Japan is in an uproar right now over a food poisoning scare involving frozen dumplings called gyoza — you may know them by their North American name of “potstickers” — imported from China. The dumplings were tainted with toxic pesticides which made dozens of consumers sick, including a five year old girl who nearly died. The Japanese are a very group-oriented people, and when there’s a general movement in one direction others are willing to follow, and right now everyone is falling over themselves to avoid all frozen foods, even products that weren’t made in China. The ruckus is making itself felt in Japan’s business world, too: a proposed three-way merger between mammoth Japan Tobacco and two smaller makers of frozen foods is in danger of being called off because JT was the company that distributed the problem dumplings. The whole thing kind of reminds me of the period after 9/11, when Japanese tourists stayed away from Hawaii in droves out of fear of terrorists, quite a silly thing to think, all things considered. Poison aside, gyoza is one of my all-time favorite foods in the world, and I love to obsess over the ratio of soy sauce, vinegar and spicy sesame oil that I dip them into before eating them. While the food poisoning scare has hurt makers of frozen foods, supermarkets and Yokohama’s Chinatown distract, business was booming at our local ramen-and-gyoza shop when we went there last night. The “Master” (what you call the owner of any kind of small shop in Japan) seems to be doing a very brisk business right now, with many families coming to eat food they can trust.
