Food for all at the Olympics

BEIJING – Beijing and the Olympics are going Kosher.

The capital’s only Kosher restaurant opened 10 months ago, drawing the small Jewish expatriate community, tourists, curious Chinese and even a few Muslims. Business has been so good at Dini’s Kosher Restaurant, that part-owner Lewis Sperber is talking about setting up a second branch closer to the Olympic venues in northern Beijing.Like many restaurateurs and bar owners, Sperber is hoping to benefit with as many as 550 000 foreigners expected to descend on Beijing for the Aug 8-24 Games.”What we’ve thought about is preparing sandwiches and other items at a venue closer than we are now to the Olympic sites,” Sperber said.”If people leave the Olympics and want a Kosher meal, we could have a place for them.”Eating Kosher – food that meets Jewish dietary laws – is hardly a raging fad.However, there is a real boom in the number of Chinese factories being certified to export Kosher products.This is driven partially by recent food safety scares in China involving contaminated seafood, pet food and toothpaste.Kosher certifications in China conducted by the Orthodox Union – the best-known certification body – have doubled to 307 in the last two years.The total number of Kosher certifications is about 2 000, exporters working to reach the world Kosher market.”I think business will be very overwhelming during the Olympics,” said Minette Ramia, who manages Dini’s, a modern, pastel-coloured eatery located on Super Bar Street, an aptly named alleyway lined with restaurants and bars just down the street from the Israeli embassy.”From the hygiene side, whether someone is Kosher or not, Jewish or not, people will want food from here because it is considered cleaner and more hygienic being that we’re in China,” Ramia said.”A Muslim woman came in recently because she can’t eat meat anywhere else.”The staff and cooks at Dini’s are nearly all Chinese.Waiters bring new Chinese customers a handout to explain Kosher, which is called “Jie Shi” in Chinese – “clean food.””When Chinese come, I don’t think they know what to order,” said Zhao Haixia, the assistant manager.”Normally they just rely on us to tell them what’s good.”The menu features both northern European (Ashkenazi) and Mediterranean (Sephardic) food traditions.Mainstays like matzo ball soup, chopped liver and Gefilte fish are seldom chosen by Chinese, who more often go for Kosher beef dumplings (Jiaozi) or sizzling beef – Kosher style.Gefilte fish is a hard sell.”In China eating cold fish doesn’t sound so good,” Zhao said.Like Beijing’s noxious air, China’s food safety is one of the most sensitive issues surrounding the Olympics, carrying the potential to ruin China’s US$40 billion (€27 billion) preparations to use the Games to show off a modern nation removed from its agrarian roots.One food poisoning case, like one positive doping test – particularly by a Chinese athlete – could grab headlines for weeks and ruin the public relations effort by the communist government.Following a string of food scandals last year, Beijing organizers launched an aggressive campaign to showcase a new way of monitoring aimed at tracing products from the field to the table.The government also unveiled the Olympic Food Safety Command Center to deal with food emergencies.”Precautions must be taken to avert any trace of a terrorist attack on our food supply chain,” said Zhang Zhikuan, head of the Beijing Industry and Commerce Bureau.Concern centers on the safety standards of meat, and stimulants used to boost yields.Some fear drugs used in animal feed could trigger positive doping test among athletes.At least one of the new monitoring systems – coding on packaging to trace the source of production – has long been required for Kosher certification.”The fact that there is another set of eyes coming through the plants on a regular basis – such as the Kosher auditing or Kosher supervisors – means that the companies, the factories are more careful about hygiene and sanitation,” said Rabbi Mordechai Grunberg, who examines Chinese factories for the Orthodox Union.China’s Kosher exports are composed almost exclusively of food additives, spices, vegetables and candies.Nampa-APBusiness has been so good at Dini’s Kosher Restaurant, that part-owner Lewis Sperber is talking about setting up a second branch closer to the Olympic venues in northern Beijing.Like many restaurateurs and bar owners, Sperber is hoping to benefit with as many as 550 000 foreigners expected to descend on Beijing for the Aug 8-24 Games.”What we’ve thought about is preparing sandwiches and other items at a venue closer than we are now to the Olympic sites,” Sperber said.”If people leave the Olympics and want a Kosher meal, we could have a place for them.”Eating Kosher – food that meets Jewish dietary laws – is hardly a raging fad.However, there is a real boom in the number of Chinese factories being certified to export Kosher products.This is driven partially by recent food safety scares in China involving contaminated seafood, pet food and toothpaste.Kosher certifications in China conducted by the Orthodox Union – the best-known certification body – have doubled to 307 in the last two years.The total number of Kosher certifications is about 2 000, exporters working to reach the world Kosher market.”I think business will be very overwhelming during the Olympics,” said Minette Ramia, who manages Dini’s, a modern, pastel-coloured eatery located on Super Bar Street, an aptly named alleyway lined with restaurants and bars just down the street from the Israeli embassy.”From the hygiene side, whether someone is Kosher or not, Jewish or not, people will want food from here because it is considered cleaner and more hygienic being that we’re in China,” Ramia said.”A Muslim woman came in recently because she can’t eat meat anywhere else.”The staff and cooks at Dini’s are nearly all Chinese.Waiters bring new Chinese customers a handout to explain Kosher, which is called “Jie Shi” in Chinese – “clean food.””When Chinese come, I don’t think they know what to order,” said Zhao Haixia, the assistant manager.”Normally they just rely on us to tell them what’s good.”The menu features both northern European (Ashkenazi) and Mediterranean (Sephardic) food traditions.Mainstays like matzo ball soup, chopped liver and Gefilte fish are seldom chosen by Chinese, who more often go for Kosher beef dumplings (Jiaozi) or sizzling beef – Kosher style.Gefilte fish is a hard sell.”In China eating cold fish doesn’t sound so good,” Zhao said.Like Beijing’s noxious air, China’s food safety is one of the most sensitive issues surrounding the Olympics, carrying the potential to ruin China’s US$40 billion (€27 billion) preparations to use the Games to show off a modern nation removed from its agrarian roots.One food poisoning case, like one positive doping test – particularly by a Chinese athlete – could grab headlines for weeks and ruin the public relations effort by the communist government.Following a string of food scandals last year, Beijing organizers launched an aggressive campaign to showcase a new way of monitoring aimed at tracing products from the field to the table.The government also unveiled the Olympic Food Safety Command Center to deal with food emergencies.”Precautions must be taken to avert any trace of a terrorist attack on our food supply chain,” said Zhang Zhikuan, head of the Beijing Industry and Commerce Bureau.Concern centers on the safety standards of meat, and stimulants used to boost yields.Some fear drugs used in animal feed could trigger positive doping test among athletes.At least one of the new monitoring systems – coding on packaging to trace the source of production – has long been required for Kosher certification.”The fact that there is another set of eyes coming through the plants on a regular basis – such as the Kosher auditing or Kosher supervisors – means that the companies, the factories are more careful about hygiene and sanitation,” said Rabbi Mordechai Grunberg, who examines Chinese factories for the Orthodox Union.China’s Kosher exports are composed almost exclusively of food additives, spices, vegetables and candies.Nampa-AP