Tackling restaurants’ opium habit
Print Edition
LET’S face it, some Chinese food can be addictive; maybe it’s just the great taste, maybe it’s the opium.
The owner of a noodle bar in Baoji City of northwest China’s Shaanxi Province has been arrested on suspicion of adding the dried pericarp of ripe fruit from the opium poppy to his hotpot and noodles.
In late September, the local food and drug administration collected samples of seasonings from Xiaomenghua Noodle Restaurant for routine tests. Opium was detected in both seasonings and chili oil.
Putting poppy seeds containing morphine into food is illegal but some small restaurants and snack bars still add it to their dishes to keep customers coming back for more. A number of such cases have come to light in recent months.
Also in September, a man was detained by police after a tip-off that he had stolen crude oil.
He then tested positive for drugs, but his aunt suggested that the result might be due to a bowl of noodles.
Investigations found that the noodles were indeed opiated and the restaurant owner was promptly detained by the police.
Chinese hotpot, renowned for the “numbing and spicy” taste derived from pink Sichuan peppercorns, frequently contains opium poppy seeds.
This month, inspectors in east China’s Jiangxi Province seized 740 grams of poppy seeds from a restaurant in Nanchang City and discovered opiate papaverine in its hotpot base.
Such “secret recipes” are often used by small restaurants said a cook from a hotpot restaurant in southwest China’s Sichuan Province.
“To cover up their illegal act, vendors grind the seeds and add the powder to monosodium glutamate or put it in a sauce used by customers as a condiment rather than in the soup base, which is easily detected by inspectors,” the cook said.
Opium poppy seeds are sold at markets and online.
One shop in a small town in southern Sichuan sells a “spice” — poppy seeds — that can help restaurants lure more customers in.
“It sells well. You need to order it a week in advance, and we only sell it to people we know,” the shop owner said.
A “good quality” poppy capsule — the complete seed head — costs 400 yuan (US$65) per kilogram.
Long-term consumption of poppy capsules will lead to addiction, damage to the nervous system and induce chronic intoxication, said Zhao Lan, a doctor with the No.3 People’s Hospital in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province.
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