BlainSA Well, China did do something the PREVIOUS TIME THIS HAPPENED, then when everything died down they brought them back (because they really like them).
This is a culturally ingrained thing that is not easy to change. You can call them filthy or whatever, but it’s an essential part of Chinese cooking that pervades the whole country, that the freshest ingredients* should always be used. That often means killing an animal or fish at the latest practical time before cooking. Many famous Western TV chefs would of course advocate this general principle, although the process may be different (‘farm to table’).
*Some of the ingredients (turtle, snake, pigeon and so on…) may of course be questionable. These three are common too, unlike bat, which I’ve never seen in a market.
The rejection of ingredients that aren’t fresh of course has some good things (flavour!) and some negatives. One negative is that in the Shanghai lockdown people’s freezers just weren’t stocked with meat and ready meals because people here simply don’t do that, however much their income increases and their free time shrinks due to longer working hours and commutes. There is a cultural context that needs to be understood.
