This legend is a classic example of xenophobia (fear and hatred of foreigners or that which is foreign). Again, this restaurant had a good reputation with the health department, but that didn’t stop the progress of the rumor and the damage it did to the livelihoods of the small business owners and their employees. Callers often said others told them the rumor was on radio or in the papers, but no such reports had been broadcast or published.
A friend had told her health officials had padlocked the 434-seat restaurant because it “had been serving cat.” That call was the first of many to the restaurant, the health department, and the media. The trouble had started two months earlier, with its first sign being a phone call from a woman asking if the restaurant was closed. Due to the loss of business, restaurant staff had seen their work week cut by 10 hours.
#The cat in the kettle at the peking moon professional
In 1991, after a Burlington, Ontario Chinese eatery lost 30% of its trade to this rumor, its owners attempted to combat the talk by inviting the local professional football team, the Hamilton Ti-Cats, to eat there on the house. Indeed, this particular restaurant had always met Health Department regulations, a claim supported by inspection records. It seemed everyone had heard the rumor, yet no such complaint was on file.
In 1996, county health department officials in Knoxville, Tennessee, stepped forward to issue a strong denial about frozen cats’ being found at a particular local Chinese restaurant. Never mind that just the previous day the local paper had run a story about the closure (for business reasons) of all 51 restaurants in this particular chain - the cat meat rumor would not be denied. Calls were fielded, both by the local paper and the board of health, about whispers that these closings were the result of dead cats’ being discovered in each eatery’s meat locker. FROZEN CATS EVERYWHERE!!!! Happy eating!Īs an example (this rumor has turned up in so many cities, it would be impossible to list them all), in 1995 the closing of two Chinese restaurants in Columbus, Ohio, awakened the sleeping rumor yet again. So they were like “okay” and then they went to the freezer. When the health inspectors went to inspect the so-called “clean” facility, they found cages and cages of cats. Everybody wondered why they closed down, but then we finally heard the truth. Okay, at this chinese restaurant where I live, it’s called moon palace, they suddenly closed down. The public health department immediately visited the restaurant to inspect the kitchens and in the fridge they found numerous tins of cat food, half an Alsatian dog and several rats all waiting to be served up. He therefore sent it off for analysis and the report came back saying that it was a rat bone. The surgeon who removed the bone was somewhat perplexed as he did not recognise the type of bone found. Thoroughly alarmed they rushed her to hospital and she had to undergo minor surgery to remove a small bone stuck in her throat. Half way through the meal one of the party suddenly started to cough and choke. One evening several friends went out to a local Chinese restaurant for a celebratory meal. Then they found out that someone, maybe a competitor, maybe just a person who nursed a real or imagined grudge against Chinese, had initiated a rumor that the police had found three skinned cats, labeled rabbits, in the restaurant’s refrigerator.Īncient slur or not, wherever this rumor goes it affects how the locals feel about the Chinese in their midst, and it often impacts a restaurant’s fragile bottom line: The once-prosperous proprietors became miserably unhappy, for they could not understand what had happened to all their patrons. But without the slightest warning business suddenly took a drastic drop. Everyone agreed that the food and service were good. It was the most successful eating place around, patronized by businessmen and citizens morning, noon, and night. In a town of thirteen thousand inhabitants, which was gradually blossoming into cityhood, there was a restaurant operated by three Chinese. How ripe small towns actually are for rumors was amply demonstrated a few years ago.
How old is old? The rumor about Fluffy’s or Fido’s being slipped into Chinese food by unscrupulous restaurateurs has been traced by British researchers to the earliest years of the British Empire in England and to the 1850s in the United States: