The Forbidden City, Summer Palace ...... Beijing has countless scenic spots that are a delight to visit. What attracts foodies more than the scenery, however, is the food in Beijing.

Among the various types of Beijing cuisine, Peking duck, as a unique culinary "landscape", has undoubtedly come out on top.

I just don't know when the duck, which was once praised by people, became a label that was "avoided" by tourists ...... What is the reason for this?

"Roast Duck" Culture

Roast duck, a unique symbol of Chinese food culture, whose production can be traced back to as early as the Yuan Dynasty. Later, the technique of roasting duck was developed and resulted in the present-day Peking Duck.

Before preparation, one needs to treat the duck by removing the internal organs and subsequently adding air between the skin and the meat to force the skin to separate from the meat.

Finally, the chef needs to coat the surface of the duck with maltose, air dry it and send it to the back of the roaster. After 40 minutes of roasting, the Peking duck is crispy on the outside and tender on the inside.

The duck cooked in this way has an overall deep red color, and when viewed from afar, it looks as if it has been painted with a layer of red paint. Such a roasted duck can be said to have a full range of colors and flavors.

Beijing "Quanjude" is the best place for tourists from all over the world to gather in Beijing.

Visitors feast on the most authentic roast duck and whole duck feast in all of China, and enjoy the rich taste bud experience that comes with roast duck.

At the moment of waving goodbye to Beijing, visitors always want to take something with them to keep their bond with Beijing. Without a doubt, the iconic Beijing cuisine, roast duck, is the best choice.

To make it easier for tourists to carry, vacuum-packed roast duck was created.

The compressed Peking duck is convenient as it avoids contact with bacteria and maintains hygiene, while reducing its size.

Because of this, the vacuum-packed roast duck, a specialty product, was competitively purchased and was very hot for a while.

It is also this fire, so that the people see the business opportunities, there is no shortage of people with evil intentions. In order to achieve their own purpose of making money, businessmen with no professional ethics, falsified and almost smashed the signature of Peking Duck.

Complaint from buyers

Public opinion about Peking duck seems to need only a turning point to go from praise to criticism.

In 2011, an article titled "I was scammed in Beijing" was posted on the internet. The author of this article, a tourist who traveled to Beijing.

The tourist complained that she paid a high price for vacuum-packed Quanjude duck at a specialty supermarket in Beijing in order to share the authentic Peking duck with her friends.

She was full of joy to bring home, but in the moment of opening the package dumbfounded.

It turned out that the bag contained the Quanjude roast duck, not a complete duck, but a pile of chopped meat, which also had a large number of broken bones.

Due to the vacuum pressure, all the duck meat and bones are gathered together, looking fuzzy, emitting a burst of fishy smell, which immediately makes people lose their appetite.

Netizens carefully observed that the bag labeled 1000g, only a small amount of duck meat, the remaining part is all sweet pasta sauce.

The netizen's true confession instantly resonated with others on the internet, and the crowd shared their unpleasant experiences they had encountered when buying bagged Peking duck.

When an out-of-towner went to Beijing on business, he tasted fresh local roast duck and liked it so much that he bought a large number of plastic packages from a specialty store and planned to share them with his relatives and friends.

A few days later, this originally sincere gesture was met with cynicism from relatives and friends. "Thank you for the roast duck, raggedy".

The netizens realized that something was wrong and immediately opened the unopened Peking duck and saw a black and gooey scene.

Thinking of their good intentions, the netizens do not know where to start, but to stop.

More and more people have started to share the Peking duck they bought on the Internet to express their disappointment.

It is not difficult to find that the Peking duck, which has been avoided by the customers, has a common feature of "substandard and lacking in weight".

It is obvious that visitors from abroad buy counterfeit and shoddy goods.

But who are the people selling the fake Peking duck?

How did the poor quality roast duck they produced pass the standard inspection and enter the specialty stores in Beijing?

With a series of questions, the reporter went to the streets of Beijing, the unannounced visits, and finally found the "fishy".

The truth comes out, the person behind the curtain emerges

Reporters found through visits and investigations, these plastic packaging of Peking duck, prices range from about 30-70 yuan, the most expensive price, are not more than 100 yuan.

Obviously, this is a huge gap compared to the price of roast duck in Quanjude, which is often in the hundreds.

With the intention of giving it a try, the reporter asked the owner of the roast duck stall, "Is there a cheaper one?"

The stall owner first looked around cautiously, then quietly took out a packet of 20 yuan roast duck from under the cabinet. The reporter was very worried and asked the stall owner if he could guarantee the quality.

To the surprise of the crowd, the stall owner said frankly that he could not, his face did not show the slightest bit of guilt and embarrassment.

Then the stall owner said, "You touch it, it is not even a duck leg, it is fake."

The reporter questioned, "Why do you want to sell fake ones?"

"Someone wants to buy this muckraker and I'm not selling it?"

