I’m going to do a series of short articles introducing traditional Taiwanese foods, as opposed to Taiwanese takes on Chinese cuisine. The distinction is somewhat arbitrary and difficult to define, but I would consider these to be Taiwanese dishes. For the tourist to Taiwan, these are the things you should try.
I’d like to start with one of my personal favorites—Taiwanese hamburger. In Chinese it is called ge bau (割包), but don’t call it that, it marks you as a neophyte to Taiwanese food. Call it gua bao (刈包), the Taiwanese way of saying the dish.
Gua bao is made from a steamed flat mantou (Chinese bun). The particular mantou used is two flat breads, shaped like half-circles, joined together along the straight spine. You can open the mouth of the mantou and place the ingredients between the two pieces of bread. It is vaguely like pita bread, though the bread itself is thicker, fluffier, and whiter. If you’re familiar with Japanese food, it is essentially the same as harata buns. The Japanese absorbed this dish during their Taiwanese occupation.
In the classic gua bao, the bun is filled with pork belly that has been red-braised, meaning stewed in a combination of rice wine, soy sauce, and various spices. The resulting meat is fatty (it is uncured bacon), soft (it is stewed), savory, with the taste of five-spice powder. Pork belly is a common dish in Taiwan, usually served with pickled or lightly cooked vegetables, to cut the meat’s richness. Naturally when somebody decided to create a pork belly sandwich, some of those side dishes made it into the gua bao, specifically pickled mustard greens, cilantro, and Taiwanese-style peanut powder. These three ingredients are what makes it Taiwanese gua bao.
The pickled mustard greens are made by taking a head of green mustard and fermenting/pickling [lacto-fermenting] it in a similar manner to sauerkraut or kimchi. The result is a slightly tart and zesty green vegetable. The fermentation process, unfortunately, takes away some of the mustard’s vibrant green, and also makes it a bit limp. To counteract the poor visuals, and add a more lively mouth-feel, fresh cilantro is added. (The cilantro is usually chopped with the stems to maintain as much crispness as possible). It could hardly be called a Taiwanese dish without cilantro—it’s on almost everything. The final ingredient is the Taiwanese peanut powder. It is made of finely ground peanuts and finely ground rock sugar.
If you go to a shop and order gua bao you usually are offered a choice of lean meat, fatty meat, or a mix. In general, the fattier the better, I personally prefer lean or perhaps mixed, but it is meant to be a very fatty dish. If you’re going to try it, I’d recommend putting your cardiologist on speed dial, and trying a rich one. That’s really how it is meant to be eaten, and it is delicious—umami, sweet, salty, and tart rolled into one aromatic bundle. It has diverse
textures and colors. Plus, it is messy enough to eat, that it is guaranteed to keep the kids entertained. It is awesome.
If you want to try this Taiwanese delicacy, the best place to begin your search is in, or near, a night market or wet market. That’s always the place to begin any quest for traditional Taiwanese cuisine.
interpersonal interactions, and live in Taiwan—theoretically a non-contact culture—but, a warm country with warm-hearted people. They get in my space sometimes.
During my first trip to Taiwan in 1986, forming a line was still an alien concept. In general, where you might expect a line up, the Taiwanese would form a scrum, and the most aggressive would emerge as the first person to get or do whatever. It was like China now. Normal rules of social distance did not apply in a Taiwanese “line”. When I came here to live that was changing, and generally people formed reasonably orderly lines. But, older people, whose social norms were established in an earlier time tended to not exactly understand the concept of lining up. They’d often cut in line, or join the line and then start pushing and shoving, like in the good ol’ days.
but I raised my hand up my side to just under my armpit, like a karateka moving into the horse stance. That caused my elbow to protrude behind me maybe 15 cm. I popped the old lady right in the middle of the forehead. I wasn’t trying to hit her. I don’t know what, if anything, was going through my head. I might have been trying to push back. When your space is violated the response can be instinctive. I still feel bad about that.
I’ve grown used to Taiwanese proxemics. I suspect they’re not too different from Canada, perhaps a slightly closer conversational distance and more intra-gender touching. I hardly notice it anymore, but there is one proxemics related thing that happens in Taiwan and drives me batty.
