Thursday, July 12, 2007

Crazy for Cardboard

As frequent readers know, I'm crazy for manapua. It's a must have food when we visit Hawaii. For the uninitiated, it's a bun filled with a Chinese barbeque pork. Here is one recipe from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and there is a lot of information at the Manapua Research Lab site. You can find the buns steamed or baked. Personally, I'm a baked manapua guy. They are so tasty!

Today Julie Gaw had a post on the Foodie Report blog about food vendors in China stretching their barbeque pork by adding cardboard to the filling. Mental note to self: don't eat pork buns from street vendors in China. Strange, but I didn't see cardboard in the manapua recipes on the sites above. Is cardboard what gives them the authentic taste? Independently, Dianne shared this story from CNN about the same issue.

So stick to the domestic manapua. They taste so good though...I might even put up with a little extra fiber.

1 comment:

jack/andrews said...

A blast from the past. I love steamed buns. Used to make them all the time. Didn't know there was a baked version. I was taught by post-doc roommate who is still teaching Chinese cooking classes on the side after all these years.