Nostalgia & History > The Legend of "Key Route Hash" ...

According to the history books, the Key System was widely known for the food it served onboard its ferryboat fleet. Besides things like its coffee and apple pie, it was particularly known for "Key Route Hash" (aka corned beef hash). It was supposed to be an absolute sensation to its daily commuters. KEY employed a Chinese cook named 'Toy'.
Legend has it that after Toy either returned to China or had passed away, that the famous receipe died with him, for no one ever found the receipe written down.

In surfing the Internet, I ran across the following statement. I solicit your comments to see what you think about this subject.. Thank you.

KRK

""Key Route corned beef hash""

In reference to the almost religious following of "Toy" and his son who made this dish on the Key ferries ,according to a 1906 earthquake survivor ,they most likely put "opium powder" in the food. This is an old chinese cook's trick to spice up the appetite and make the diners want more. This would explain the reason nobody else could cook the same as Toy and his son after they returned to China. I know this will start a can of hash but it is an explanation of this story.
Posted by Guest on Sat 12 Aug 2006 06:39:57 PM EDT


OK folks-- comments please !!

I seem to recall there there is other reasonably sober evidence or statements from the era that small quantities of opium were known to stimulate the appetite. These days "medical evidence" would probably say that wasn't true, but it probably isn't based on experiment, just based on Evil Drugz Theory.

My question would be whether the hash was believed to be good because you liked to eat a lot of it, or because it tasted good, or some combinaiton. I don't know if opium is a spice in the sense of adding some sort of flavor to the dish, or if it is relatively flavorless itself.

Corned beef hash doesn't sound to me like a native Chinese dish. That probably means that if Toy was a Chinese cook from China, he may have done some experimenting with the basic recipe, and may have used fairly common spices in ways that other people never thought of. Or he may have used some Chinese spices, vegitables, or other ingredients. After all, SF had (and has) quite a large Chinese population. While most American Chinese food is rather different than the same thing in China (you can't get the same kind of basic ingredients easily), I wouldn't be at all surprised that a lot of real Chinese food ingredients would have been available in the SF area.

I find this topic extremely interesting and will be following the hopefully numerous responses!

I've never heard of opium being used in cooking.

JMW

poppy shells even in modern times are used in traditional chinese cooking as an aromatic additive to food, the legalities of that usage are another story. i remember reading about the early days of mass dairy production and the use of "poppy sap" as an ingredient in cattle feed to produce a more yogurt like consistency during production.
yesterday's opium, today's msg & hormones...

Except opium or opiates generally suppress the appetite, not stimulate it. Much more likely, in my opinion, is that it contained MSG. MSG would have been an "exotic chinese" ingredient, but well known to Mr. Toy, and does stimulate appetite.

Poppy seeds are used in German baked goods and salad dressing. I understand that after consumption you will fail a drug test but it won't make you high.

Waybiller Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Except opium or opiates generally suppress the
> appetite, not stimulate it. Much more likely, in
> my opinion, is that it contained MSG. MSG would
> have been an "exotic chinese" ingredient, but well
> known to Mr. Toy, and does stimulate appetite.

Quite right. . . .

As a surgeon it's something we see with great regularity. And not just suppress it -- but quite commonly cause nausea. Anti-nausea drugs are routinely used with opiates to suppress the nausea.

wabash2800 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Poppy seeds are used in German baked goods and
> salad dressing. I understand that after
> consumption you will fail a drug test but it won't
> make you high.

I can't say one way or the other for other organization's drug programs but you can't eat enough culinary poppy seeds to pop the Navy's 'wizz quiz'. The old "I ate a poppy seed muffin this morning" BS is exactly that...BS. I was a Navy Alcohol and Drug Control Officer for several years. Do you think for a minute that someone would lie about why they failed a urinalysis if they promised their employer, or the people of the United States of America, that they wouldn't do drugs?

As far as Toy's cooking, it was probably just good hash. The assertion that he put opium in it was made during a time when racism and stereotyping was much more acceptable than today - not that they are anywhere close to being extinct today.

Interestingly enough, Mythbusters would disagree: http://mythbustersresults.com/pilot3

Wonder what the AMA has decided?

John
AdamPhillips Wrote:
>
> I can't say one way or the other for other
> organization's drug programs but you can't eat
> enough culinary poppy seeds to pop the Navy's
> 'wizz quiz'. The old "I ate a poppy seed muffin
> this morning" BS is exactly that...BS. I was a
> Navy Alcohol and Drug Control Officer for several
> years. Do you think for a minute that someone
> would lie about why they failed a urinalysis if
> they promised their employer, or the people of the
> United States of America, that they wouldn't do
> drugs?
>
> As far as Toy's cooking, it was probably just good
> hash. The assertion that he put opium in it was
> made during a time when racism and stereotyping
> was much more acceptable than today - not that
> they are anywhere close to being extinct today.

There seems to be some current case of a european soccer player (I think it is) that failed a drug test before some game due to what the (not very reliable) paper clamed were trace amounts of some drug, and the player claimed it was the result of having eaten a 'contaminated" pretzel or some such a few days before.

Which is probably completely irrelevent, but it would seem to indicate that like many other things, we have enumerate people running drug testing here and there, and the assumption is that if something can be detected by science it must be illegal, because they have absolutely no concept of relative magnitudes.