High quality oil: 70% the weather
Peanut oil is one of only three oils produced from local crops here in Taiwan, and the quality of the raw material is a huge determinant of the quality of the oil. “Just by looking at the peanuts in the fields, you can get a pretty good idea of the quality of that year’s peanut oil,” says Chen, speaking from experience.
Yet, even though the weather decides 70%, the remaining 30% is ultimately determined by the expertise that mills have acquired from their experience. Even the selection of peanut varieties entails extensive knowledge. Chen explains that more elongated peanuts have the least oil and are better suited to eating whole. Rounder, fatter peanuts have a higher oil content, generally around 35‡38%, and they are the type that he prefers for making oil. Currently, most of Taiwan’s peanuts grown for oil are planted in the Yunlin‡Taichung area. They are typically the thin-shelled, small-nutted, heavily scented variety “Tainan No. 9,” which is known as the “oil peanut” thanks to its high oil content.
Peanut oil’s era has been a long one, but the middle of it included a period of decline. In the 1970s and 1980s cheaper vegetable oils became widely used, so that peanut oil sales dropped precipitously. Chen Weiren points out that although harvesting machines can help to pick peanuts (as opposed to sesame seeds, which must be harvested entirely by hand), the peanut pressing process is still quite labor intensive, so that the price of the oil naturally remains high in comparison to oils for which the pressing process has been totally automated.
When combined with changing mass tastes, these higher production costs resulted in lower demand, which in turn thinned the ranks of traditional producers. Fortunately, with the adulterated oil scare of two years ago, quite a few consumers recalled how they used to consume peanut oil and inquired about good local oils. Though still short of its heyday, prospects for the peanut oil industry have improved somewhat. “If it hadn’t been for the food scare,” says Chen, “traditional producers might have all gone under.”
(left) Yunlin is a center of peanut cultivation, and the streets near Beigang’s Chaotian Temple are home to many traditional oil pressing firms.