Red Wine Rice Paste

[Fordo]

In their 1972 "Chinese Cookbook" Virginia Lee and Craig Caiborne included a recipe for chicken with red wine rice paste. They said it was from Fukien and discribed it as "a fermented red paste made with rice" and said it was difficult to find. Back in the mid seventies I could get in Chinatown but I haven't been able to find a source recently. Does anyone know where to get it?

[Joe Blowe]

Is it possible you're looking for red yeast rice paste?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_yeast_rice

[...] The fully cultured rice is then either sold as the dried grain, or cooked and pasteurized to be sold as a wet paste, or dried and pulverized to be sold as a fine powder.

[...] Red yeast rice is used to colour a wide variety of food products, including pickled tofu, red rice vinegar, char siu, Peking Duck, and Chinese pastries that require red food colouring. It is also traditionally used in the production of several types of Chinese wine, Japanese sake (akaisake), and Korean rice wine (hongju), imparting a reddish colour to these wines. Although used mainly for its colour in cuisine, red yeast rice imparts a subtle but pleasant taste to food and is commonly used in the cuisine of Fujian regions of China.[...]