Sie sind auf Seite 1von 4

Everything is Made in China.

This swanky pair of sneakers? Made in China.

This shiny new iPhone? Made in China.

This luxury bag? Made in China.

This fancy Dolce & Banana? Made in China.

This one eyed owl cookie jar with camera, alarm, and text notifications? Doesn’t exist. (Although it
should.) But if it did? Chances are, it’s Made in China.

In just over 25 years, China's managed to become a manufacturing powerhouse, holding a lion's
share amounting to 25% percent of worldwide production – a far cry from a measly 3% back in the
1990s.

Now, it's almost impossible to find anything that didn't come from an assembly line in one of the
many mega factories in China.

The International Business Times estimates that more than 70% of mobile phones sold worldwide
are made in China. International tech brand Apple, even has an entire "iPhone City" dedicated to
making its popular line of mobile phones.

While 60% of all available footwear and 43% of clothes in stores are now manufactured in China.
The scale of production is so large, that industry experts believe that without China's manpower
the supply chain of many brands could potentially shut down. Not to mention, make a mess of
many an OOTDs.

The air-conditioners in our homes, the meat on our grill, the socks on our feet, beauty products,
microchips. Name it. Everything is Made in China. Everything. Even the things you thought were
not made in China, are made in China.

For example, ketchup – fixed condiment to distinctively American dishes like the classic burger and
fries and Fourth of July hot dogs – has its roots in staple Chinese ingredients.

Food historians believe that ketchup originated from nuoc mam, fish sauce made from fermented
anchovies, introduced by Vietnamese fishermen to Chinese seafarers 500 years ago.

The Chinese called the pungent concoction kê-tsiap, Hokkien for sauce made from preserved fish.
And as their ships made its way through ports in Southeast Asia, the name went through different
permutations like the Indonesian kecap and the Malay kitjap.
Kê-tsiap made its way to Western shores when Dutch and British sailors started trading with the
Chinese in the 1600s. Sailors being sailors, they brought back booze - arrack, an alcoholic brew of
fermented red rice, molasses, and palm wine - and kê-tsiap along with it.

By 1699, kê-tsiap became "catchup" and was first mentioned in the New Dictionary of the Terms
Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew as "a high East-India Sauce." It became such a hit with
the British, that soon, recipes for ketchup started popping up in England.

“Ketchup in Paste” by Richard Bradley came out in 1732, followed by Eliza Smith's "English
Katchup," which was featured in her cookbook The Compleat Housewife in 1758. Both recipes
aimed at trying to replicate the taste of Chinese ketchup using native ingredients such as walnuts,
oysters, mushrooms, cloves, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, anchovies, and other spices.

Tomato won't be an ingredient of ketchup until 1812, which came by way of horticulturist James
Mease, who came up with a recipe using tomato pulp, an array of spices, and brandy. Although
this sans anchovies recipe is closer to the British palette, it doesn't last very long.

So in 1870, American Henry J. Heinz solved this problem by adding vinegar to the recipe as an
added preservative to the natural preservatives found in tomatoes called pectin. He also added
sugar to appeal to the American tastebuds. Now, 97% of American households have a bottle of
ketchup in their pantry.

Ice cream is another example of an all-American favorite that have its origins from China.

According to Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat, author of the History of Food, we can all thank China
for bringing the best post-breakup cure in a pint there ever was, into the world and direct to our
fridge.

Her research shows that the Chinese created a contraption that uses saltpetre to freeze a mix of
snow, buffalo milk, syrup, camphor, flour, and fruits into frozen desserts. There are also recipes
that use overcooked rice, honey, and spices.

Because ice is a precious commodity, ice cream is only afforded to royalty. Like King T’ang of
Shang, who was believed to have 94 “ice men” at his beck and call to get ice for the palace, should
he get a craving for some smooth sorbet.

But ice cream's journey to the West is anything but smooth. There are two versions of the story.

The most popular one being that Marco Polo encountered ice cream in his travels to Asia, loved it
so much that he brought both technique and recipes with him to Italy and made something that's
close to a sherbet.
Gelato was already being served to the Italian elite, courtesy of alchemist Cosimo Ruggieri, who
first served fior di latte to the Medici family in Florence.

Which then led to ice cream traveling to France, when Duchess Catarina de’ Medici of Italy tied the
knot with the future king of France in 1533 and brought ice cream with her to the festivities.

The less summer blockbuster version of events, is that ice cream was brought back from China
through trade routes across the Arab continents. It was introduced to the Persians, who brought it
back to Italy in the 8th century during the Islamic conquests.

The 1500s marked the beginning of modern ice cream with Ruggieri's fior di latte and architect
Bernardo Buontalenti's gelato alla crema d’uovo (egg cream gelato), which is still the most
commonly used base in Sicilian-style gelato recipes.

It wasn't until 1686 when Francesco Procopio Cutò opened a shop in Paris and sold an assortment
of sorbet and gelato that ice cream stepped out of the dessert plates of royalty and made its way
to the public.

American colonists brought ice cream recipes from Europe where it met with good 'ol fashion
ingenuity and became easier, faster, and cheaper to produce. Affluent households during the
Victorian era used hand-cranked ice cream churners, which replaced the traditional method of
mixing it with a spoon.

The arrival of the ice cream cone in 1904, as developed by Ernest A. Hamwi, at the St. Louis
World's Fair, completely changed the way people enjoyed ice cream. The soft texture of the ice
cream combined with the crispiness of the cone was a hit at the fair and became big business.

The latter part of the 20th century saw a boom in ice cream shops that sold a wide variety of
flavors and soda fountains that put in ice cream soda on their menu.

It's so popular that the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) estimates that 1.54 billion
gallons of ice cream are made in the United States, with the average American enjoying 23 pounds
of ice cream annually.

Nowadays, there are a million ways to enjoy ice cream – doused with liquid nitrogen, rolled, soft
serve, shaved, on top of a cloud of cotton candy, deep friend and squeezed in between two Oreo
cookies. And in a variety of crazy flavors like olive oil, champagne, Sriracha, kimchi and rice,
vegetables, and tequila.

So, yes, that foie gras ice cream on a cone you're having. It's Made in China.

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen