very good! So who is the fastest dumpling maker in the place? 10.10.02 Stefan Gates Perhaps anticipating that I’d ask this question they’d sat me next to the factory’s fastest dumpling maker. 10.10.08 Stefan Gates Wow! How many dumplings can you make in a day? 10.10.12 Female factory worker Voice over About a hundred and ten trays a day; that’s seven thousand dumplings. 10.10.17 Stefan Gates What do you think about while you’re making the dumplings? 10.10.20 Female factory worker Voice over I think about how to make dumplings faster and better. 10.10.24 Music 10.10.25 Stefan Gates In a ten hour shift an average worker can expect to earn just under three pounds. It’s actually a sought after job but in a country going through such a rapid technological revolution, manual jobs like this may be short-lived. 10.10.40 Male factory worker Voice over Traditional methods are very useful and better than machines. At the moment dumplings made by machines are not as nice as handmade ones. But I think we’ll use more machines in the future because they are more reliable than people. 10.10.53 Stefan Gates As soon as the dumplings are made they are frozen and packed off to supermarkets. 10.11.01 Stefan Gates The dumplings go through a tough quality control, except for today, when the factory owner left me in charge. 10.11.08 Stefan Gates Do you give it a mark out of ten or something? 10.11.11 Woman One to five; five is excellent. 10.11.18 Stefan Gates Excellent elasticity. Very smooth. Five I think for smoothness. Five for salt level. General taste, delicious, I think really nice actually. Yeah, I’d give that a five. I’d say four point five; close to perfection. 10.11.36 Stefan Gates What’s the difference between these kind of dumplings and ones that are traditionally made at home? 10.11.42 Manager Voice over Not much difference, maybe homemade ones would be fresher. 10.11.47 Stefan Gates These are frozen within seconds of being made, so they are kind still freshish. 10.11.52 Woman They’re actually very nice, I would say. Before, a few years ago when you taste frozen dumplings they didn’t taste good, big difference between frozen dumplings and homemade dumplings but now they’re really close. 10.11.59 Stefan Gates Yes. Right. 10.12.08 Stefan Gates Modern China is full of surprises. 10.12.12 Music 10.12.15 Stefan Gates This piece of Louis the Fourteenth France is just outside Beijing. It was built by a Communist Party member turned property developer. 10.12.23 Music 10.12.25 Stefan Gates So is there a big demand for luxury now in China? 10.12.28 Woman Yes. 10.12.30 Stefan Gates The Chateau Zhang Lafitte cost forty million pounds and it’s a near-perfect copy of one in France. It seems to get most of its business as a garish wedding location for the urban rich. 10.12.41 Stefan Gates This is all real gold. 10.12.45 Sales Woman Subtitles There is an indoor swimming pool here and the outdoor one is there. The tennis court is below ground level and the swimming pools are outside. 10.12.55 Stefan Gates A luxury housing development is being built in the Chateau grounds but what the saleswoman isn’t telling the prospective buyers is that the grounds used to be farmland until the Party re-zoned it and the farmers were kicked off. The houses here sell for upwards of two hundred thousand pounds. 10.13.12 Salesman Subtitles There we have the Chateau and the facilities can be used by house owners. There will also be a golf course. 10.13.22 Stefan Gates Do you know what, it’s the kind of thing that British footballers would probably love, wouldn’t they? 10.13.27 Music 10.13.32 Stefan Gates What was here before, what was on this land before you built this chateau? 10.13.36 Woman It’s just normal land, I think. 10.13.39 Stefan Gates What farmland? 10.13.40 Woman Farmland, yes farmland. 10.13.42 Stefan Gates This land was previously used by eight hundred grain farmers. 10.13.46 Music 10.13.48 Stefan Gates The system in China doesn’t allow farmers to own their land; they lease it from the state for thirty years at a time. In the old days the lease would just be renewed but in the new China, some farmers are finding that once their lease ends, that’s it, and the land is sold to Party-friendly developers. 10.14.04 Music 10.14.08 Stefan Gates I wanted to know what happened to the farmers who used to work the land. I went to meet Mr Li Chang who had farmed here all his life. 10.14.16 Stefan Gates Once the Chateau was built he had no land to work but also nowhere else to go so he remained in the village. 