Taiwan

by Jacqueline M. Newman

Chinese Food in China, Hong Kong, and/or Taiwan

Spring Volume: 2011 Issue: 18(1) page(s): 16-19

Meaning 'terraced bay,' Taiwan was known for centuries as Formosa, that name meaning 'beautiful island.' Both names are for what was the protectorate of the Chinese Empire in 1206 CE. That was when the Yuan Dynasty was founded by Mongol leader, Genghis Khan (now spelled Chinggis Khan).

Taiwan's past has multi-cultural influences. In the 1600's, the Dutch invaded and remained for thirty-seven years until defeated by Ming Dynasty warriors. Two years later, the Spanish barged in but did not stay long; and they only occupied a small area in the north. They were booted out shortly after arrival. In 1884, the French came and occupied a small portion, but just for some months. In 1887, this island and the almost sixty smaller ones around it were made a prefecture of the Fujian Province.

Taiwanese, European, and Chinese influences early on helped foreign foods mix easily with Chinese ones. Add to that the Japanese, in 1894, took over the Pescadore islands, known at Peng Hu. They and the big island were ceded to them, and they stayed until 1945. After World War II, these islands and Taiwan were returned to the Chinese.

Before, during, and after the Second World War, fourteen thousand square miles of bug-infested swampland in the north of Taiwan island was reclaimed. In 1949, one small part of this land became Taipei, this country's capital city. A bit later, they built a financial center tower; it is one of the world's tallest buildings. Called 'Taipei 101' and named for the number of floors above ground; there are five others below.

In 1948 and 1949, about two million Han Chinese and fewer non-Han arrived led by Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist army. They had ruled or tried to rule China since 1911 after they toppled the Qing Dynasty. They came across the Taiwan Straits wanting to avoid living under Mao Zedong and communist domination.

These newcomers, most Buddhists with a few Daoists and a lesser number of Christians and Muslims joined local Republic of China (ROC) Chinese and fourteen different aborigine tribes called Gaoshan, and became the People's Republic of China (PRC). The aborigines multiplied and are now one million strong. Their growthe and the huge influx of Han Chinese changed Taiwan. It became a bastion of Chinese culture. Go to a restaurant with any of them and learn there are two types of conversations at mealtime: A discussion of what is being eaten at the moment, and what do they hope to eat in the future.

Taipei, now some three million folk in a country of twenty-four million, is the largest city on the island. Tainan and Kaoshing, which is now written as Gaoxiang, follow. Since 1949, Taipei is the political, cultural, economic, and transportation capital of the ROC. In the PRC, the government sees Taiwan as the twenty-third province of the PRC. The Taiwanese sees themselves as living in a country with nineteen provincial regions.

No matter that, food in Taiwan is the number one thing on people's minds. This country overflows with great food morning to night, even with good fast food 24/7. Many of its restaurants have been reviewed in this magazine. If planning to go there, check them out at www.flavorandfortune.com and elsewhere.

At breakfast, chui ping, which came to China during the Tang Dynasty (618 - 907 CE), came to Taiwan in the late 1940's. This hand-held breakfast food is popular around the clock. While some Chinese believe its origin is Persian, most Taiwanese we queried claim it as their own.

Lunch, if not a business meal in a place such as the Grand Hotel seen here, is when fast food prevails for the masses under age forty. It includes burgers, pizza, fried chicken, even a lunch box. Older folk and those with more time go for yum cha. These southern and Cantonese dim sum delights are loved here. They might go for a big buffet meal where folks select quality dishes quickly and efficiently in places. Most, but not all these dishes are Chinese, others from any country in the world. Lunch might also be a snack of noodles, rice, or wheat in any form from spring rolls, peach buns, steamed or fried dumplings, or breads, filled or not. The rice and noodle dishes can be hand-held as are zongzi wrapped in lotus or bamboo leaves and stuffed with anything one can think of, or they can be dishes needing chopsticks.

Dinner in winter is often huo kuo, known in English as hot pot. Or it might be any number of other cook-yourself dishes with or without plain white rice or noodles, or steamed bread, or it might be rice stuffed into a duck or a chicken, rice balls in or around a dish, even rice showing up as Eight Treasures at the meal's end.

Though fast food and western food are everywhere, traditional Chinese food is still an important hallmark of Taiwanese food. It is available at almost all restaurants, always present at festival and celebrations meals, and many of its items feature seafood. Fresh foods of the sea, fresh fruits of the regions–papaya to pomegranate, and foods imported from all over the word are available for festive and ordinary meals.

