Food for Thought with Alex Bielak- Exploding the System

“Exploding the System” - Caveat Emptor


“Caveat Emptor” means “Buyer Beware,” and is one of the few phrases I’ve retained from my middle school struggles with Latin. It sprang clearly to mind recently as I was driving back to Hamilton munching on some exotic snacks.


After delivering my daughter back to her domicile after the Christmas break I made a pit stop in a large Chinese grocery I had noticed on the way to her apartment. I love the distinctive smells in such ethnic emporia as well as the mounds of unfamiliar products.


I meandered around the aisles wondering what on earth some of the products might be and how I could use them in my cooking. One box of colourful packages caught my attention: they depicted a mound of brownish balls nestled in a sea of grass.


The ingredients list was handily translated into English on the back of the package. And since you can’t make this stuff up, I quote directly and exactly, including the punctuation, and invite you to see the attached photo in case you think this a New Year’s Fool joke:


“This product fine ferments take the degreasing soybean as the main rawmaterial becomes, luster red brown sauce fragrance thick, sticks thicklymoderate, flavor tasty, the nutrition is rich, is the family commonlyused regulator taste high quality goods.

Ingredient :Food water used, Degreasing soybean, Table salt, Sodium benzoate

Qualitative index : Amino acid condition nitrogen ≥ 0.50g/00g

Preserved method : This should lay aside ventilates, coolly, is dry place, not suitableexposed depositing”


Well, it had my attention even if I was not really much the wiser. I read on:


“Ediblemethod ; Operates the bag to be direct edible, or adds the meat, the egg, theseafood explodes the system, also may serve as the cooking, the coldfood in sauce.”

Even though the label further assured “the Yingkou Sauce brews the limited liability company” and there was 12 months “Guarantees the nature time” I’ll admit to not wanting to explode my system or anyone else’s for that matter. Amused, I took a picture and moved on down the aisle.


I did buy a package of Vietnamese “Cashew Pucks” which promised sugar-glazed cashew-half brittle adorning tapioca wafers. I was happily munching on these in the car when it dawned on me that the second and third layers of these cookies sported crumbled pieces of cashew rather than the lustrous halves I thought I was getting (see pictures). I really like that style of cookie so no biggie, I thought.


When I got home I opened another purchase, the bag of “Green Treasure Health Prime Minister” seaweed flavoured coated peanuts. As I tried to extract the treats from their bag, my fingers encountered an unanticipated resistance. I thought at first it might be one of those desiccant packs one sometimes finds with these kinds of food. But this was more substantial.


There was a prominent plastic insert in the bag that effectively bulked up the package to make it seem like there was more of the fairly bland product in it than there actually was. When you look at the pictures you’ll see what I mean. My experience reminded me of the sort of misleading advertising examples that grace the inside back cover of Consumers Reports Magazine.


In and of themselves each of these occurrences might have passed without comment. It took the conjunction of the three to make me reflect that one really does need to be

on one’s toes, particularly when in unfamiliar territory, or when one wants to avoid explosions!




For more pictures, click here