“Korea declared safe for Mad Cow Disease”

 

According to the Chosun Ilbo (June 9, 2010) Korea has been declared safe for mad cow disease….which I am sure makes many Koreans – especially those who protested against the evil Yankee beef a couple of years ago – feel smug but I think the second sentence is the money one….

Korea is now in the same level as 33 other countries in the world such as Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.

But how safe was Korean beef in the past? You can read below for the accounts of Korean beef during the Joseon era.

One of the most important animals in late Joseon was the bull. He was used as food, leather, for agricultural uses, and as transport for goods and people. The Korean bull was described as “powerful,” “noble,” “tractable,” “remarkably handsome,” “a splendid beast,” and “bearing a strong resemblance in built to our short-horn stock.” Although he was a powerful creature, he was extremely gentale and by the use of hte ring in his nose even a small child was able to manage him.

The Korean bull was shod with iron shoes, like a pony, and used to transport goods over the narrow and muddy paths that served as roads. Unlike the Korean pony, the bull was docile and caused very few problems for handlers. Many of the early photographs of Joseon depict this noble creature laden down with great bundles of timber, sticks and packages.

Dairy products were generally unknown in the late Joseon period. Cows were not used for milk, and in fact one of the aspirations cast upon northern barbarians was a reference to their milk drinking. A missionary in Wonsan was greatly chastised by his Korean followers for milking his cows because they felt this was cruel to the calves by depriving them of their milk.

Great numbers of cattle were raised in the Wonsan region, and in fact, live cattle were one of the primary trade items with Russia. These cattle sold for about three or four British Pounds each, and were sought after by most of the meat-starved Western naval forces in the northern Far East.

At first cattle were traded with the Russians at the Korean-Russian border, but later the Russians sent steamers to the port and bought large numbers of these fine animals which they transported back to Vladivostok, Russia. An early Korean enterprise in the late 1880s was a steamer leased by a Korean businessman to transport cattle to Vladivostok, but it doesn’t seem to have been a very profitable enterprise.

In 1885, the British also bought large numbers of cattle from Wonsan and transported them to their naval base at Port Hamilton (Komundo Island) to be used by the garrison there. The cattle were loaded on their ships and then transported to the islands and butchered at the slaughter house established there.

Loading cattle was often a long and arduous task. The cattle were forced to swim out to the ship and then they were hoisted aboard. The unloading was basically the same process but in reverse.

There was a disease (rinderpest) that often struck the herds killing great numbers of them. Hamel mention in his narrative in 1662 that the cattle had greatly been diminished by this high contagious disease. Examining the Korean Customs’ documents, it is obvious this disease continued to plague Korea throughout the Joseon era. During the years when the disease killed off large numbers of cattle, the exports of hides increased significantly. These hides were sold to the Japanese who, in turn, made them into leather products and then exported them.

One of the first Korean-owned trading ships to visit Japan was the Ko-Koku Maru, a schooner of 87 tons. It arrived in Nagasaki, Japan, on December 25, 1883, with a cargo consisting of, among other things, hides.

In 1898 a Cattle Insurance Company was established by a favorite in the Korean court. The agents of this company went into the interior and compelled cattle owners to pay 20 cents a head. if the cow or ox should die from the disease the company would reemburse the owner the full price of the animal. The company soon failed.

Butchers were part of the lowest caste in Korea and had virtually no rights. Their shops were small and one British woman, Isabella Bird Bishop, described them: “The smells were fearful, the dirt abominable, and the quantity of wretched dogs and of pieces of bleeding meat blackening in the sun perfectly sickening.”

With descriptions like the above, it is no wonder that many of the Westerners did not trust the sanitation and safety of Korean butchers, especially when it came to beef. In Seoul, they preferred to patronize Japanese or Chinese butcher shops and avoided the Korean butcher shops unless it was out of curiosity.

The same British woman described the butchering technique:

“The Koreans cut the throat of the animal and insert a peg in the opening. Then the butcher takes a hatchet and beats the animal on the rump until it dies. The process takes about an hour, and the beast suffers agonies of terror and pain before it loses consciousness. Very little blood is lost during the operation; the beef is full of it, and its heavier weight in consequence is to the advantage of the vendor.”

The method of butchering probably wasn’t the only thing that caused many of the Westerners to avoid the Korean butcher shops – it may have also been the accounts they read in the news.

In 1897, just outside of Pusan, a Korean sold a sick cow to a butcher who in turn chopped it up into meat and then sold it to his neighbors. Eight people died and twenty others were rendered seriously ill from eating the beef.

Later, in the same year, a Westerner in Chemulpo wrote:

“The Koreans here are reveling in fresh meat at present. Some beeves shipped as live frieght died on the passage. The dead carcasses have been bought by the enterprising Korean butchers and will be carved up for the customers.”

The following year a Korean butcher in Seoul was arrested after he tried to sell meat from an ox that he bought on the street. The ox was believed to have died from rinderpest. The butcher was later released [there is an implication that he might have bribed the police chief] and the police officer was reprimanded.

One of the many improvements that King Kojong sought for Korea was agricultural. He had plants, seeds, and several heads of various livestock sent to Korea in the mid 1880s to determine if they would thrive in Korea. These were bred and raised at the Korean experimental farm just outside of Seoul. It seems almost ironic that the Englishman in charge of the farm, R. Jaffray, died of food poisoning after residing for a short time in Korea. He didn’t die from bad beef or any other Korean product, but instead died from eating bad oysters – canned in the West.

The above is the draft of an article I did with Korea Times in 2004 – couldn’t find the original on line. Apologies for the roughness but too tired to make it read smoother.

Picture credit – My collection from an illustrated newspaper.  Transporting cattle to the British fleet.