Ethnic influences
There are historical reasons for the hybrid nature of Taiwanese cuisine. Over the last 400 years, Taiwan has been ruled by the Dutch, the Spanish, and the Japanese, and all of these diverse cultural influences are baked into our diet.
Taiwan's earliest residents were its indigenes. Prior to the arrival of the Han, each of these tribes had its own style of cookery. In "Taiwan's Food and Beverage Culture and Political Transitions-A View of State Banquets," Zhou Wen-qian, an associate professor in the Department of Hospitality Management at the Hsing Wu Institute of Technology, writes that millet (supplemented by sweet potatoes and taro) was the staple of the Taiwanese indigenes' diet. The Bu-nun and Ata-yal peoples frequently supplemented this with game, while the Amis filled it out with more than 100 varieties of wild vegetables. Cooking techniques were limited, consisting only of boiling, steaming and roasting.
When Han Chinese immigrants from Fu-jian and Guang-dong arrived and began to clear more land for agriculture during the Qing Dynasty, a "Taiwanese cuisine" started to develop out of the homestyle cooking of these Southern Min farmers. Zhou describes Min cooking as lightly seasoned, unpretentious, and not greasy. In years when harvests were good, they preserved their surplus by drying or pickling it. Such preserved foods have been a characteristic feature of Taiwanese cuisine ever since.
Hakka immigrants fleeing the vagaries and hardships of war arrived in Taiwan with little money and relatively late in the settlement process. As such, they had little choice but to establish themselves in the rougher terrain of the hills and mountains. To preserve their food and make it more palatable, they seasoned it with salt, spices, and fat. Hakka cuisine is therefore characterized by its use of dry pickled mustard greens, pickled cabbage, and red rice-wine lees.
Hominess aside, Taiwanese food and beverage culture is also known for its simple, inexpensive night market foods.
Early settlers spent a good deal of time engaged in the grueling work of clearing land. Vendors used to sell them a variety of foods carried out to the fields and mountainsides on poles. The early immigrants also built temples and gave banquets in honor of the gods to pray for their own well being. These gatherings under a large tree or in front of a temple naturally attracted vendors of food and other goods. Kee-lung's Miao-kou Night Market is a case in point, having taken shape after the founding of the -Dianji Temple in 1875. Tai-nan, Taiwan's oldest city, has long been a hotbed for night-market xiao-chi: the areas around its Grand Ma-tsu and Martial Temples are packed with xiao-chi shops that have existed for 100 years or more.
Da-a-mi (擔仔麵/danzai noodles)-steamed oil noodles garnished with pork sauce-originated in Tainan. The dish was reportedly created by fisherman Hong Yu-tou, who used to sell -noodles when the typhoon season kept him landlocked. He called his dish "getting through typhoon season hawking food from a pole noodles," and never imagined it would become so popular. His family is now in its fourth generation of selling the noodles.
Yu Shuenn-der, an associate research fellow with the Acad-emia Sin-ica's Institute of Ethnology, studies Taiwanese night-market snack culture. He explains that in the night-market context, xiao-chi has a very broad meaning that encompasses everything from tiny snacks to substantial dishes.
Much of Min cuisine consists of soups. Cao Ming-zong, a student of Kee-lung's culture and history, says that many xiao-chi evolved from Min dishes such as its meat and fish stews. But others were invented here, including favorites such as "coffin board." The dish, a thick slab of toast hollowed out in the center and filled with seafood soup, blends Chinese and Western flavors in a local original.
Xiaochi (night market foods) is the multifaceted fare of the common folk in Taiwan. From its origins with vendors hawking snacks from baskets to establishments in front of temples to whole streets devoted to its many varieties, xiaochi has only grown in popularity over the years.