Once the stall owner made this statement, the reporter realized that the other party clearly knew that this low-priced Beijing Quanjude roast duck did not meet the selling standards. The reason why he knows the law, the answer is only one: profit.

The same package of roast duck is sold in all the large and small specialty product outlets in Beijing, apparently from the same outlet. What kind of person has the audacity to deceive consumers so blatantly?

Because of the many people involved in this case, the relevant authorities asked the police to intervene. The police followed the trail and traced the origin of the vacuum-packed roast duck back to its source, and soon found the market where the substandard roast duck was made.

Soon after, the police targeted, locked in a person named Kong Ling Ye.

Kong was born in a poor family in Hebei Province and has had a difficult life since childhood. However, Kong himself was uneducated and often engaged in speculative business.

By chance, Kong Ling Ye learned from a friend that there was a famous food processing factory in Hebei, which often produced chicken and duck meat remnants, and the income was very considerable.

Kong Ling Ye was very impressed, so he purchased some goods from the food factory, and indeed gained 30% profit. This successful business, so Kong Lingyeh firm determination to get rich by selling low-quality chicken and duck meat.

With the help of his father, Kong Ling Ye raised a certain amount of money and began to "show off his skills". In order to reduce the cost to a minimum, Kong decided to reach a cooperation agreement directly with the owner of the food factory.

"He called me for duck, I said only the duck frame, he said okay, is to be cheap", said Yuan Jichang, head of Bono County, Hebei Province, Sanli meat products factory.

Therefore, since 2010, Yuan Jichang has become a regular supplier of Kong Lingyeh. He takes the cheapest duck rack, steams it, colors it, dries it, and finally turns it into vacuum-packed roast duck according to Kong's requirements.

According to Yuan Jichang, for every Peking duck sold, he can get 2.3 yuan of income, so the cost of less than 3 yuan each is already the maximum value of poor quality Peking duck.

In this way, Kong Ling Ye used his contacts to send the poor quality roast duck to Beijing, where there was a large flow of people, for a large-scale sale.

In order to attract customers, Kong Ling Ye will produce their own roast duck, brand name labels such as Quanjude.

The only difference between the two is that Kong Ling Ye has deliberately lowered the price of inferior Peking duck to around a few tens of dollars. Even so, Kong can still make dozens of times more profit from it.

When repackaging the roast duck, Kong Ling Ye deliberately put sweet flour sauce in the bag, the original less than 500g of Peking duck, the quality increased to 1000g. such "good value" products, naturally become the first choice of many people.

Kong Ling Ye's business grew bigger and bigger, and the original sales network could no longer meet the demand. So, he developed his own "downline": Zhang Yuefeng.

Like Kong Lin Ye, Zhang Yuefeng is also a loafer, he bought roast duck from Kong Lin Ye at a very low price, using the same packaging methods. In order to increase sales, Zhang Yuefeng also purchased products such as phoenix claws from Wang Weichao.

Wang Weichao, the owner of Li Zhong meat food factory, in addition to the production of poor quality Peking duck, the food factory also operates duck neck, chicken claws and other small food, also under the guise of "brand-name".

In order to facilitate sales, Wang Weichao and Kong Ling Ye also took the trouble to forge certificates of compliance.

Kong Ling Ye forged the Shunyi District quarantine certificate, Wang Weichao used his own wheat flour certificate, modified the relevant information, made cooked food inspection and quarantine certificate, to avoid the purchase of the supermarket responsible for the review.

Kong Ling Ye and others know that their behavior has constituted a crime, in order to cover their ears, they have always been careful, only with the supermarket owner on the spot transactions, and never disclose their personal information.

However, the net of heaven can be restored, but not omitted. Inferior roast duck is almost pervasive in Beijing, and the actions of Kong Ling Ye and others eventually caught the attention of the police.

After many days of tracking and investigation, the police basically determined the whereabouts of Zhang Yuefeng.

In the evening of 2011, Zhang Yuefeng, as originally planned, took advantage of the darkness of the moon to trade black-hearted roast duck with Kong Lingyeh, who was caught red-handed by the investigating officers.

The police found that Kong Ling Ye drove the back seat of the car, scattered seven boxes of roast duck, all counterfeit "Quanjude".

Later, police went to Kong Ling Ye's residence to continue the search and found more than 100 boxes of roast duck, a total of 3,800, however, these, only the tip of the iceberg in the huge sales network of black-hearted roast duck.

Sales records show that in just one month, the number of sales of blackened roast duck reached 50,000.

The relevant departments in accordance with the law to investigate Kong Ling Ye and other people, for the crime of counterfeiting and trafficking, they confessed.

However, when the crowd really heard the specific situation of poor quality Peking duck from the mouth of Kong Ling Ye and other vendors, they still felt shocked.

The black-hearted roast duck is a world away from the authentic roast duck.

First, the ingredients are different. Generally speaking, Peking duck is selected from a whole duck, which has delicious meat and popping texture but not woody.

