The Food of Taiwan

My fascination with Taiwan (and food) continues.

The author, Cathy Erway, is an American born half-Taiwanese.  She visited Taiwan in college and became fascinated with the food.  When deciding upon the recipes for her cookbook, she wanted to include only recipes that had a deep cultural foundation in Taiwan.

I love that much of the book talks about the history and people of Taiwan, setting up the context for her recipes.

She talks about the history of Taiwan, from the original aborigines, to Dutch settlers looking for sulfur for gunpowder and establishing forts in the early 1600s, to the Ming Dynasty transplants forced from China by the Manchurians (the founder, Koxing, was half-Japanese and half-Chinese, like me!) in 1660 and ousting of the Dutch in 1662, to the defeat by the Qing Dynasty in 1683, to the ceding of Taiwan to Japan after China lost the Sino-Japanese war, resulting in Japanese rule from 1895-1945, and then the People's Republic of China's ousting of Republic of China's supporters to Taiwan after a long Chinese civil war.  She talks about the changing political climate leading to the first presidential election in 1996.

In the next chapter, she talks about the diversity of the ethnic groups in Taiwan.  She says that there are 23.3 million people there, divided into 4 major groups.  She says the majority are of Hoklo descent and originally from the Fujian province in China.  There are another group that came over after the Japanese ceded Taiwan, and these people are from all over China.  She says that the aboriginal Taiwanese only account for a small percentage of the population, while the Hakka people from China represent another large group.

She then talks about the geography and the resulting agricultural practices.  She says it's wooded forest and jungle over about 50% of the island, and there is an overall hot and humid climate.  She says that the island is well suited to grow sugar cane and rice, and tea in the high mountainous region.  There are also tropical fruits that are major exports.  Fishing is abundant, and they raise their own livestock with imports making up for any demand not met locally.

She has very nice recipes in the book, from the very popular dishes like three-cup chicken, beef noodle soup, pork belly buns, and minced pork on rice, and there are also dishes I've never seen before like Taiwanese burrito, coffin cake, and deep fried sweet potato balls.

I read this book on my phone, borrowed from the library, and last night I went to my mom's house and she had the hard copy.  I love this cookbook and I plan to buy the hard copy!