Chinese-style barbecued turkey a big holiday hit
Immigration has made Vancouver a hub for this unique dish
Joanne Lee-Young, Vancouver Sun
Published: Monday, December 17, 2007
The Chinese-style barbecued turkey used to be an exclusive item in Vancouver, sold only for a few days before Christmas by one or two Chinatown meat shops.
Now, there are purveyors all over town catering to a host of downtown corporate clients -- including the big banks, law and accounting firms and property developers -- for their holiday parties.
Many of the bakeries, restaurants and supermarkets start delivering their Chinese-style turkeys as early as the end of November, and some will sell as many as 250 of the big birds.
These turkeys are marinated in anise spice and satay sauce, or sometimes hoisin and soya. It doesn't lie flat and get basted in an oven. Instead, it is barbequed hanging from a hook in a giant, walk-in fire pit of an oven and is often swinging next to Chinese meat staples such as roast duck, goose and, sometimes, whole pig.
Simon Lee, executive manager at Hon's Wun-Tun House, a longtime Vancouver fixture that now has five locations, has been selling Chinese-style roasted turkeys since 1993.
"It first started because our regular barbecued-meat customers began asking us if we would do [turkey] for them so that they didn't have to do it themselves," said Lee.
Indeed, the rise of the Chinese-style barbecued turkey is tied to immigration patterns. In the early and mid-1990s, the massive wave of newcomers from Hong Kong to Vancouver brought consumers with an affinity for the Christmas spirit, both colonial and Canadian.
However, many of them weren't used to baking, much less wrestling a 15-pound turkey into an oven, said Lee.
"It was really for convenience's sake. It's a little difficult to handle a turkey if you are not used to using an oven. You would still like to be a part of the Christmas festivities, but lack the experience to do it. That's how the demand started."
Going further back in time, Stephen Wong, a Vancouver food writer and consultant, said that when he was "growing up in Hong Kong, my father would bring home a turkey that wasn't even a barbecued one. He would just get a braised one, but it was still special. It wasn't easy to make turkeys [at home] in Hong Kong at that time because not many kitchens had ovens."
In Vancouver, the Dollar Meat Store on Pender Street, which is more famous for its cured sausage and pressed duck, started selling barbequed turkey in the early 1990s.
It sells about 30 turkeys each Christmas and will chop them in half or into smaller chunks. Sales only start on Dec. 24 unless you put in a special order. Same thing at nearby Kwong Hing. Both places charge about $4.99 per pound, roasted.
Kam's Bakery at Main and Broadway has been selling barbequed turkeys for seven years and averages about 80 each Christmas season. Owner David Wong also combines the 10-pound barbecued turkeys with 10 Chinese dishes, such as sweet and sour pork, pineapple fish fillets, and butter prawns, pitching the whole thing as a party package. On a recent weekday, he was flying out the door with three deliveries to make, hitting downtown office parties, including one at RBC Financial Group, the bank.
At Hon's, Lee also does the set Christmas meals, adding a turkey to six Chinese dishes. Customers can pick potsticker dumplings, crock-pot stews or stir-fried veggies. He sells about 200 of these, plus another 50 turkey-only orders.
His Coquitlam, New Westminster and Richmond stores sell sets mostly for family and neighbourhood gatherings. About 50 per cent of these personal sales are to "non-Chinese customers who are accustomed to Chinese cuisine and like the idea of going with something different. Instead of brussels sprouts, go with chop suey," said Lee.
Over 35 per cent of Hon's total barbecued turkey sales is to mainstream corporate accounts, said Lee, citing 40 downtown names on a list including "HBSC, TD, CIBC, the property developers, law firms, and accounting ones."
"We get our menu out in November so that they can order for their staff Christmas parties," said Lee, adding that while Western traditions of Christmas might die harder in the home, the office is a good place to try turkey with a twist.
"It's not going to offend anyone and people may be more willing to try something different" if they have regular turkey the rest of the season, he said.
Asian supermarket T&T started offering barbecued turkeys four years ago because "we realized that our customers wanted to be part of the Canadian seasonal celebration, but also wanted to enjoy familiar flavours, a taste that they have had for years," said Melina Hung, marketing manager.
Hung, a Hong Kong native, can relate. She is happy to partake in oven-roasted turkey. "It's good," she said. "But after a few slices, it's 'thank you very much. I have had enough.' The appeal of the barbecued turkey has a lot to do with preferred taste. I can eat a lot more of it."
T&T started selling its barbequed turkeys on Nov. 30 and offers them until Jan. 6 "to catch all the celebrations," said Hung, adding that Chinese-style barbecued turkey never comes with stuffing or gravy, just a lighter dipping sauce and, right now at T&T, promotional items such as Japanese cheesecake and sparkling fruit juice.
Wong, the food writer, doesn't count the Chinese-style barbecued turkey a tradition just yet, but thinks of it as a "commercially viable trend this time of the season."
Lee of Hon's said that the market for barbecued turkey has definitely widened. "There are more businesses offering it and there is more competition now," he said.
That said, he admits that a few customers have been lost. "Those [immigrants from Hong Kong] who have been here for a while, they know how to roast a turkey themselves and so now they make it Western-style at home in an oven."
And so, the customer set has evolved to include more recent newcomers such as those who came from Taiwan in the late 1990s and, more recently, from mainland China.
"They haven't caught on [to Chinese-style barbecued turkey] yet," said Lee of the mainland Chinese demographic, but he expects them to give it a try soon too.
jlee-young@png.canwest.com
Linear Mode
