Control Yuan member Cheng Jen-hung (程仁宏) said yesterday he might seek an investigation into the manufacture of pig blood cake (豬血糕) after media reports said the snack had been banned in the US.
Local television stations and newspapers cited unnamed sources in Los Angeles County as saying the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) had banned sales of the food, which is made of pig’s blood and sticky rice.
The USDA Web site, however, did not include any information about the reported ban.
In Taiwan, pig blood cake is usually eaten as a steamed snack — served on a wooden stick — or cooked in a hot pot.
Cheng, a former Consumers’ Foundation chairman, said there were also public worries in Taiwan over hygiene issues. He said people were concerned the food could go bad while being produced at room temperature or become contaminated in small or traditional factories.
He said that many people outside Taiwan only learned of the dish after it was voted one of the world’s 10 most unusual foods in a British Web site poll last year.
The reported US ban on the sale of pig blood cake could lead other developed countries to follow suit, he said, adding that it “would be a big blow for the traditional snack.”
Cheng said that he did not rule out applying to the Control Yuan to conduct an investigation into whether local authorities have been sufficiently diligent in ensuring local manufacturers maintain the highest standards.
At a separate setting yesterday, Lucifer Chu (朱學恆), who previously created a YouTube video promoting Taiwan’s pig blood cake, yesterday said that he will post a video protest on the site if the US does not lift the reported ban on the traditional Taiwanese food.
“Will the US also ban German blood sausage and British black pudding?” said Chu, who produced a bilingual video showing himself and other people eating pig blood cake coated with peanut powder and coriander leaves.
Chu said if the ban is maintained, he will make another video protesting what he called “cultural discrimination” by the US.
One of the local producers of pig blood cake, Lee Chien-liang, said the entire process is carried out in low-temperature, sanitary conditions. There is no contamination of the blood during the process, he added.
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
RSS