The Taste of Time:

We visit Chenjie Farm in Taoyuan’s Longtan District, where rows of ceramic vats glitter in the sunlight. Owner Liu Mei-hsia says with a laugh: “The reason we are pickling so many radishes is that the contract farmer who supplies us misheard our order for 10,000 catties as 100,000.”

A beautiful misunderstanding

Liu, who worked in the printing and binding industry for more than 30 years, tell us her story from the beginning. In 1996 she became ill from overwork and began to pay particular attention to the sources of her food. In Hengchun, Pingtung County, she found mustard greens that “looked tough, but in fact were very tender,” making excellent raw material for pickled mustard greens. There were also niuyizai radishes, a small local variety. Grown in the red laterite soil under the intense Hengchun sunshine, with the föhn winds blowing off the mountains, they were exceptionally fresh and sweet.

Having found good ingredients in Hengchun, Liu went ahead and contracted an order for 10,000 catties (6,000 kilograms) of radishes from a small farmer to make pickled radishes.

Unexpectedly, when the radishes were delivered the farmer said he had 100,000 catties, and with each side sticking to their guns, the farmer declared: “You Taipei people always back out.” To save the reputation of Taipei people, she bit the bullet and accepted all 100,000 catties.

“If a small farmer pulls up 100,000 catties of radishes by hand, he would probably need to seek medical care. That applied all the more to us, since we had to wash them and pickle them in salt. We nearly went crazy doing it, but luckily I had done factory work in the past.” Liu’s description of the situation brings a smile to her listeners’ faces.

She decided in the end to leave the mistake uncorrected, and began to pickle 100,000 catties of radishes each year. This is how she ended up with more than 1,600 pickling vats filled with “black treasure,” as the hard work of the past became the joyous family tradition of the present.

Hsu Zong, an expert on dietary culture, says that black radishes are one of Taiwan’s most representative foods.

With the passage of time, this everyday food takes on a refined taste.

Salt softens, sugar ferments

The annual radish harvest in Hengchun generally takes place in the 45 days following Mid-Autumn Festival. Around this time, Liu washes over 1,000 catties (600 kilos) of white radishes per day and then pickles them for five days in coarse salt, using about three catties (1.8 kg) of salt for every 50 catties (30 kg) of radishes. Then she places them in ceramic vats and ferments them with sugar for eight months.

Around August or September of the following year, she removes the radishes from the vats and dries them in the sun. She stresses that she first lays them out in the sun for about three days, then brings them in for two days to observe their moisture content before again putting them out in the sunshine for another two to three days.

The sun-dried radishes are then sealed into vats, where they undergo the improvements of time and nature. Liu says that although the outcomes in the different vats are by no means identical, after three years of storage they are all transformed into “black radishes,” with the juices taking on a reddish coffee color. Ten-year-old black radishes become glossy, and when cut up and put directly in the mouth, they are soft with a sweet and salty taste, and also soothe and moisten the throat.

Radishes pickled using Liu’s method have been praised by Hsu Zong, who is chairman of the ­Taiwan Culinary Arts Association, as the premium-quality products of a master. Hsu suggests: “Pickling in salt creates mouthfeel, while pickling in sugar aims for a lingering aftertaste. The flavor of Liu Mei-hsia’s sugar-pickled radishes is like candied sweet potatoes.” He avers that slices of three-year-old black radishes make a perfect pairing with the cask-aged sweet potato spirits made by the Heng Chi Distillery in Taoyuan. He even recommended to a food select shop that they turn this combination into a gift set, and it has become a hot seller.

As a result of a verbal misunderstanding years ago, Liu Mei-hsia of Chenjie Farm is today surrounded by vast numbers of radish pickling vats.

Every six months, black radishes must be checked for maturation and color.