10.14.24 Mr Li Chang Voice over Land here has always belonged to the collective farmers; it has never belonged to private individuals. What we are talking about are all the farmers in the village, which means that if this land is sold the money should be ours. 10.14.39 Stefan Gates The farmers may have lost the rights to their land but they did get some compensation from the developers; they now receive twenty-five pounds a month and for many, that’s preferable to the life they used to lead as farmers. 10.14.51 Stefan Gates Do you think this is unfair what’s happening? 10.14.56 Mr Li Chang Voice over Fair or not now we’re in the situation there’s not much we can do. 10.15.02 Stefan Gates Outside Mr Chang’s village, the old farm land is quickly being swamped by the new luxury housing development. 10.15.09 Stefan Gates Well this is the new Chinese dream; lakeside mansions and this is how you get it by turfing all the farmers off the land and filling it with concrete. And it’s easy to say, you know, well, wouldn’t it be lovely to see these lands full of farmers and their honest toil but the reality is that people want prosperity. 10.15.29 Stefan Gates But is this rapid development coming at a cost? China has twenty percent of the world’s population to feed but pressure from the developers means that farmland is disappearing fast. In the last decade seventeen million farmers are thought to have lost their land. And unemployment in the countryside is now a staggering one hundred and thirty million. I headed south to Henan Province, the farming heartland of China. 10.15.54 Stefan Gates The authorities were paranoid that we might not portray their preferred image of modern day China and when we asked to film in the countryside, we were assigned two local minders to join our minder who’d already accompanied us from Beijing. 10.16.07 Stefan Gates As we drove out of the city, we passed several farms but my minders wouldn’t let me stop. They had chosen a specific farmer for me to meet; all we had to do was find him. 10.16.18 Minder 1 Subtitles This is the place. Are we right? 10.16.22 Minder 2 Subtitle No, I don’t think this is the place. 10.16.25 Minder 1 Subtitle It shouldn’t be wrong. 10.16.29 Stefan Gates They’ve chosen a specific farmer in a specific house, we have to go and visit them but they’ve forgotten where he lives. 10.16.39 Minder 1 Subtitle This is not the same place. 10.16.41 Minder 2 Subtitle No, no, it is the right place. 10.16.45 Stefan Gates It takes twelve officials to go and speak to a farmer about what he eats. 10.16.51 Stefan Gates I began to realise that this wasn’t your traditional farming village. 10.16.56 Stefan Gates It’s very neat; tell him that it looks very neat. 10.16.58 Subtitle Building New Socialist Villages 10.17.01 Stefan Gates We’d actually been brought to a newly built Party-run model village; a far cry from the shacks that I’d heard most peasant farmers still lived in. 10.17.11 Stefan Gates What a smart house you have and where did you live before this? 10.17.14 Woman Voice over In the old village. 10.17.16 Stefan Gates And what was your house like there? 10.17.18 Woman Voice over The building was very old and poor. 10.17.23 Stefan Gates So what do you do, do you have a husband or what’s his, his job? 10.17.28 Woman Voice over I work for an oil factory in the village. 10.17.31 Stefan Gates You work for an oil company in the village! I thought we were going to visit a farmer today? 10.17.36 Official They are farmers. They do not have the residenceship, urban residenceship. 10.17.45 Stefan Gates It turns out that this village was for ex-farmers who’d been retrained to work in new industries. According to our Communist Party minder, anyone who lives in the countryside is regarded as a farmer, even if they don’t work the land! 10.17.58 Stefan Gates I still hoped to find some genuine normal people in the only traditional village we were allowed access to. 10.18.08 Stefan Gates The village chief said that he might be able to help, so my search for some slightly more convincing rural life continued. Just as I was about to give up we bumped into a lady with a bag full of flowers. 10.18.19 Stefan Gates What are they for? 10.18.21 Woman Voice over We steam and eat them. 10.18.24 Stefan Gates Can I smell? Ahh, it smells fantastic; do you have to cook them or can you eat them just like that? 10.18.33 Man Voice over Steam them or stir fry them they are very nice. Please feel free to try them, it’s a sweet taste. 10.18.40 Stefan Gates That’s absolutely delicious. Are you a good cook? 10.18.45 Woman Voice over Yes I am. 10.18.47 Music 10.18.49 Stefan Gates I convinced this lady to show me how to cook her flowers. She works at one of the fish farms nearby. This is now one of the main types of farming in the area. And she lives here during the farming season with her mother and aunt. 10.19.04 Stefan Gates So is this something that you only get this time of the year? 10.19.07 Woman Voice over Yes just in this season. They won’t be here in a few days time. This is corn flour. You only need a little bit. 10.19.14 Stefan Gates You can smell it; it’s like, it smells a bit like jasmine. And keep that going. 10.19.23 Woman Voice over You steam it for about ten minutes and stir with chopsticks to make sure it is heated evenly. 10.19.30 Stefan Gates She told me that they eat the flowers as a delicacy, not out of necessity. 10.19.38 Aunt Voice over Thirty years ago we didn’t have food to eat; now life is much better. It’s quite rare to eat wild herbs and vegetables nowadays but back then we all ate them. We would eat everything because there wasn’t much to eat. 10.19.56 Woman Voice over This is MSG, salt and sesame oil. 10.19.59 Stefan Gates Even a small little domestic kitchen will have a big pack of MSG. So that’s all ready. 10.20.06 Stefan Gates It seemed like a romantic way of life, cooking flowers in a simple rural shack. It was a far cry from the spanking new show village up the road. 10.20.16 Stefan Gates We’ve just been to see a sort of model village with big houses, lots of marble everywhere and lots of convenient appliances and things. But this is so beautiful here; would you rather live somewhere like here or would you, would you like to be, to be re-housed in a, in a big modern village? 10.20.32 Woman Voice over We stay here because of the fish pond but we also have a proper house. 10.20.46 Stefan Gates What are these called again? 10.20.47 Woman Chung kwa kwa. 10.20.48 Stefan Gates Chung kwa kwa. Was that good? Chung kwa kwa. You’re laughing at me! 10.21.01 Stefan Gates That’s really nice. It tastes like, it’s like jasmine. It’s got the consistency of, of boiled cabbage but it’s flowers, it’s flowers steamed in, with a little bit of, of corn flour. It’s absolutely delicious. Ah, I am so glad we met you. 10.21.24 Music 10.21.26 Stefan Gates It was lovely eating flowers but I was dying to just eat some traditional Chinese food. Back in Beijing, I was taken to one of the many exclusive restaurants opening in the capital to cater for the growing numbers of businessmen with cash to spend and Party members to impress. 10.21.45 Stefan Gates Here they eat traditional food but with a difference. 10.21.48 Stefan Gates We are about to try something that I’ve never tried before in my life and I think most people in the west would find it quite shocking but it’s a real voyage of culinary discovery so I’m going to be brave. 10.22.12 Chef Voice over This is Yak’s penis. 10.22.14 Stefan Gates It’s quite long isn’t it? And is Yak a particularly fine penis? 10.22.21 Chef Voice over People believe that the yak’s penis has more nutrition than other types of penis. 10.22.29 Stefan Gates Which different types of penis do you have? 10.22.33 Chef Voice over We have deer penis, snake, horse, yak, bull, goat and dog penis. 10.22.41 Stefan Gates Ooh that’s the … oohhh! 10.22.44 Chef Voice over Now it has become two. 10.22.46 Stefan Gates It certainly has. 10.22.48 Stefan Gates It looked to me that this penis still had a bit of life in it. 10.22.57 Stefan Gates Luxury restaurants, like this one owned by Li Yan Chun cater to the new bourgeoisie and at two hundred and fifty pounds for a meal for two, penis doesn’t come cheap. 10.23.11 Chef Voice over I am now putting all the different penises into the pot. 10.23.14 Stefan Gates That’s, that’s what? 10.23.18 Woman at table Voice over Water buffalo penis. 10.23.20 Stefan Gates Are they very big? 10.23.23 Woman at table Voice over Water buffalo penis is very long but thin. 10.23.29 Stefan Gates The Chinese believe that eating penis can enhance your virility. 10.23.34 Stefan Gates That’s the first time I‘ve ever had penis in my mouth but I like it and I’m going to do more of it. It’s really good; it’s really nice, isn’t it? 10.23.43 Stefan Gates Why are the Chinese so good at eating such a broad range of foods? 