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Home , Taiwanese cuisine

Taiwanese and Its Culture

指導老師：張簡麗淑

應英系 4-2 邱以昀 1001417062

應英系 4-2 陳爾彬 1001417072

應英系 4-2 邵怡靜 1001417092

應英系 4-2 張雅如 1001417100

Department of Applied English,

Yuanpei University of Medical Technology

March 2015

Special Topic Report Signature Page

(Title of Special Topic) Taiwanese Cuisine and Its Culture

(Students’ Names) Bing Phoebe Sherry Kira

Special Topic Approved:

______Name of Committee Member

______Name of Committee Member

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April/2015

Power of Attorney for Yuanpei University of Medical Technology

Title: Taiwanese Cuisine and Its Culture Advisor: Monica Chang Chien I □agree □disagree to grant Yuanpei University Library (herein referred as Party A) the rights to, without limitation of time, territory, numbers of usage, either in paper or in digital form, edit and/or publicly distribute the listed work through store, duplication, issuance, web transmission, for individual, non-profit, and educational purposes, to let user(s) search, browse, download or print the listed work to exchange and circulate academic information.

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Copyright Owners: Class: 4-2 Student ID:1001417062 Student’s Name: ______Class: 4-2 Student ID:1001417072 Student’s Name: ______Class: 4-2 Student ID:1001417092 Student’s Name: ______Class: 4-2 Student ID:1001417100 Student’s Name: ______

April/2015

Acknowledgements

Our greatest debt is to Professor Monica Chang Chien, who painstakingly and scrupulously went through the early drafts of the text, always helping with invaluable suggestions. We also wish to thank Dr. Alex Liu, who provided stimulating direction, and other teachers of DAE, who offered sound insights and much vital encouragement. We’re particularly grateful to our family who told us to get on with it.

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Abstract

Food is a great way to become acquainted with ’s culture because plays a major role in people’s lives here. In English, the common greet is “How are you?” In Taiwan, it implies, “Have you eaten?” To Taiwanese, being able to eat is the basic gauge for happiness. Beyond its role as the gauge for happiness, food is something that allows one to see the overwhelming hospitality of the people in

Taiwan. Being a host is an important role here, and offering food to someone who is unfamiliar to a place or a certain type of food makes proud and honored.

One can find great Thai, Vietnamese, American, Japanese, Italian, and Indian as well as the different styles of foods from mainland in this amazing island. Taiwan’s unique ethnic influx experienced from China, in particular, offers a widespread variety of its cuisine in just a small area. This diversity gives us a window into the Taiwanese culture because the people here, just like the food, are friendly and welcoming to foreigners. One other arena for food enjoyment is something unique in Taiwan: the night market. On a pleasant evening, people crowd night market streets where they can enjoy a variety of different foods for extremely low prices. , , steaks, sushi, and desserts are all available, and these night markets provide a place for the community to come together and friends to rendezvous.

Whether eating a huge wedding feast or having cheap but delicious around a night market, food is something to celebrate, and it is a great way to learn about Taiwan. Not only does Taiwanese cuisine give insight into the culture in many significant ways, but it is delicious, as diverse as the people, and a reason to be happy.

Keywords: Taiwan’s culture, hospitality, night market, Taiwanese cuisine

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements...... i Abstract...... ii Introduction...... 1 ...... 3 Omelet...... 4 The Featured Food for Festivals...... 6 Night Market...... 10 Zuo Yezi...... 11 Taiwanese Desserts...... 12 Conclusion...... 14

Works Cited...... 17

Introduction

Food is a great way to become acquainted with Taiwan’s culture because food plays a major role in people’s lives here. A common greeting in Taiwan is “chi bao le ma,” meaning “are you full?”

The question implies not only that being able to eat is central in the Taiwanese mind, but also that if you have eaten, you are happy or alright. Being able to eat is the basic gauge for happiness.

There is also a saying which infers Taiwanese dinning culture. That is:

“While eating, one deserves dignity and superiority.” (吃飯皇帝大)

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Beyond its role as the gauge for happiness, food is something that allows one to see the overwhelming hospitality of the people in Taiwan. This hospitality implies a very strong sense of community and fellowship in Taiwan. Not only is being a host important, but eating good food with friends and/or family is the norm.

Taiwanese cuisine and its culture can also be viewed in a way that many Asian countries cannot: as a melting pot of people. The reason is that Taiwan’s history has involved countries such as Holland, Portugal, Japan, and China. Thus, its cuisine is as diverse as its people, and almost every dish has its own story.

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Beef Noodle Soup

Take and oyster omelet for examples. Beef noodle soup is one of the most popular Taiwanese dishes. Yet, it was invented by a retired old soldier from Sichuan.

