Shocked by the technology of "dressing up" spoiled ham

Freshly fried ham mixed with spoiled, stale, and unsold ham is collected from shops that have not sold out, fried again, then packaged and delivered to restaurants, eateries..., the price still does not decrease - it is a life-long industry to turn spoiled, stale ham into delicious ham like fresh from the oven.

New and old ham and sausage are mixed together.

In the role of someone looking for ham for a restaurant, we were introduced to the LV facility (Ham Tu commune, Khoai Chau district, Hung Yen) which specializes in slaughtering, producing, wholesaling and retailing ham products. From 4am, at the gate of this ham factory, the atmosphere was bustling with buyers and sellers, plus the sound of pigs being slaughtered screaming loudly...

While we were still caught up in the chaos, we were yelled at to get out of the way so two young men could carry a large aluminum tub of fat around to the back of the slaughterhouse and place it next to the tub of water where the sausage was being soaked.

We asked for a reasonable price, we would buy regularly in large quantities. Mrs. V quickly scooped up the sausage and smiled, inviting us: "You can have as many as you want, just order the night before, regular sausage is 100,000 VND/kg, green rice sausage is more expensive because it has green rice at 120,000 VND/kg, crab and shrimp sausages are priced at 150,000 - 170,000 VND/kg respectively, if you want them to be bare or have a label, just ask and bring the label, when you buy from my shop, you can rest assured about the quality, you can be sure of a fourfold profit in your hand...".

As observed, after scooping a batch of ham that had just been soaked in water into a bamboo basket to drain the water and let the fat heat up, Mrs. V continued to take out from the refrigerator nylon bags of ham, with ice wrapped in them, and put them in a basin filled with water.

The grease in the pan used many times is black and has a burnt smell.

It seemed that the traders were so used to the idea of ​​coming to weigh their goods, asking for experience, how to make them, and observing Mrs. V while waiting for the meat to be weighed that when we asked, the owner enthusiastically told us the story: "About ten kilos of regular sausage and green rice sausage are fried to save for small traders, noodle and rice roll sellers, etc., then we fry our own portion, and bring it to the market at 6-7am to sell."

To make the sausage look good, soak it in water for 2 hours before frying, then wash it gently to remove the slime from the sausage. If you want the sausage to be as fragrant as new sausage, add a little bit of seasoning when soaking. The requirement is to fry the sausage quickly, do not leave it for too long, just fry it and then take it out immediately, otherwise the sausage will burn and the smell will not be fragrant because it has been fried once.

We observed an aluminum basin filled with black grease, emitting a strong, unpleasant smell due to the grease being reused many times without being replaced with new grease.

When we wondered if the ham and sausage were all old and spoiled, Mrs. V reassured us: “Only on days when the market is too slow to sell do we have to re-fry them like this, but most of the ham is new. In addition, my regular customers often send them home to be fried for me and pay me a small fee because we have the equipment at home. If you buy the goods, I will give you new ham and show you how to process the spoiled ham into new ham and sell it again, so you never have to worry about losing money. Don't worry, if there are many unsold goods, bring them to my house, I have the grease and pan, I will re-fry them for you or sell them to you.”

Hearing this, I wanted to think more to decide to visit the production facility. The owner of the production facility enthusiastically invited me to freely visit.

“Clothes” for ham and sausage…

Behind the slaughterhouse is the kitchen, where cooked ham and sausage products are scattered about. In the kitchen, two people are sitting, packaging and labeling ham. When I asked T (an employee) about the labels they were busy sticking on the packaging, T said:

“The label is provided by the customer, all information about the product, manufacturer, ingredients, illustrations, production date, expiry date are printed by them, we just put them in the bag, vacuum and wait for them to come and pick up the goods. There are many orders so there are many different labels, the packaging is only 500gr and 1,000gr.”

Seeing that we were still hesitant about buying the sausage, the young employee T, who was quickly sorting and packaging the products, quickly suggested: “Orders usually take both types: unfried sausage and pre-fried sausage. Unfried sausage is of better quality because it is freshly made, while pre-fried sausage is a mixture of fresh sausage and spoiled sausage, unsold sausage bought from shops, fried again and packed in bags.”

“It’s a re-fried sausage but it tastes just like a new one,” to prove the quality of his product, T used a knife to cut a corner of the newly “revived” stale sausage and gave me a piece of it.

Indeed, the ham is very soft, fragrant like new ham when chewed, rich in flavor, fragrant with the flavor of young rice... The only difference is that the ham is darker in color due to being fried many times compared to the bright yellow color of a ham that has just been fried once, but when vacuum-sealed, the color of the ham is not clearly visible.

Holding two labels of two orders, I observed that the information on the products of each order was different. One label clearly stated the name of the manufacturing facility (using the name of the person placing the order), ingredients: Fresh pork, fish sauce, salt, sugar, production date and expiry date written by hand. The other label only stated generally “Special crab cakes”, ingredients, date of manufacture, expiry date.

Nodding to show he understood, T also excitedly continued: "I'm just an apprentice here. If you know how to do this job, you can make a lot of money. This family has only been in business for a few years but has a lot of money so they pay their employees well."

According to Labor