A Rat in my Soup

Do you want a big rat or a small rat?² the waitress asked.

I was getting used to making difficult decisions in Luogang, a small village in southern China¹s Guangdong Province.  I¹d come here on a whim, having heard that Luogang had a famous restaurant that specialized in the preparation of rats.  Upon arrival, however, I discovered that there were two celebrated restaurants‹the Highest Ranking Wild Flavor Restaurant and the New Eight Sceneries Wild Flavor Food City They were next door to each other, and they had virtually identical bamboo-and-wood décors.  Moreover, their owners were both named Zhong‹but, then, everybody in Luo-gang seemed to be named Zhong. The two Zhongs were not related, and com-petition between them was keen. As a foreign journalist, I¹d been cajoled to such an extent that, in an effort to please both Zhongs, I agreed to eat two lunches, one at each restaurant.

The waitress at the Highest Ranking Wild Flavor Restaurant, who was also named Zhong (in Chinese, it means ³bell²), asked again, ³Do you want a big rat or a small rat?²

³What¹s the difference?² I said.

³The big rats eat grass stems, and the

small ones eat fruit.²

I tried a more direct tack. ³Which tastes better?²

³Both of them taste good.²

³Which do you recommend?²

³Either one.²

I glanced at the table next to mine. Two parents, a grandmother, and a little boy were having lunch. The boy was gnawing on a rat drumstick I couldn¹t tell if the drumstick had belonged to a big rat or a small rat. The boy ate quickly. It was a warm afternoon. The sun was shining.  I made my decision. ³Small rat,² I said.


The Chinese say that people in. LGuangdong will eat anything. Be-sides rat, a customer at the Highest Ranking Wild Flavor Restaurant can order turtledove, fox, cat, python, and an assortment of strange-looking local animals whose names do not translate into English. All of them are kept live in pens at the back of the restaurant and are killed only when a customer orders one of them. Choosing among them involves considerations beyond flavor or texture.  You order cat not just because you enjoy the taste of cat but because cats are said to impart a lively jingshen (spirit). You eat deer penis to improve virility Snakes make you stronger. And rat? ³It keeps you from going bald,² Zhong Shaocong, the daughter of the owner of the Highest Ranking Wild Flavor Restaurant, told me. Zhong Qngjiang, the owner of the New Eight Sceneries Wild Flavor Food City went further. ³If you have white hair and eat rat regularly, itwill turn black,² she said. ³And if you¹re going bald and you eat rat every day your hair will stop failing out. A lot of the parents around here feed rat to a small child who doesn¹t have much hair, and the hair grows better.²

Earlier this year, Luogang opened a ³restaurant street² in the newly developed Luogang Economic Open Zone, a park-land and restaurant district designed to draw visitors from nearby Guangzhou City The government invested a million two hundred thousand dollars in the project, which enabled the two rat restaurants to move from their old, cramped quarters in a local park into new, greatly expanded spaces‹about eighteen hundred square feet for each establishment. The Highest Ranking Wild Flavor Restaurant, which cost forty-two thousand dollars to build, opened in early March. Six days later, the New Eight Sceneries Wild Flavor Food City opened, on an investment of fifty-four thousand dollars. A third restaurant‹a massive, air-conditioned facility which is expected to cost seventy-two thousand dollars‹will open soon. A fourth is in the planning stages.

On the morning of my initiation into rat cuisine, I visited the construction site of the third facility, whose owner; Deng Ximing, was the only local restaurateur not named Zhong. He was married to aZhong, however, and he had the fast-talking confidence of a successful entrepreneur. I also noticed that he had a good head of hair. He spoke of the village¹s culinary tradition with pride. ³It¹s more than a thousand years old,² he said. ŒAnd it¹s al-ways been rats from the mountains‹we¹re not eating city rats. The mountain rats are clean, because up there they aren¹t eating anything dirty Mostly, they eat fruit‹oranges, plums, jack fruit. People from the government hygiene department have been here to examine the rats.  They took them to the laboratory and checked them out thoroughly to see if they had any diseases, and they found nothing. Not even the slightest problem.²

Luogang¹s restaurant street has been a resounding success. Newspapers and television stations have reported extensively on the benefits of the local specialty, and an increasing number of customers are making the half-hour trip from Guangzhou City Both the Highest Ranking Wild Flavor Restaurant and the New Eight Sceneries Wild Flavor Food City serve, on average, three thousand rats every Saturday and Sunday, which are the peak dining days. ³Many people come from faraway places,² Zhong Qngjiang told me. ³They come from Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Macao. One customer came all the way from America with her son. They were visiting relatives in Luogang, and the family brought them here to eat. She said you couldn¹t find this kind of food in America.²

In America, needless to say, you would be hard-pressed to find twelve thousand fruit-fed rats anywhere on any weekend, but this isn¹t a problem in Luogang. On my first morning in the village, I watched dozens of peasants come down from the hills, looking to get a piece of the rat business. They came on mopeds, on bicycles, and on foot. All of them carried burlap sacks of squirming rats that had been trapped on their farms.

³Last year, I sold my oranges for fifteen cents a pound,² a farmer named Zhong Senji told me. ³But this year the price has dropped to less than ten cents.² Like many other peasants, Zhong decided that he could do a lot better with rats. Today, he had nine rats in his sack When the sack was put on a scale in the rear of the Highest Ranking Wild Flavor Restaurant, it shook and squeaked. It weighed in at just under three pounds, and Zhong received the equivalent in yuan of a dollar forty-five per pound, for a total of three dollars and eighty-seven cents. In Luogang, rats are more expensive than pork or chicken. A pound of rat costs nearly twice as much as a pound of beef.

the Highest Ran king Wild Flavor restaurant, I began with a dish called Simmered Mountain Rat with Black Beans. There were plenty of other options on the menu‹among them, Mountain Rat Soup, Steamed Mountain Rat, Simmered Mountain Rat, Roasted Mountain Rat, Mountain Rat Curry, and Spicy and Salty Mountain Rat‹but the waitress had enthusiastically recommended the Simmered Mountain Rat with Black Beans, which arrived in a clay pot.

I ate the beans first. They tasted fine.  I poked at the rat meat. It was clearly well done, and it was attractively garnished with onions, leeks, and ginger. Nestled in a light sauce were skinny rat thighs, short strips of rat flank, and delicate, toy like rat ribs. I started with a thigh, put a chunk of it into my mouth, and reached for a glass of beer. The beer helped.

The restaurant¹s owner; Zhong Dieqin, came over and sat down. ³What do you think?² she asked.

³I think it tastes good.²

³You know it¹s good for your health.²

³I¹ve heard that.²

³It¹s good for your hair and skin,² she said. ³It¹s also good for your kidneys.² Earlier that morning, I¹d met a peas-ant who told me that my brown hair might turn black if I ate enough rat.  Then he thought for a moment and said that he wasn¹t certain if eating rat had the same effect on foreigners that it did on the Chinese‹it might do something entirely different to me. The possibility seemed to interest him a great deal.

Zhong Dieqin watched me intently.³Are you sure you like it?² she asked.

³Yes,² I said, tentatively. In fact,it wasn¹t bad. The meat was lean andwhite, without a hint of gaminess. Gradually, my squeamishness faded, and I tried to decide what, exactly, the flavor of rat reminded me of. But nothing came to mind. It simply tasted like rat. After awhile, Zhong Dieqin excused herself, and the waitress drifted away.  A young man came over and identified himself as the restauranfs assistant man-ager. He wanted to know whether I had come to Luogang specifically to report on the restaurants. I said that I had. ³Did you register with the government before you came here?² he asked.

³No.²

³Why not?²

³Because it¹s too much trouble.²

³You should have done that‹those are

the rules,² he said. There was a wariness in his voice, which I recognized as part of a syndrome that is pervasive throughout China: Fear of a Foreign Writer.

³I don¹t think the government cares very much if I write about restaurants,² I said.

³They could help you,² he said. ³They would give you statistics and arrange interviews.²

³I can find my own interviews. And ff1 registered with the government I would have to take all of the government officials out to lunch.² A scene appeared in my mind: a gaggle of Communist cadres, middle-aged men in cheap suits, all of them eating rat. I put my chopsticks down. The assistant manager kept talking.  ³A lot of foreigners come to our China to write about human rights,² he said.

³That¹s true.² He looked at me hard. ³Have you come here to write about human rights?²

³Have I asked you any questions about human rights?²

³No.²

³Well, then, it would be hard for me

to write a story about human rights. I¹m writing a story about Luogang¹s rat restaurants. It¹s nothing sensitive.²

³You should have registered with the government,² he said stubbornly.

N.J ext door; at the New Eight Wild Flavor Food City, the Zhongs were more media-savvy. They asked if I had brought along a television crew They looked disappointed when I said that I hadn¹t. Then the floor manager brightened and asked me how I¹d liked their competition.

³It was fine,² I said.

³What did you eat?²

³Simmered Mountain Rat with Black

Beans.²

³You¹ll like ours better;² she said. ³Our cook is better; the service is quicker; and the waitresses are more polite.²

I decided to order the Spicy and Salty Mountain Rat.This time, when the waitress asked about my preference in sizes, I said, pleased with my boldness, ³Big rat.²

³Come and choose it.²

³What?²

³Pick out the rat you want.~~

I followed one of the kitchen workers

to a shed behind the restaurant, where cages were stacked atop one another.  Each cage contained more than thirty rats. The shed did not smell good. The worker pointed at a rat.

³How about this one?² he said.

³Um, sure.

He put on a glove, opened the cage,

and picked up the chosen rat. It was about the size of a softball. ³Is it O.K.?² he said.

³Yes.²

³Are you certain?² The rat gazed at me with bead eyes.

I nodded. Suddenly, the worker flipped his wrist, swung the rat into the air by the tail, and let go. The rat made a neat arc. There was a soft thud when its head struck the cement floor. There wasn¹t much blood.  The worker grinned. ³You can go back to the dining room now,² he said. ³We¹ll bring it out to you soon. Less than fifteen minutes later; the dish was at my table, garnished with carrots and leeks. The chef came out of the kitchen to join the owner; Zhong Qngjiang, the floor manager, and a cousin of the owner to watch me eat.  ³How is it?² the chef asked. ³Good.² ³Is it too tough?² ³No,² I said. ³It¹s fine.² In truth, I was trying hard not to taste anything. I had lost my appetite in the shed, and now I ate quickly, washing every bit down with beer. I did my best to put on a good show, gnawing on the bones as enthusiastically as possible. When I finished, I sat back and managed a smile. The chef and the others nodded with approval.

The owner¹s cousin said, ³Next time you should try the Longfti Soup, because it contains tiger; dragon, and phoenix.²

³What do you mean by Œtiger; dragon, and phoenix¹?² I asked warily. I didn¹t want to make another trip to the shed.² It¹s not real tigers, dragons, and phoenixes,² he assured me. ³They¹re represented by other animals‹cat for the tiger; snake for the dragon, and chicken for the phoenix. When you mix them together; there are all kinds of health benefits. And they taste good, too.²€