However, the black-hearted roast duck business in order to reduce costs, from the fixed stalls to recover a large number of duck frame, duck offal, duck bones. These other parts of the duck, not only have no edible parts, but also greatly affect the taste of roast duck.

Bags of plastic sealed roast duck, it is impossible to see the form, the black-hearted business only need to be recycled parts all chopped, and then polymerized together, you can unwittingly deceive consumers.

What's more, it is surprising that the price is cheaper and more easily available chicken meat posing as duck meat, to the second best.

Secondly, the lack of weight and very poor quality. The average weight of a regular roast duck is about two pounds. Although the weight of the black-hearted roast duck also reaches two pounds, but there is a big fishy.

Due to the plastic packaging, consumers can not check the goods on the spot, for the quality of the duck meat in the bag is unknown, they have only seen the word "2 pounds" on the outer packaging will be hastily purchased.

To be home once opened to find that the number of duck meat is very little, the cost of sweet pasta sauce but extremely heavy.

What's even more infuriating is that in order to minimize the cost, the shady merchant chose the worst quality sweet pasta sauce.

Meanwhile, the black-hearted roast duck looks rosy in color, but the actual quality is a mess.

Since the business does not have a professional grill and related tools, they can only put a large number of duck racks in the steamer and steam them all at once.

Subsequently, the businessman passed chemicals to disguise the sizzling look. They mixed sugar and red polyether and applied it to the duck frame to disguise the "coloring" step of the regular roast duck.

A formal roast duck production, from cleaning to the oven, takes more than a day, however, black-hearted merchants only need half an hour to obtain a large number of finished roast duck.

Finally, food safety issues. In order to cover up, the production of black-hearted roast duck, mostly in small underground workshops, dusty and dirty hygiene.

At the same time, most of the black-hearted roast duck, which is cooked by gutter oil, poses a huge hidden danger to people's health.

After testing by relevant institutions, the black-hearted roast duck produced in the small workshop, the number of bacterial flora seriously exceeds the standard, which is dozens of times more than the regular roast duck.

At the same time, E. coli, which is known as the "messenger of stomach diseases", also far exceeds the national health standards. The various carcinogens in the black-hearted roast duck make people shudder.

In a way, the plastic packaging has increased the arrogance of the black-hearted businessmen. Printed with a black-hearted "certificate of compliance" plastic packaging, usually made by the vendor's own machine.

Therefore, the so-called production date, shelf life, product quality standards on the packaging, are the result of the free play of the black-hearted business, without any reference to the meaning, and even misleading to consumers.

Knowing the ins and outs of the production of black-hearted roast duck, the reporter asked Kong Ling Ye and other people whether they had also eaten this kind of roast duck?

Almost without hesitation, they shake their heads. Such a safe and unsecured Peking duck, such a three-nothing product, even the black-hearted merchants themselves dare not eat.

The reporter asked again, "Why don't you eat?"

The crowd said hesitantly, "That's a hard question to answer."

In 2011, the case of the black-hearted roast duck manufacturing and marketing gang went to trial. The court finally sentenced Kong Lingyeh and Yuan Jichang to six years in prison for the crime of "producing and selling food that does not meet safety standards.

Zhang Yuefeng, Wang Weichao and their groups, were also each sentenced to prison terms ranging from one to four years, and all paid a steep price for their misdeeds.

Faced with this verdict, the defendants surprisingly said that the sentence was heavy, and appealed in court. As you can imagine, the court rejected their appeals in the second trial and upheld the original verdict.

So really, as they say, did the court over-rule? Actually, no, the law is very reasonable in its sentencing.

According to the provisions of Article 143 and Article 150 of the Criminal Law of China, if the crime is sufficient to cause serious food poisoning accidents, or other serious food-borne diseases, will be sentenced to imprisonment of up to three years or detention, and a fine of the corresponding amount.

If serious harm to human health, will be sentenced to a prison term of more than three years and less than seven years, and the same to a fine.

Combined with the "production process" of the black-hearted roast duck, such health conditions are worrying, accompanied by excessive chemical "duck", will certainly cause more or less damage to the human body, the elderly and children and other people with low immunity if they eat these, and may even be life-threatening.

Six years in prison is not really heavy at all for these black-hearted dealers.

After this case, China's food safety supervision has further increased, and combined with increasingly progressive laws, this black-hearted roast duck has disappeared.

However, criminals will always try to make money from loopholes and kill people. Therefore, the fight against the production and sale of black-hearted gangs, a major issue related to people's livelihood, is still a long way to go.

References

[1] New Beijing News, "Five indicted in Beijing black-hearted roast duck case

[2] "Legal Evening News", "Suspected of making and selling black-hearted roast duck suspect on trial knows where the duck comes from and does not eat it himself".

[3] People's Daily, "Black-hearted roast duck case sentenced to heavy or not