The value of time and local flavor

Hsu Zong, who has been researching and collecting pickled radishes for over a decade, argues that food that has stood the test of time will manifest an elegant flavor, just as aged radishes do. He says: “Taiwan is located on the Tropic of Cancer, and radishes that are sun-dried at this latitude have a unique taste.” This claim may sound somewhat exaggerated, so Hsu explains more scientifically that the ultraviolet rays of the sun affect the polyphenol oxidases in the radishes, creating unique flavors. Radishes contain sulfur, which can kill bacteria, but they also have a very high water content. During sun-drying the polyphenol oxidases catalyze chemical changes in the radishes, and during the aging process, lactic acid bacteria from the air ferment them, creating an authentic “taste of Taiwan.”

In response to one of our questions, Hsu reveals that he possesses a 140-year-old piece of black radish, but he quickly adds: “The age of a dried radish is a matter of belief, because there is no scientific method to determine it nor any rigorous certification system.”

There are many rumors going around about black radishes. One story tells of a person who discovered some aged black radishes with the appearance of charcoal under his grandmother’s bed. Like finding aged bricks of pu’er tea, this was like striking gold. However, there are also many businesses that use enzymes and high temperatures to accelerate the aging of pickled radishes.

Hsu believes that radishes pickled with salt and fermented by the action of multiple different micro­organisms have to be at least three years old to be authentically defined as “aged.”

Chenjie Farm’s ten-year-old aged radishes (left) have a glossy black color. They are soft with a sweet, salty taste similar to salted dried fruit. The younger radishes in the jar at right have salt crystals on their surface.

Manifesting ethnic identity

You can tell something about the nature of an ethnic group from their pickled foods, avers Hsu. He says that the acidic, spicy, strong flavor of Korean kimchi is similar to the national character of Koreans. What about Taiwan’s ethnic identity? Comparatively speaking, Taiwanese are more gentle and elegant. For example, aged pickled radishes, an ingredient that others might disdain, are used in chicken soup, giving the broth a more refreshing and sweet flavor.

Hsu also says that one can see ethnic differences in the pickling methods and uses of pickled radishes.

He notes that while his opinion may not be accurate, after visiting many rural households he has been able to accumulate some simple statistical evidence. For example, Hakka people treat pickled radish as an everyday cooking ingredient, using it more often in ordinary dishes (such as pickled radish stir-fried in lard, Hakka-­style zongzi, or radish-and-mugwort steamed rice cakes) than do Minnan (Hoklo) people. Minnan people, on the other hand, are more likely to use black radishes to make soup or stew.

Black radishes put the finishing touch on stir-fried seasonal vegetables.

The black radish flavor wheel

Hsu opines that the taste and appeal of aged pickled radishes has changed over time and with the use of different radish varieties. For example, the Qingxin Eco-Friendly Agricultural Production Cooperative in Gongguan, Miaoli County, uses the ‘Rosy’ variety supplied by the Known-You Seed Company, which they pickle in salt to make unique “red pickled radish.”

Hsu suggests that we can try to construct a simple flavor wheel for black radish. For example, one can first differentiate between radishes with an ideal level of saltiness and those without. Most people can distinguish aged radishes that have the salty flavor of vegetables pickled in salt from those with a flavor more like salt-cured ham. In other words, does the radish have the saltiness of salted vegetables or that of soy sauce?

Next comes the degree of acidity and of sweetness and freshness, which one can assess based on the flavors one encounters in daily life.

With black radishes, the question arises of how one can know for sure how long they have been aged. Hsu says that it is necessary to have an unbiased third party to define the salt content and bacterial count, and have products certified by accredited taste-­testers. He hopes in the future to promote the founding of a Taiwan Flavors Academy, with a system of expert tasters similar to those that already exist for wine, oil, and vinegar. The system can be based on that used for Parmigiano‡­Reggiano (Parmesan) cheese, whereby the cheese is graded according to the number of years it has matured. Only then can one construct a credible commercial mechanism that can give traditional Taiwanese foods a new direction.

Black radish risotto has a rich flavor.