In Search of the Muâ-ínn Soup in Taiwan Travelogue

A cooling staple at everyday tables

“Strictly speaking, there is no plant called muâ-ínn,” says young farmer Chen Junru of City Farmer Chicken Farm, explaining the origins of the name with a smile: In Taiwanese Hokkien, ínn refers to a plant’s tender new shoots; muâ-ínn means the tender leaves of the jute plant. During the Japanese colonial period, jute was widely grown in central Taiwan, its stem fibers used to make sacks and ropes for shipping exported sugar and rice. Resourceful Taiwanese cooks used the discarded tender leaves to make muâ-ínn soup. which, characterized by a grassy aroma, slight bitterness, and lingering sweet aftertaste, became a cooling dish found only in Taichung.

Jute is at its peak production from May to September each year, when muâ-ínn soup begins appearing in Taichung’s markets and snack stalls. Chen says that in the Taichung area, muâ-ínn soup is a household dish, one many people have eaten since childhood. “A bowl of soup represents a story, a family memory,” she says. In farming communities back in the days when everyone worked in the fields, people would always have a bowl of muâ-ínn soup during the midday break to cool off. Each household has its own way of preparing and eating it. Most add sweet potatoes and whitebait, while some include water spinach for extra texture. Interestingly, muâ-ínn soup can be served hot or cold: Some prefer it steaming, while others chill it in the refrigerator. It can be enjoyed on its own or poured over rice, depending on each family’s tastes.

Through food and agricultural education, students learn that jute was once grown for rope and cloth, while muâ-ínn soup developed from farm families’ ethic of making full use of what they had.

Jute leaves are also eaten in other parts of the world. The variety eaten in Taiwan is round-podded (left), with a bitter note that gives way to a sweet aftertaste. Elsewhere, the long-podded variety (right) is more common; it is less bitter and does not require rubbing before cooking, but it lacks the same lingering sweetness.

Muâ-ínn soup at four in the morning

We went searching for muâ-ínn soup in Nantun Market. At an old-style snack stall selling steamed rice cakes and thick misua noodle soup, a sign reading “seasonal muâ-ínn soup” came as a welcome surprise. There it was at the stall: green soup served in bowls or ladled into plastic bags.

Gleaming emerald green, the soup is made with orange sweet potatoes and whitebait, seasoned only with salt to bring out the pure flavors of the ingredients. Served cold, it is refreshing with a grassy fragrance. The sweetness of the sweet potatoes and the briny savor of the tiny fish perfectly balance muâ-ínn’s slight bitterness. Smooth and easy to drink, it goes down irresistibly one gulp after another, making the summer heat seem to vanish.

This gleaming emerald-green muâ-ínn soup is made with orange sweet potatoes and whitebait, and seasoned only with salt to let the ingredients’ pure flavors come through

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The stall owner, Auntie Meijin, says muâ-ínn is labor-intensive to prepare, so she gets up at four in the morning to begin. In the past, many families made muâ-ínn soup at home, but because the preparation takes so much time, it has become less common in modern households. People now buy it ready-made at the market, giving Auntie Meijin the chance to share the simple, home-style flavor of her family kitchen with the public.

Chen Junru grew up drinking muâ-ínn soup. After returning home to grow jute, she developed a range of food-and-farming activities around muâ-ínn, hoping to introduce more people to this culturally distinctive plant.

A young farmer revives muâ-ínn culture

Safeguarding this bowl of soup, which embodies the memories of countless families, requires not only people willing to cook it, but also people willing to grow the main ingredient. When Chen Junru returned to her hometown of Nantun to farm, she decided to revive jute cultivation in order to pass on the local culture of muâ-ínn.

In the process, Chen was startled to find an intergenerational knowledge gap about muâ-ínn. There are many varieties of jute. In other countries, people more commonly make soups with the leaves of a long-podded variety; these leaves do not need to be rubbed or crushed before cooking, but the resulting food lacks the lingering sweet finish. Taichung’s traditional edible-leaf variety is a round-podded type. To clarify the differences, Chen searched widely and studied the literature. Only with guidance from retired agricultural elders was she able to reconnect with and carry forward Taichung’s local cultivation techniques.

There are many varieties of jute. Three can be seen at City Farmer Chicken Farm: at far left is the long-podded variety eaten overseas; in the middle, with long, slender leaves, is the round-podded variety eaten in Taiwan; at far right is another round-podded variety, with thicker stems and more bitter leaves, most often grown as raw material for jute rope.

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Knowing that modern cooks are often discouraged by the work required to prepare muâ-ínn, Chen has developed convenient frozen packs and muâ-ínn powder. Through her efforts, muâ-ínn has quietly entered Michelin-recommended restaurants and the kitchens of Michelin Green Star chefs, where it has been transformed into desserts, pesto, and more, helping spark a revival of muâ-ínn culture.

Chen Junru has developed convenient frozen packs and muâ-ínn powder, opening new possibilities for this labor-intensive ingredient. Pictured here is delicately fragrant muâ-ínn ice cream.

Chen Junru believes that each bowl of muâ-ínn soup represents a memory. For anyone seeking to understand Taichung’s history, culture, and food, she says, muâ-ínn is an ideal entry point because it is interwoven with the city’s social change.

Banquet-worthy complexity

In Taiwan Travelogue, Aoyama Chizuko marvels that preparing muâ-ínn soup is almost as elaborate as preparing banquet fare. We saw for ourselves just how true this was during one of Chen Junru’s food and agricultural education sessions.

One afternoon, Chen brought fresh jute to Tzu Ming High School, offering a first encounter with muâ-ínn to a group of overseas compatriot students who had never heard of the soup.

Overseas compatriot students from several countries remove the veins from muâ-ínn leaves by hand, then repeatedly rub the leaves to squeeze out the bitter juices, gaining a deep appreciation for how much work goes into a single bowl of muâ-ínn soup.

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“For muâ-ínn soup to taste good, the preparation is crucial,” Chen explains as she demonstrates each step. The bitterness comes mainly from the leaf veins, so the tough central veins must be carefully stripped from the leaves one by one. The tender leaves are then placed in a soy-milk filter bag, rubbed repeatedly on a washboard, and rinsed with cold water until the bitter juices run out and the leaf tissue breaks down. Only then can the green mass be added to a pot already boiling with sweet potatoes and whitebait. At last, a rich, emerald-green pot of muâ-ínn soup is complete.

“Each bowl of muâ-ínn soup represents a memory,” Chen says with feeling. “So if you want to understand Taichung’s history, culture, and food, muâ-ínn is the perfect place to start, because it has been pervasive throughout the city’s social evolution.” Midsummer has arrived, and this Taichung-only flavor, with its distinctive slight bitterness and lingering sweetness, is telling the story of this land to the world.

Venerable Chang Lu, chairperson of Tzu Ming High School (front row, center), is pleased to see international students connect more closely with the land through food and agricultural education centered on Taichung’s distinctive muâ-ínn soup.

At their first taste of muâ-ínn soup, faces often show both surprise and delight.