This soldier came to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-Shek’s troops around 1949. After he settled down in this island, he suffered from serious homesickness because he missed his native dishes and their tasty flavor.

One day, he cooked slabs of beef in Sichuan spicy soup, and then put noodles in it. He shared the noodle soup with his friends who were fond

3 of it. Eventually, it became very popular. That was the origin of beef noodle soup.

Oyster Omelet

As for the oyster omelet, there is a different story. According to Taiwanese legend, Dutch troops invaded Taiwan in 1661. Zheng Cheng Gong was assigned to beat the foreign force.

Yet he found that the enemy had stolen and hidden all the food, especially . Challenged by the shortage of food, Zheng’s troops encountered the problem of famines. In order to feed his soldiers, Zheng came up with an idea to use the local sea food – oyster, as their main .

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They mixed oyster with starch, and egg to make it an omelet. No one knew that it would turn out to be one of the most popular dim sums (snacks) in Taiwan.

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The Featured Food for Festivals

Different types of food can be almost synonymous with certain festivals. For example, sticky rice wrapped in leaves is popular during the Dragon Boat Festival, while moon cakes are common during the Mid-Autumn Festival. In this latter festival, the foods are symbolic.

The round shape of the moon cakes represents the full moon and the wholeness of the family. They essentially represent community and togetherness, as the moon does.

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For Taiwanese, the winter solstice is a time to eat healthy foods, such as mutton , chicken, or ginger duck soup. Ginger duck soup was invented by Wu Zhong, a physician of

Shang Dynasty.

In order to revive his sick king, Wu Zhong put special herbal medicine and ginger roots to duck. This stew’s flavor gets better with the seasoning of and sesame oil, filling the room with a wonderful aroma. It is believed to keep the body warm and help people fight sicknesses.

The winter solstice is also celebrated as the Dong Zhi festival. At this time, Taiwanese people take part in an important activity – eating tangyuan. Tangyuan, made of rice flour, is usually plain or stuffed with powder or sesame paste and cooked in sweet soup. It is stuffed with meat, too.

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The name tangyuan sounds like the Chinese word for “reuniting,” and it is a reminder that we are all a year older after eating tangyuan. So, on the day of the winter solstice, be sure to get together with your family and celebrate this special day. On Lunar New Year’s Eve, Taiwanese usually get together to enjoy a hot pot . They usually apply the Wu-Xing principle, known as five elements, in the hot pot. The word 'element' is thus used within the context of Chinese medicine with a connotation.

They believe that the proper order of five elements will offer a "mutual generation" (xiangsheng 相生) sequence. Vegetables of various colors will multiply the effect of their nutrients.

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So Taiwanese stew turnip (white), mushroom or jew (black), burdock or pumpkin (yellow), carrot or (red), and leaves (green) to make the broth. The more colors in the hot pot, the better it will be for the body. The hot pot thus embodies not only the richness of the nutrients but also the wholeness of the family.

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Night Market The other arena for food enjoyment is something unique in Taiwan: the night market. Night markets are exactly what the name for them implies: markets set up, outside, during the night.

Here in the night market, you may enjoy various xiao-chi in Mandarin (“small eats”). “Small eats” are something like a delicacy, snack, or one dish of a main meal. On a pleasant evening, people crowd night market streets where they can enjoy a variety of different foods for extremely low prices. Barbecue, seafood, sushi, and desserts are all available, and these night markets provide a place for the community to come together and friends to rendezvous.

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The night market is worth mentioning because it is such a big part of Taiwanese culture, and it is largely centered around food. People can eat all night long at night markets, and people of all ages can enjoy hanging out at the night market.

It’s a great way to sample small amounts of different kinds of food for cheap prices, from (Taiwan Burger), rou-yuan (meatball ), uann-kue (“bowl-pasties”), to o-a-mi-suann (slender noodles with ).

Zuo Yezi

Besides various “small eats,” postpartum diets are unique food for women during maternity leave. After giving birth, most Taiwanese women will be asked to follow the convention of Zuo Yezi (staying out a month) and enjoy their postpartum diets.

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During the specific period of time, postpartum diets will be offered in order to help the recovery of a woman’s body, milk production, preventing infection and chronic disease prevention. Postpartum diets illustrate how we cherish a new mother and her baby.

Among the various postpartum diets, sesame oil chicken is served more than often for women during Zou Yezi, and it turns out eventually to be one of the most popular dishes in this island, especially in winter.

