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Taiwan is a food-lover's paradise, with tasty treats, delicious dishes, scrumptious suppers, marvelous morsels... a versatile, vast variety of fabulous foods. John and Eryk aren't really down with the whole clichéd, “let's make stuff about foreigners eating stinky tofu” phenomenon, but we decided to do a food episode, topped with some yummy yarns from yesteryear. Hear the origin story of the locally globally-famous Chiayi turkey rice, the 15-star gourmet Din Tai Fung restaurant chain, and finally, yes, we'll sniff out some feelings on chou doufu 臭豆腐, the smelly snack that seems to somehow always steal the show.
Cover image: The (in)famous stinky tofu. (Image via Wikimedia Commons)
Below: As John Ross says in this episode, he could find no solid evidence on how turkeys first came to Taiwan, but this FB post by Katy Hui-Wen Hung may point to them arriving several centuries before the Dutch.
Below: Yes, chou doufu smells rather nasty. And, yes, many people think it tastes good. It is not, however, "representative" of Taiwanese cuisine. Ok, enough about stinky tofu.
Ok, a bit more on chou doufu (臭豆腐). Here's what Wiki has to say about the history and chemical analysis of this tasty(?) snack:
According to a Chinese legend, a scholar named Wang Zhihe (王致和) hailing from Anhui Province invented stinky tofu during the Qing dynasty. After failing the imperial examination, Wang stayed in Beijing and relied on selling tofu to make a living. One day, having a huge quantity of unsold tofu on his hands, he cut the tofu into small cubes and put them into an earthen jar. The stinky tofu that Wang Zhihe invented gained popularity and was later served at the imperial Qing Dynasty palace.
A 2012 chemical analysis found 39 volatile organic compounds that contributed to the unique smell and taste of fermented stinky tofu. The main volatile compound was indole, which has an intense fecal odor - Yay!
Click HERE for an article and recipe for Taiwanese beef noodle soup.
Learn more about Taiwanese oyster omelettes by watching THIS VIDEO from Angel Wong's Kitchen.
Spraying Water Chicken Rice Restaurant chain (Chiayi)
Taiwanese restaurant chain Din Tai Fung
Ban tiao noodles (flat rice noodles – a Hakka dish)
Check our very first episode, the story of a very white man who showed up in London in 1703... and claimed to be from Formosa. Or try a foodie episode from Season 3. Or, for those who want some harder-core history, hear the tale of the Lockheed U-2 pilot Wang Hsi-chueh 王錫爵, who became was famous for defecting to the PRC by hijacking China Airlines Flight 334 on May 3, 1986.