Why do Taiwanese men insist on violating international urinal rules? For the benefit of the ladies, the first rule of the urinal is thou shall not sidle up to a stranger, whip out your tallywacker, and begin performing essentially a private bodily function. If there are no other free urinals, then it is socially acceptable—keep your eyes forward. Pee-pee-makers must maintain a respectable interpersonal distance, like atoms in a gaseous state seeking equilibrium, fill the empty space first. Apparently, Taiwanese men are not signatories to the international peeing conventions. I blame China.
relatively small size of the facilities. Something similar happens in large bathrooms with a long wall of urinals. The Taiwanese just seem to be comfortable rubbing shoulders while tinkling.
ballroom dance halls, taxi dancers, and burlesque. These amusement were on their way out, but they still seemed vital.
However, I was transported back to a classier time, an age when eroticism was erotic.
popular in the 1960s. You know the type, very lyrical with no discernable rhythm. Undoubtedly a love ballad. She was accompanied live, onstage, by a small quartet. I was certainly no judge of Mandarin singing at the time, but it seemed passably fair.
managers hadn’t paid the police their bribe, so they’d been in the back of the theater ensuring no nudity.
the scooter’s primary use in other parts of the world is to allow drunken Shriners to ride around in circles without killing themselves. What is an aspiring tuff to do? Especially when so many of the scooters are so obviously marketed to young—one might even think pre-adolescent—women, with such blood-stirring names as the Hello Kitty 90, an all pink bike featuring the popular Asian teddy bear/cartoon character of the same name. Pretty hard to be macho bestriding that.
Into this void steps the Grand Dink 150. It has a plethora of do-dads including a large fairing, stepped seat, backrest, etc. that make the Grand Dink a phallic symbol in the greatest automotive tradition. Just don’t mention that the engine is the same size as your vacuum cleaner back home. Now Taiwanese men with inadequacy issues can ride a giant, well, relatively speaking,
phallic symbol like their American and Western European counterparts. For this purpose I think that the bike’s name is unusually candid. I mean none of this talk about wild horses or mythical creatures. It just gets straight to the crux of the matter. I personally ride one, and let me tell you the girls just “ooh” and “ahh” when you pull up straddling your Grand Penis.
the last couple decades. There have been some doozies, most of them now forgotten). Still…
behind the message turned on when it was the correct time to deliver the command—Come Now. Very intimidating. I spent a good number of years contemplating that sign, and considering giving it a go. For those not fluent in Chinglish, of course the meaning is that you should board the bus at the rear. I don’t ride the bus much anymore and haven’t noticed this sign in a long time. Maybe the bus companies have fixed them, or I’ve become desensitized.
and barbeque. Indeed there was a much wider availability of animal bones than meat. The bones were prized for making a healthful soup. There was a shortage of Western style drinks as well. Something as esoteric as a scotch and cigar, forget about it. Of course, there was no English entertainment, no books, no magazines, no TV, no movies; nothing in English. There was no way to buy clothes or other daily necessities. Deodorant? Sorry, not available in Korea.
I recall being shocked that potatoes, hence french fries, were a rarity. I went to a Taiwanese owned, “American style” steak house, the fries cost a small fortune, and when the meal arrived, amounted to 5-6 hand julienned pieces of potato. I attributed the Taiwanese fondness for sweet potato french fries to the lack of real potatoes on the island. The notion that the Taiwanese might have liked sweet potatoes never occurred to me. Now Taipei is a foodie mecca, there are restaurants offering well-thought-out menus featuring food from virtually everywhere. For a veteran of the expat scene, the quality of the Western food available is stunning. Indeed, sometimes when I return to Canada, I find myself disappointed with the quality of the restaurants, as compared to what is available in Taiwan.
When I first began my expat life in Korea, I used to fly to Hong Kong semi-regularly. I would hit Hong Kong like a whirlwind. I’d just go from fish & chip joint, to Irish Pub, to American style rib and burger joint, to Mc Donald’s in a near endless orgy of Western food intake, broken up sporadically by beers in Lan Kwai Fong, shopping for books, seeing some tv and buying enough stuff to (hopefully) survive Korea a while longer. When I first arrived in Taiwan, it was a similar situation, and Hong Kong was a place I looked forward to going for a touch of home. Things have changed. The availability of Western products and food in Taiwan beggars the imagination.