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Taiwanese Desserts

The last but not the least, we would like to mention about is Taiwanese desserts. A popular dessert in Hualien is “muaji,” or rice ground into gooey that is filled with something. This dessert is not very sweet, and the “fillers,” or material put inside the dough, are things like red beans, peanut paste, coconut, etc. All of these are natural products that actually contain nutritional value.

Other desserts or sweets that are popular in Taiwan are pearl milk , Taiwanese ice cream, and a dessert called u tou xi mi lu. It contains , black rice, coconut milk, and balls. Once you try it, you will never forget it. Pearl is milk tea with balls of tapioca which are sucked through a straw. It becomes so popular that even Western people love it.

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Taiwanese ice cream, another popular dessert, is actually not ice cream at all, because it contains no cream. It is topped with , sweet potatoes, jelly, bits, , and many other things. It’s the favorite dessert of Taiwanese in summer.

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Most of the Taiwanese desserts are quite healthy, when compared to the sugar-filled cakes, ice creams, and candies. They are also simply delicious. Overall, they seem to be less sweet and consumed less fat than that in western countries. The low obesity in Taiwan may be due to this reason.

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Conclusion

Whether eating a huge festival feast or are walking around a night market, eating cheap but delicious meals, food is something to celebrate, especially in Taiwan, and it is a great way to learn about this amazing island.

The very act of eating is a display of community. Large dishes are placed at the center of the table, and everyone takes from these community plates and puts the food from them in their personal rice bowls. It is this simple gesture of sharing which makes eating here a bonding and special experience. By comparison, in the West, meals are

15 almost always personal. After all, the role of food in Taiwan is that it keeps in perspective some of the simple pleasures we should be grateful for.

There are many important things to be learned from the food in Taiwan. Not only does it give insight into the culture in many significant ways, but it is delicious, as diverse as the people, and a reason to be happy.

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Works Cited http://www.formosaguide.com/p/night-markets-in-taipei.html 2014.03.15 https://tw.knowledge.yahoo.com/question/question;_ylt=A8tUwYBfbiJVW38ACFpr1 gt.;_ylu=X3oDMTBybHBsYjY1BHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDOQRjb2xvA3R3MQR2dGl kAw--?qid=1205081607496 2014.03.10 http://big5.china.com.cn/ch-jieri/yuanxiao/2.htm 2014.03.12 http://big5.china.com.cn/ch-jieri/zhongqiu/2.htm 2014.03.16 http://simon0723.pixnet.net/blog/post/9153734-%E2%98%86%E3%80%80%E3%80 %90%E7%89%9B%E8%82%89%E9%BA%B5%E3%80%91%E7%9A%84%E6%A D%B7%E5%8F%B2%E6%95%85%E4%BA%8B%E3%80%80%E2%98%85 2014.03.18 http://www.epochtimes.com.tw/5/12/31/18641.htm%E7%81%AB%E9%8D%8B%E7 %9A%84%E7%94%B1%E4%BE%86 2014.03.25 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beef_noodle_soup 2014.03.27 http://www.sinica.edu.tw/tit/dining/0396_Noodle.html 2014.04.05 https://tw.knowledge.yahoo.com/question/question;_ylt=A8tUwY1TlCNVDgkAGgxr 1gt.;_ylu=X3oDMTBydTdmYjgyBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMQRjb2xvA3R3MQR2dG lkAw--?qid=1205081506294 2014.04.18 http://big5.huaxia.com/hxjk/zhms/yswh/2008/06/989602.html 2014.04.20 https://tw.knowledge.yahoo.com/question/question;_ylt=A8tUwY1TlCNVDgkAIAxr 1gt.;_ylu=X3oDMTByMHM4NXRxBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMwRjb2xvA3R3MQR2 dGlkAw--?qid=1305090517443 2014.04.20 https://tw.knowledge.yahoo.com/question/question;_ylt=A8tUwZfXlSNVOm8Ae2tr1 gt.;_ylu=X3oDMTBydTdmYjgyBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMQRjb2xvA3R3MQR2dGl kAw--?qid=1205081506294 2014.04.22 https://tw.knowledge.yahoo.com/question/question?qid=1106100202858 2014.04.25 http://famouswonders.com/taiwanese-desserts/ 2014.04.25 https://mrnaomi.wordpress.com/category/taiwan-dessert/ 2014.04.28 http://pohantseng.pixnet.net/blog/post/20137993-taiwanese-dessert-in-night-market 2014.04.26 http://travel.cnn.com/explorations/eat/40-taiwanese-food-296093 2014.04.27 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_markets_in_Taiwan 2014.04.28 http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jan/13/local/la-me-chinese-birth-20121204 2014.05.01 http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2099912,00.html 2014.05.03

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