Taiwan also has its own regional dishes and delights, and tea is one of them. Teahouses are everywhere, bubble or boba as they call it originated here, and teahouses serve and sell it even at highway rest stops. It can be had plain, flavored, in dishes, and as green tea beer. Loved with meals, and before or after them, this island has its own tea food called lei cha. It can be solid or liquid, served not only with Hakka food where it originated, but also with anything else. It is made by pounding sesame seeds and peanuts with dried tea leaves, served dry, baked, even with added hot water.

There are many other snacks in Taiwan found on streets, in tea houses, in restaurants, and in karaoke bars. The latter successful businesses are popular, and where folks go to them to eat, hear, and participate in sing-alongs. Karaoke bars are all over the country and many restaurants feature them before, during, and after dinner hour.

Readers have asked this magazine: What would be a typical Taiwanese menu? We tell them: That depends upon where in the country and for whom? Not wanting to use that as a cop-out, we once copied a Taiwanese cookbook suggestion from a book whose cover is no more and whose name is long forgotten. The pages remaining say a typical Taiwanese meal can include: Three-cup Chicken and/or Three-cup Squid, Braised Beef, Shrimp Cutlets, salted Small Fish with Peanuts, Tanzi Noodles, and Buddha Jumps Over the Wall--made Taiwanese-style with tendons, shark's fins, and lots of green vegetables; and Eight Treasure Rice for dessert, and tea served throughout the meal.

So that you can cook typical Taiwanese dishes, we have gathered some to try before or after going to Taiwan. And, when you go, do visit some aborigine culture. These folks are called 'mountain people' and they have retained much of their primitive behavior. They can be found in Wulai which is near Taipei, their cultural village is near Sun Moon lake, and they are at the Aboriginal Culture Park in Peiyeh in Pingtung County.

Before going, do note that some say there are fourteen groups, other anthropologists report nine tribes including: The Ami, Atayai, Bunun, Paiwan, Puyuma, Rukai, Saisiat, Tsou, and Yami. One major festival celebrates all of them and is called the Ami Harvest Festival or Hualien. It is held near the end of summer. While on Orchid Island, the Yami hold an annual Flying Fish Festival; this is during the second or third month of their lunar year.

In Taipei fifty years ago, there were rice paddies. Now there is that exceptionally tall building and other tall office buildings. The tallest has what some consider the most posh mall. There are also gorgeous condominiums and classic temples such as Lungshan also known as the Dragon Mountain Temple. When in Taipei, go into and up to the top of the tall one, the Taipei World Trade Center. It is exhilarating, and its exhibition hall often has great things to see. Incidentally, the Dragon Temple nearby was originally built in 1740 but several natural and man-made disasters required reconstructions, the most recent in 1957. Be sure to visit that and the two streets nearby; they are the famous Huasi Night Market.

Get to the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial and see its gorgeous gardens, and to the National Theater and National Palace Museum. We had great food in these places or near them, also near the National Museum of History. The Fine Arts Museum is near the Grand Hotel, pictured on this page. This Qing Dynasty- style building has great restaurants in it, visit them, too.

Also, go north to Tansui and south to Kaishiung. There are many things to see and many delicacies to taste, especially those in Southern Taiwan. We adored a long day in Alishan in south-central Taiwan. This national park has a great restaurant in its namesake hotel. Alishan is the gateway to Yushan or Jade Mountain, the highest peak in Northeast Asia. Geat food can be had near there, too.

Superb noodles are to be had in Tainan City at Tu Hsiao Yeh. Theirs is a more than hundred-year history, and folks adore their Scalded Milkfish Ball in its thick soup and their Xiaoxijiao Bowl Rice cake. When in Tainan, Fengshan, or in Kaihsiung, visit the Meinung Hakka Restaurant. They cook on charcoal, use licorice and rock sugar in their marinades, and prepare lots of delicious Hakka food.

If you are a vegetarian and back in Taipei, then visit the Jen Dow Vegtarian Buffet; it is most unusual. They serve wines, have lots of different kinds of steamed dumplings, many made with konjac and many herbs, and a talented chef who makes to-order dishes. If not a vegetarian and in Taipei, have good luck and eat pig's knuckles. Hsiung's Wanlun Pig Knuckle in Pingtung County is the place to try them. Aside from bringing good luck, thirteen herbs are their secret, and anyone eating them surely is lucky.

