Old Ingredients, New Recipes

While everyone is pursuing exquisite dishes made by internationally famous chefs, have you ever stopped to try the delicious flavors of Taiwan’s rural cuisine? In this month’s Cover Story, we explore the revolution in “new local tastes” brought about by members of the “Tian Mama” certified eatery system. They may not be professional chefs, but they are magicians who understand local terroirs and ingredients, and have turned ordinary rural dishes into cuisine that best represents the tastes of Taiwan.

In Taichung’s Nantun District, the century-­old Wish Lin bakery uses the leaves of the jute plant—from which the older generation used to make a cooling summer soup—to flavor many of its baked goods. The leaves’ grassy aroma now graces exquisite contemporary cakes and pastries.

At Huaquan Leisure Farm in Yuanshan, Yilan County, the butterfly ginger flowers that grow beside the farm’s spring waters are no longer just a lovely scenic element—they have been incorporated into organic zongzi dumplings. Having learned her cooking skills from her mother, Huaquan’s chef also prepares Yilan-style braised pork and cabbage stew, a famous staple of the county’s diet, so that guests can savor the life rhythms of the Lanyang Plain.

In Taichung’s Shigang District, devastated by the Jiji Earthquake of September 21, 1999, a group of women have transformed homemade red yeast rice into sweet, fragrant red yeast rice cakes with longans. This food has enabled them to recover economic independence and dignity, and they even use some of their profits to give back to the community, manifesting the Hakka spirit of collective resilience. 

At Dajili Tribal House, a Tian Mama eatery in Hualien’s Xiulin Township, the Truku Indigenous owners creatively incorporate wild vegetables such as bird’s-nest fern and ailanthus prickly ash into their food, belying the stereotype that Indigenous restaurants are no match for those operated by members of the majority Han ethnicity. They also incorporate wood sculpture and plant-dye cloth printing into visitors’ itineraries, telling the stories of Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples.

These simple rural flavors have the potential to make an international impact. For example, at Natural Tea Manor in Xizhi, New Taipei City, the fourth-­generation proprietors blend their homegrown Bao­zhong and Tieguanyin teas into their meals. The Michelin-recommended eatery is proof that creative reinterpretations of traditional rural flavors can be recognized by the inter­national culinary community. 

In these delicious dishes, we not only taste the abundance of our land, we see how people in Taiwan treasure traditions and courageously innovate along the way.