In search of the true "WuXi" pork rib

[RunBe4UFly]

My grandmother is from Wuxi. Her family relatives usually brings in Wuxi pork rib from there to Shanghai where we live. I still remember the taste, color, and texture of the pork rib vividly. It comes in a cardboard box with wax paper lined inside. The pork rib is very tender (more than fork tender). The color of the meat is red (yes it's blody red), with no trace of soy sauce in color or taste. The taste is on the sweat side without noticable cinamon flavor. It smells wonderful, and nothing like 'five spice'. That was 20 years ago.

Every few years, we will have family visitors from Wuxi coming to Shanghai. They usually bring us Wuxi pork rib. I started to notice the change of the pork rib as the time went by. The color is not red any more (noticable soy sauce color). The flavor has changed too, with noticable five spice aroma. It did not taste like, looked like, and smelled like the Wuxi pork rib years ago any more.

I have given up the Wuxi pork rib years ago, as our family visitors from Wuxi told us in the last visit that there were many 'Wuxi' pork rib shop in the city now, and even the local couldn't tell which one is the best or the most authentic. I was disapointed, somewhat sad, and even angry.

I recently saw a food post online about a Wuxi pork rib recipe from the Gourmet magazine. The poster called the recipe 'authentic to the bone!'. I resisted the urgy to say 'you don't know what you are talking about', and red through the recipe. I was truely dissapointed. There is nothing in the recipe to give the meat the true 'red' color first of all, and the recipe is pretty much a 'five spice' soy sauce pork rib. One can easily re-package this recipe into a 'Red cook' pork rib (note that the color of Chinese Red Cook pork is not Red, it's dark brown).

Is this Wuxi pork rib recipe lost forever? I don't know, but I will certainly go look for it when I get back to China. There is a scene at the end of the movie Ratatouille when the food critics Anton Ego tastes the ratatouille and the dish brings him back his childhood. Yes, that's the Wuxi pork rib I am looking for, and I hope I can find it very soon.

[lennyk]

I looked at the Gourmet and Epicurious recipes for the Wuxi spareribs,

they didnt seem to have 5 spice powder in the ingredients.

Those recipes were pretty much identical to the popular "Red Cooked Pork Belly", an outstanding recipe which can be found in "All about braising" by Molly Stevens

The historical claim with this recipes is the continuation of using leftover sauce(lu) for the next batch which I imagine with ribs being a lot of bone would add a lot of flavour to the sauce.

I've done this recipe with the regular pork belly but I'm going to try it with ribs to get the bone stock flavor

Edited October 26, 2007 by lennyk (log)

[RunBe4UFly]

I looked at the Gourmet and Epicurious recipes for the Wuxi spareribs,

they didnt seem to have 5 spice powder in the ingredients.

I remember the recipe in the magazine calls for star anise and cinamon, which, as the two spices in the 5 spice powder, represents the most of the flavor.

[Dejah]

The red colour may have been from fermented red rice?