Elsewhere in Taiwan, is lots of terrific Chinese food. Check out past articles, there are many in Volume 13(4) but that is but one place to look for them. Plan a trip to this many-faceted country, and until you do, try any or all of the Taiwanese recipes that follow. They can tingle taste buds readying you for the varied foods found there.

Taiwanese Lettuce Cups
Ingredients:
1/4 cup vegetable oil, divided in half
1/4 cup cashew nuts
1/2 pound flank steak, coarsely minced
6 to 8 shrimp, peeled, veins discarded, and coarsely chopped
3 Tablespoons mixed minced parsley and minced coriander
1 egg white
1 teaspoon oyster sauce
1 Tablespoon mushroom soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon sa cha sauce
1/2 teaspoon cornstarch
2 Tablespoons chicken soup stock
8 to ten iceberg lettuce cups, their edges trimmed neatly
1 ten-inch yao tai, a Chinese cruller, chopped coarsely
Preparation:
1. Heat the oil, stir-fry the cashew nuts until a light golden color, drain and set aside. Discard the oil.
2. Mix the steak, shrimp, and parsley mixture and set aside, and mix the egg white, oyster sauce, mushroom soy sauce, the sa cha sauce, and the chicken stock and set this aside separately.
3. Set out the lettuce cups dividing the chopped cruller into and among them.
4. Heat the other batch of oil and on high heat and add the beef mixture. Stir-fry this meat-shrimp-parsley mixture for one minute then add the sauce mixture. Stir-fry until almost all the liquid evaporates, about two minutes, then drain and put this mixture on the prepared lettuce cups.
5. Sprinkle the filled lettuce cups with the fried nuts, and serve.

Sea Cucumber with Pork Balls
Ingredients:
1 horny- or spiked-edge sea cucumber, soaked for one to two days, water changed every six hours
1/2 pound hand-chopped or ground pork loin
1 teaspoon cornstarch
6 Tablespoons Chinese rice wine, divided in half
1/2 teaspoon salt and ground white pepper mixture
1 cup vegetable oil for deep frying
5 slices peeled fresh ginger
2 scallions, each cut into one-inch pieces
2 Tablespoons dark soy sauce
1 Tablespoon granulated sugar
3 Tablespoons chicken broth or stock
2 Tablespoons cornstarch mixed with three tablespoons cold water
Preparation:
1. Cut the sea cucumber into one-inch pieces.
2. Make pork balls mixing the pork, cornstarch, rice wine and salt and pepper, and make this mixture into one-inch balls.
3. Heat oil in wok or deep pan and fry the pork balls until golden, about two or three minutes; then remove and drain them and discard the oil or save it for another use.
4. With oil clinging to the sides of the wok or pan, add the ginger and scallion pieces and stir-fry these for one minute. Then add sea cucumber, the rest of the wine, soy sauce, sugar, and chicken stock, and the pork balls. Bring this to the boil, cover, reduce the heat and simmer for ten minutes, remove the cover and raise the temperature and boil, stirring for abour another ten minutes or until the liquid will be almost evaporated.
5. Add the cornstarch water, and stir until it thickens, about a minute, then pour this over the sea cucumber-pork balls, transfer this to a pre-heated bowl, stir once or twice, and serve.

Salted Yolk-topped Steamed Pork
Ingredients:
5 salted egg yolks
1 Tablespoon oil or solid vegetable fat
1/2 pound pork loin, coarsely minced
1 pickled cucumber, minced
1 cup peeled and minced large white radish known as daikon
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar
1 teaspoon thin soy sauce
2 Tablespoons cornstarch mixed with two tablespoons cold water
Preparation:
1. Steam the salted egg yolks in a small heat-proof dish over boiling water for five minutes. Remove from the steamer, cool somewhat, then cut each one in half and set them aside.
2. Grease a round shallow low-sided heat-proof dish.
3. Gently mix chopped pork, cucumber, radish, ground pepper, sugar, and the soy sauce and put into this greased dish.
4. Place the steamed yolks evenly on the top, evenly spaced around the meat mixture, then put this dish over rapidly boiling water in a steamer for twenty minutes. Then remove and pour any liquid into a small pot before inverting the meat mixture onto a pre-heated dish with sides.
5. Mix any liquid in the steamed pork mixture with the cornstarch mixture, bring to the boil stirring until it thickens, and pour this over the meat mixture, and serve.

