Chinese cooking has always especially prized seafood, and nowhere in China is its status higher than in Taiwan. Go to any market, night market, small restaurant or outdoor stall, and you will find a wide choice of delicious creatures from the sea.

In 1984, Taiwan's fishing industry reported an annual catch of 1,003,000 tons, three-fourths of which was caught on the high seas, with the remaining quarter coming from fish farms. 60% went straight to domestic markets, while the rest was sold, either fresh or frozen, in foreign ports. The fishmeal industry also claimed a share, using it for canned fish, fish sauces, and fishballs.

Keeping fish alive is no easy chore. Usually the catch is packed in plastic containers full of seawater and oxygen and then trucked or flown immediately to the market, where it is placed in sizable water tanks, such as the type seen at Taipei's South Gate Market. As lobsters, prawns, crabs, and reed shrimp scuttle across the sandy bottom, and grouper, shad and herring smoothly make their rounds about the tank, buffeted by a continuous current, the scene resembles a miniature ocean. Elsewhere, in other tanks, sit clams of many different shapes and colors.

As living standards have risen in Taiwan. consumers' tastes have become more refined, and seafood cooking has slowly become more specialized and developed. A full stomach will no longer do. Since Taiwan's inhabitants come from all parts of China, the styles of seafood preparation here are many, with among the most noted being the cuisines of Chekiang, Fukien, and Kwangtung, China's Southeast coastal provinces. They all prefer light, mild flavors, eschewing the heavy sauces and overcooking which hide the true flavor of the seafood.

According to the writer Liu Pen-yan, well-to-do Chekiang families used to test the cooking skills of newly-arrived daughters-in-law by giving them a hilsa herring to prepare. If she cut off the fish scales, then the family had an amateur in their midst. A thin film of oil lays beneath the tiny scales of the hilsa herring, which when cooked yields a succulent flavor. Such refinement and discrimination regarding seafood is found perhaps only in Chekiang cuisine.

In addition to standards such as baked eel and steamed crab, Chekiang cooking also features an assortment of lesser-known but exquisite seafood fare. One such dish is "glass lobster", in which the lobster is wrapped in cellophane paper and then deep-fried in oil. In another dish, the fish is cut into slices, placed around small pieces of ham and seaweed, and then cooked side by side together in the wok. These dishes are a far cry from fast food fish sticks, and mastering them takes considerable time and practice.

Fukien province looks to Foochow for good cooking, and the city is most famous for its seafood. According to one text written during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), over 170 different kinds of fish and 90 different kinds of shellfish could be found in the waters off Fukien. Said the book's forward, "Of all creatures, none is so great or so delicious as the fish." Besides the usual scallions, ginger and wine, Foochow cuisine also uses red wine sediment and white radishes to enhance the flavor and get rid of any fishy odor. The red wine sediment comes from a brew fermented from a combination of white glutinous rice and reddish ferment.

One famous Foochow dish bears a name translated as "Buddha Leaps the Wall". It contains over twenty separate foods, among them albacore, sea cucumbers, shark's fin, shellfish, chicken, duck, pork ribs, pig's feet and stomach. This potpourri is best cooked slowly in a closed wine fermenting jug over a smokeless wood fire, with Shaohsing wine being added as needed. Preferred cooking time is three hours, with the pot opened once at most to add spices.

Stories abound as to how the dish found its name. One tale claims that a young monk was caught cooking by his master, and tucked the cooking pot under his arm and leaped over a wall to escape punishment. Another says that monks praying in a temple caught a fragrant whiff of something stewing outside the compound, and unable to resist, hopped over the wall to find the source of the splendid aroma.

However, according to Lu Yao-tung, who has researched Chinese culinary history, the above accounts are false. Lu reports that one day in the late nineteenth century, a chef for an official family heard his employer singing the praises of a great dish he had just eaten, an exquisite meal of duck and chicken baked in a wine jug. The first efforts at imitation were less than ideal, so the official took the cook to the original house to learn it straight from the wife who had prepared the dinner. Later, when the chef started his own restaurant, he kept adding to and improving the recipe. One day when several scholars were in the restaurant, tired of drinking and seeking food, a waiter decided to serve them the dish. By the end of the meal, which had them pounding the table in delight, the surprised and sated literati were making poems in honor of the repast. One couplet went, "The aroma of stewed delicacies floats everywhere, and the Buddha forgets his sutras and leaps the wall to come and eat."

