Taiwanese Cuisine : Foods in Taiwan

it will be interesting to look at the food culture and cuisine of Taiwan, as it is not so widely known comparing to Japanese, Chinese and Korean cuisines which we are all familiar with. Personally, I like East Asian foods and I always like to eat it once in awhile.

Migrating here in the US, I see that there are less Taiwanese restaurants but there is an Asian store where you could buy Asian ingredients so that you can cook on you own, I cooked dumplings -- this is a ground meat and rolled in small thin wrapper and cooked steam or boiled and dip in a sauce of your choice. Usually soy sauce is a popular sauce in East Asian region, Taiwan included.

Taiwan is located at East Asia and is surrounded by bodies of oceans and seas, mostly China seas and south of it is the Luzon Straight, Philippines. It is floating in water and it is considered a tropical country. Taiwan has high peaks and flat land areas and is rich in natural resources and is conducive to planting sub tropical produce like corn, wheat, rice and lots of vegetables plus fruit.

Since Taiwan is surrounded by bodies of water they have lots of seafoods and farming is an occupation among the locals.

• Buddhism clearly influenced the culture of eating in Taiwan as they dont usually partake beef meat but then it is popular meat as ingredients to beef noodle soup

• China and Japan influenced the choices of food in Taiwan. Japan and Taiwan eats seafoods a lot and use soy sauce to season foods.
• They also used chopsticks like the Japanese, vietnamese and Chinese
  

__________

• The use of soy sauce as an ingredients which was influenced by the Chinese cuisine
• The Japanese occupation also influenced the food culture in Taiwan in the sense
• The use rice wine as ingredients in cooking like the Japanese
• The use of chopstick is clearly the influenced of Chinese
• Rice is a basis meal as well as noodles
  

• Tropical fruits are abound mostly similar to that of the Philippine fruits which grow in tropical areas like : papaya, melon and other sour fruits.
• They also plant sugar cane, rice and wheat and corn
• They also used cabbage, carrots, pechay, cauliflower broccoli in cooking

Aside from meat of pig, beef,  fishes and other seafoods  Taiwanese used as ingredients they also used soy sauce, pickles, green leafy vegetables, black pepper, chili

there are lots of foods which are sold in night markets at night and these ranges from seafoods like squids sold, sausages and sausage made with blood of animals blood pudding.

Some of the foods are :

• oyster omelettes -- mixture of egg, starch and oyster. We have our version of this in the Philippines.
• jiuhike -- cuttle fish with the shrimp paste
• misoa -- oyster vermicelli -- noodles vermicelli with soup and oyster. We call this misua in the Philippines
  
• Combi of pork blood and rice with ingredients and dip in soy sauce with chili
• tofu with vegetables served with spices like chili and soy sauce
• Sausages which are often small and is wrapped in bigger sausages
• Bawan -- dough with spices and pork and mushrooms with sweetened sauce
• Bowls of turkey with rice and daikon and mixed with ingredients from the turkey and sauce (soy)
• Grilled squid or fishes are also found at night market
  

• Loving the Filipino Cuisine

• Central Asian Cuisine

• South American Cuisine : The Food Culture in South America

• Central American Cuisine : Food Culture in Central America

• Burmese Cuisine : Foods in Burma