10.23.50 Woman at table Voice over China was very poor in the past and if people killed a pig, they wouldn’t throw anything away. They’d even eat the pig’s guts. So yes, in the Chinese diet, people still basically eat everything. 10.24.06 Waiter Voice over This is unique; it’s the only kind of penis with a hard bone. 10.24.11 Stefan Gates Complete with a glacier cherry on top, this was dog’s penis. But my favourite was bull’s perineum. 10.24.21 Stefan Gates Next door the regular customers were tucking into the VIP menu. Many of them were members of the Communist Party elite and they were eating a meal that would cost your average dumpling factory workers two months’ wages. 10.24.39 Music 10.24.41 Stefan Gates Amongst the hustle and bustle of modern Chinese cities, there are still areas of tradition and tranquillity. I was given a lesson in Tai Chi, the ancient Chinese martial art. 10.24.51 Music 10.24.54 Stefan Gates This spiritual enlightenment also brought me a bit of luck as one of my fellow Tai Chiers was a local gourmet. 10.25.01 Mr Huang I cook good Chinese food for you. 10.25.05 Stefan Gates Excellent! How about lunch today? 10.25.10 Stefan Gates Mr Huang, kindly invited me for lunch at his home. It turns out that he and his wife have been members of the Communist Party for over fifty years. 10.25.18 Stefan Gates Mr Huang, hello. 10.25.24 Mr Huang Welcome. 10.25.26 Stefan Gates Thank you. Thank you very much for inviting us. 10.25.32 Stefan Gates He’d already prepared the ingredients for our lunch, which he assured me was a traditional Chinese meal focussing on the simple healthy food, much loved by Chairman Mao. 10.25.44 Mr Huang Voice over Chinese believe that the fish head is good for your brains and nervous system. 10.25.52 Stefan Gates First into the wok was some tofu. 10.25.58 Stefan Gates Ahh, it’s so nice to be cooking with a wok at last. 10.26.02 Stefan Gates We then added some green peppers. 10.26.09 Stefan Gates A little bit of seasoning. 10.26.12 Mr Huang Voice over This is simple home cooking for ordinary Chinese people. 10.26.18 Stefan Gates The fish is lightly seasoned with salt to draw out the flavours and then it’s quick fried. 10.26.27 Stefan Gates Do you not trust me to fry the fish? 10.26.30 Mr Huang Voice over The fish is not easy to cook so you should just watch. 10.26.37 Stefan Gates What was the vegetable that you put in there? 10.26.41 Mr Huang Voice over The stalk of wild garlic. 10.26.48 Stefan Gates Now this looks very exciting. 10.26.52 Stefan Gates It was nice to finally sit down with a couple of die hard, card carrying Communists for a traditional meal. 10.26.59 Stefan Gates What does being a Party member mean to you? 10.27.04 Mr Huang Voice over You should serve the people with your heart and soul. Whatever you do must conform to the wish of the people. 10.27.16 Stefan Gates And has Communism changed do you think? 10.27.21 Mr Huang Voice over I think our main goal hasn’t changed. In terms of the changes of policies I feel it is like people walking; the destination is always the same but the style and speed of walking is different. The speed we are walking at now is suitable for our development. 10.27.49 Stefan Gates As China moves further from its original Communist principles so the gap between rich and poor gets wider. 10.27.55 Music 10.28.01 Stefan Gates My trip had been tightly controlled by the authorities determined to hide the worst aspects of modern China. But with millions of farmers being kicked off their land and the social pressures of its experiment with capitalism, I wonder how much longer the state will be able to keep control over its one point three billion people. 10.28.18 Music 10.28.23 Greeting in restaurant 10.28.34 Stefan Gates Let’s try again. Hang on. 10.28.36 Greeting in restaurant 10.28.47 Stefan Gates Yeah, you see they liked it, they didn’t bat an eyelid. 10.28.28 www.bbc.co.uk/thisworld Credits 10.28.29 Presenter STEFAN GATES Dubbing Mixer NIGEL READ Colourist & Online Editor BOYD NAGLE Graphics LYNN WILSON Production Co-ordinator JULIA DANNENBERG Programme Assistant DOLLY BURLES Production Manager JANE WILLEY Unit Manager SUSAN CRIGHTON Researchers AGNES TEEK YAN YAN Picture Editor JENNY ROBERTS Executive Producer KAREN O’CONNOR Series Producer WILL DAWS 10.28.52 Filmed & Produced by RUHI HAMID BBC © BBC MMVI 10.28.54 End BBC4 Cooking in the Danger Zone: China 1