Passing from Chekiang through Fukien, we come to Kwangtung, where Canton is known as the epicurean's paradise. Chinese commonly view Cantonese as being willing to eat anything, an appetite which extends to seafood. Owing to the region's much greater contact with the West than the rest of China, Cantonese food sometimes comes with a marked foreign accent. For example, besides steamed and boiled lobster, Hong Kong chefs also serve lobster salad and lobster fried in butter.

Cantonese food features several unusual dishes. "In "Drunken Shrimp", for example, shrimp are dunked in strong liquor and then added to simmering soup until ready. "Flame Shrimp" uses shrimp with rose wine. The shrimp are cooked a la flambe, and when the liquor is burned away, the shrimp is ready to be served. For the seafood connoisseur, the sight and smell of these delicacies is a special treat.

Regardless of fish type or local cuisine, fresh fish and ingredients are of the utmost importance. People in ancient China mostly ate dried fish, and the fresh fish consumed were of the freshwater variety, making it difficult to call it true seafood.

Scientifically speaking, seafood flavor comes from amino acids. High in protein, amino acids are found in beef, pork and lamb. Other flavors usually obscure its taste, making pork taste different from perch. Yet being high in protein has its bad side as well. Because seafood when caught still retains a high amount of its original moisture, micro-organisms are quick to form on the fish. They in turn eat the amino acids, making them metabolize and producing a "fishy" smell.

However, despite the odor, no health hazard exists as long as the condition of fish has not deteriorated and begun to rot. Recently experts have pointed out that the sea contains vibrio-V parahemolypicus, harmful to the human intestine, but Ch'en Hsing-ch'en, professor of marine biology, says the problem is of minor significance. Although this bacteria is often found in areas of low salinity, the germs cannot survive in low or high temperatures, and boiling or storage in areas below 7℃easily destroys the bacteria.

According to a survey done in 1983 by the Taipei city government, the average household consumed monthly NT$1,900 (US$45) of meat and fowl, while NT$760 (US$19) was spent on fish and shellfish. However, seafood is higher in protein and unsaturated fats. For example, every 100 grams of pork has 14.6 grams of protein and 347 K-calories. In contrast, fish high in fats, such as eels, contain 19.8 grams of protein and only 123 K-calories. Simply stated, fish is more nutritious than meet. Nutritionists also suggest that infants be fed fish before they are exposed to beef, pork, or even eggs, since fish are especially high in nutrients and are easy to digest. Those concerned about their health might do well to consider more trips to the fish market and fewer to the meat counter.

(Mark Halperin)

[Picture Caption]

Two big lobsters in a very small tank.

Find the fish of your choice, and the chef will cook it for you.

A fishing trawler unloads crates of frozen fish.

A fisherman weighs his catch of crab, in a painting by Ch'en Ch'i-k'uan (1953).

The Hsiao-yi Street fish market in Keelung at four in the morning presents a bustling scene.

Seasnails at a seafood restaurant in Tamshui. In Taiwan it's just scald and serve.

The night markets of Taiwan are full of seafood stands.

This seafood store began as an outdoor stand, and succeeded solely from sales of creatures of the sea.

Cantonese style lobster cooked in broth.

Shrimp placed on sticks and then roasted over a fire are a common sight at night markets.

Japanese sushi and sashimi.

Deep-fried shrimp--a sight to make any seafood lover's mouth water.

Find the fish of your choice, and the chef will cook it for you.

A fisherman weighs his catch of crab, in a painting by Ch'en Ch'i-k'uan （1953）.

A fishing trawler unloads crates of frozen fish.

The Hsiao-yi Street fish market in Keelung at four in the morning presents a bustling scene.

Seasnails at a seafood restaurant in Tamshui. In Taiwan it's just scald and serve.

The night markets of Taiwan are full of seafood stands.

This seafood store began as an outdoor stand, and succeeded solely from sales of creatures of the sea.

Cantonese style lobster cooked in broth.

Shrimp placed on sticks and then roasted over a fire are a common sight at night markets.

Japanese sushi and sashimi.

Deep-fried shrimp--a sight to make any seafood lover's mouth water.