Where’s The Beef? In The Turkey?
Actually, where’s the ground beef and the edible offals? Offals are those parts that you don’t really want to know about when you are eating them, but they are at the center of a renewed trade dispute between Taiwan and the United States. It was an old resolved trade dispute until Taiwan’s legislature overruled the KMT government Tuesday to re-impose a ban on imports of American ground beef and edible offals. The politicians concocted the excuse that they are protecting the Taiwanese consumer from mad cow disease. Yeah, right.
You're not getting mine ...
My strong suspicion is that Taiwan’s politicians are protecting domestic farmers who produce competing meats to be stir-fried or perhaps made into lupcheong. The Christian Science Monitor takes a loftier view, averring that Taiwan’s action is a continuation of desires by Asian countries to thumb their nose at the United States. I think it is pure economics. Taiwan’s imports of U.S. beef grew 21% by volume and 19% by value in 2008 (see the U.S. Meat Export Federation for the numbers). Population hasn’t grown by anywhere near that much, nor has overall food consumption, so beef has been replacing something in Taiwan’s woks (my guess is chicken and pork).
America and Taiwan had a similar dispute in the late ’80s, only the edible offals were from tom turkeys, not cows or steers. Seems that male Taiwanese consumers developed a liking for turkey testicles, reputed to help with manifold personal difficulties (this was pre-Viagra, mind you). But Taiwan had banned the import of turkey balls (not Butterballs) and other turkey offals to protect local chicken farmers (many of whom were military retirees – a powerful voting bloc). It was legal to import whole turkeys, so the Taiwanese community in California started filling the whole turkeys with turkey testicles and shipping them out to Taiwan. Who knew a turkey could have so many balls? Once the turkeys cleared Taiwan customs, the whole turkeys were thrown away and the market was flooded with turkey balls. Only not all the whole turkeys were tossed out. Many were cut up and sold in local markets in competition with local poultry. Hence the anger of the chicken farmers. Demonstrations were held outside the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) compound in Taipei, featuring irate farmers tossing live turkeys (among other things) over the compound wall, much to the glee of the Americans who promptly barbecued them. Meanwhile, across town, Land o’ Lakes was running a training course in how to cook turkeys at the glass-fronted American Trade Center (which I was running at the time). Luckily, the farmers never noticed what we were doing.
Testicoli on sale in Italy
The Taiwanese authorities first tried to put the blame on the U.S. Government for allowing the turkey carcasses to be stuffed with turkey balls. We noted that we had no export controls on turkeys, preferring to focus our efforts on military or perhaps nuclear technologies. AIT had the temerity to suggest that the onus fell on Taiwan’s customs agents for not adequately inspecting inbound turkey shipments. Taiwan’s response was to ban all shipments from the United States having anything to do with turkeys, breaking any number of trade agreements. Washington did not respond well to this attack on the American turkey flock and threatened retaliation. Eventually, Taiwan got its customs inspectors to look inside the carcasses and shipments of whole turkeys resumed. Thus endeth the “Great Turkey Ball War.”
One is forced to wonder if there is a lively trade in Rocky Mountain oysters somewhere in this story. I do recall the restaurant around the corner from my Taipei office that featured “cow penis in brown sauce.” Yum.
