Cured meat

腊肉 làròu cured meat

Cured meat with Mao’s telltale hairdo. (Source: @如意如玉/51微博)

Phrase used by netizens to refer to the mummified remains of Chairman Mao. Describing the venerated former chairman’s remains as a salt-cured meat product has been deemed disrespectful by China’s censorship apparatus, making 毛腊肉 (Máo làròu) a blocked search term on Sina Weibo.

The embalmed body of Mao Zedong has been on display at his mausoleum in the center of Tiananmen Square since 1977, where people converge to pay their respects to the communist revolutionary and founding father of the People’s Republic of China.

On his Blocked on Weibo Tumblr blog, Weibo watcher Jason Ng has translated and commented on a popular joke recipe for preparing “Mao bacon”:

A fierce boar from the Huguang province [the pre-Qing name for Hunan and Hubei, where Mao lived—ed]: First, empty the internal organs and wash with 7 kg of salt, 0.2 kg fine nitrate preservative, 0.4 kg pepper. For the deboned meat, use 2.5 kg salt 2.5, 0.2 kg fine nitrate, 5 kg of sugar, 3.7 kg of baijiu and soy sauce mixed, 3-4 kg of water. Optional ingredients that can be added prior include salt and crushed pepper, fennel, cinnamon and other spices; dry and flatten, seal up well and bathe in Chinese medicine for three days, until the surface fluffs up, that way the seasoning penetrates through the meat. Then disinfect it with alcohol and dry in the sun. [followed by various descriptions of how to eat/what it tastes like; a recent re-post of this recipe adds this line: “Because of the special preservation, you can store it for up to a year; I’ve heard that families can even preserve Mao bacon in a jar for 40 years,” the being a reference to Mao’s glass enclosure. [Source]

Chan Yan channels Mao in front of homemade bacon. (Source: Southern Metropolis Weekly)

In a November 2013 profile of female Mao impersonator Chan Yan, Southern Metropolis Weekly tipped its hat to netizens:

This housewife, skilled at smoking meat and making sausage, stands on the balcony of her home, facing a heap of air-dried bacon. She strikes a pose etched into the collective memory of the Chinese people. Slowly, solemnly, she raises her right hand and gently sways, as if before her were not bacon, but the fanatical masses.

这个擅长制作熏肉和腊肠的家庭主妇，她站在自家阳台上，面对着一大堆正在风干的自制腊肉，摆出了一个刻在中国人集体记忆中的pose。她缓缓地庄严地举起了右手，轻轻摇摆，仿佛面前不是腊肉，而是亿万狂热的民众。[Source]