Oysters in Black Bean Sauce
Ingredients:
1/2 pound freshly shucked oysters
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3 slices fresh ginger
3 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
3 Tablespoons fermented black beans, soaked and mashed
2 scallions, cut into half-inch pieces
2 Tablespoons oyster sauce
2 teaspoons cornstarch mixed with one tablespoon cold water
Preparation:
1. Mix oysters with the salt, let rest for ten minutes then blanch them in one quart boiling water for half minute. Remove them promptly.
2. Heat wok, add the vegetable oil, then the ginger and the garlic, and stir-fry for one minute before adding the mashed black beans, Stir these for another minute then add the oysters and the cornstarch mixture and stir until thickened. Serve immediately.

Three-cup Stewed Chicken
Ingredients:
10 large cloves garlic, peeled and each one cut into four to six pieces
1/2 cup fresh ginger, peeled and cut into one-quarter inch pieces
1 chili pepper, seeded and sliced
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
1 two-to-three pound whole chicken, chopped into about twenty pieces
1 tablespoon fresh Chinese basil leaves
1 cup Chinese rice wine
1 cup sesame oil
1 cup mixed dark and thin soy sauce
1 teaspoon granulated sugar or crushed Chinese brown sugar
Preparation:
1.Using a heat-proof stove-top ceramic casserole, fill it with boiling water and discard the water, to pre-heat it.
2. Then put in all the ingredients in the order listed, and place this on high heat until it comes just to the boil, and immediately reduce the heat to a simmer. Cover the casserole for the first ten minutes, then remove the cover and continue simmering for another three quarters of an hour, never stirring the casserole.
3. Remove from the heat source, then stir, and serve.

Seven-layer Bean Curd Cake
Ingredients:
2 Tablespoons minced bamboo shoots
2 Tablespoons minced pre-soaked Chinese black mushrooms
2 Tablespoons minced scallions
2 Tablespoons minced peeled carrots
6 shrimp, peeled, veins removed, and minced
1/4 cup ground pork
1/2 teaspoon mixed salt and sugar
1 Tablespoon mixed sesame oil and Chinese rice wine
1 pound firm bean curd cut in half the long way, then sliced parallel to the table into four even slices
1/2 cup cake or tang flour
1 egg
10 Tablespoons vegetable oil, divided in half
several pieces of lettuce or spinach
Preparation
1. Gently mix minced bamboo shoots, black mushrooms, scallions, carrots, shrimp, pork, salt and pepper mixture, and the sesame oil and rice wine mixture. It is best to stir this in one direction only, and just until combined.
2. Divide the bean curd into two piles, four slices each, and divide the vegetable meat mixture in half.
3. Take one slice of the bean curd, and put one-third of one half of the meat mixture on one slice of the bean curd. Cover it with another piece of bean curd, and put one third more of this first half of the meat-vegetable mixture on top. Then add another layer of the meat mixture, and end with the last slice of this half of the bean curd. You will have seven layers. Then repeat with the other slices of bean curd and the other half of the meat-vegetable mixture.
4. Heat half the oil and fry one seven-layer bean curd stack for five minutes, carefully turn it over and fry for four more minutes, then remove this to paper towels. Repeat with the rest of the oil and the other seven layer bean curd stack.
5. Put greens on a platter and then cut each stack into four triangles. Stand them on their sides, points up, on the lettuce, and serve.

Straw Mushrooms and Crabmeat, Taiwanese Style
Ingredients:
1/2 pound fresh crab meat, bony structures removed and large pieces torn into smaller ones
10 small bok cai
3 Tablespoons vegetable oil
10 slices fresh ginger, peeled
1 teaspoon salt and ground white pepper
3 scallions, cut into one-inch pieces
1 can whole straw mushrooms, drained the liquid discarded
1 small fresh hot red pepper, seeded and cut into eight pieces
2 Tablespoons Chinese rice wine
Preparation:
1. Steam crab over boiling water for eight to ten minutes, remove it and steam the bok cai for two minutes, drain and remove.
2. Heat wok or fry pan, add oil, and just as it smokes add the ginger and scallion pieces,, stir once, then add the straw mushrooms and stir-fry one to two minutes before adding the hot pepper pieces and the crab meat. Stir, then add the bok cai, stir again, and serve.

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