Hi I’m Savanna! Welcome to our very first episode of This is Taiwan! Whether you are visiting Taiwan temporarily, or you’ve been staying here for quite a while. You’ve came to the right place!
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I love food. Food is the best way to get to know a culture. I always think that I am so lucky to be Taiwanese, cuz we have the best food. Yea seriously! I tell my friends that if you’ve never had Taiwanese food you’ve never had delicious food.
Taiwan is famous for the the street foods and snacks, especially those you find in night-markets. When you visit a night-market, the choices are so many that you’d wish you had a bigger stomach. I bet you’ve heard of stinky tofu, or braised pork rice! Which you could get some idea of the food according to the names. But, there are quite a lot of food in Taiwan with weird or fancy names, that it’s hard to get a picture of what they actually are. And perhaps because of theses weird names, you’d be even more afraid to try these food out.
Today we are discovering 5 Taiwanese delicacies with strange names, what they are actually made of, and how they got their weird names!
First off, lets take a look at our first Taiwanese street food 大腸包小腸. If we translate it directly, it would mean small intestine wrapped in large intestine. Which, would probably scare most people off. 大腸包小腸 actually got its name because of its combination of a pork sausage and a sticky rice sausage. In mandrin, strip objects with fillings are called 腸, and sticky rice is called 糯米, so our large intestine is actually a sticky rice filling sausage. As for the pork sausage you might be more familliar with, is called 香腸, basically mean a sausage that smells good, well that makes sense.
大腸包小腸 can be understood better with the name Taiwanese sausage with sticky rice. Other than taiwanese pork sausage wrapped in sticky rice sausage, ingredients such as coriander, peanut powder, Taiwanese sauer kraut, basil and black pepper sauce are usually also wrapped inside. Way before this day-to-day snack got popular in the nightmarkets, 大腸包小腸was originated from Hualien, a beautiful county in eastern Taiwan. The Hakka people made 大腸包小腸 to bring along to work, just like a sandwich, this snack was easy to eat and filled with various ingredients.
Another street food that’s quite terrifying by its name is 棺材板. Which would mean Coffin bread. No its unfortunately not a snack for Halloween, yet it did get its name from its shape. This famous snack from the historic city, Tainan in southern Taiwan, is made of deep fried thick toast, cut out like a box with a lid, and a filling of chicken chowder soup. Back in the 1940’s an owner of a local snack stand took an advice of a friend to make a snack that combines the east and west. Originally, the fillings where made of chicken liver and all sorts of asian ingredients. This special sandwich then got its name, with it’s coffin-like look, deep fried toast wrap. 棺材版 is definitely a must try when you visit Tainan, it is better known by the English name deep fried sandwich, remember to eat the “lid” first, and then the rest of the sandwich.
After a view of the snacks from eastern and southern Taiwan. Let’s head to one of the most popular tourist attractions in northern Taiwan. Danshuei old street. Just like a lot of other tourist attractions, you’d find plenty of nice food to try out. 鐵蛋is one of the typical food that you can find in Danshuei. 鐵 means iron 蛋is egg, so what exactly is an iron egg?
It is said that iron egg was accidentally created by an owner, Mrs. Huang, of a noodle shop in Dansheui. One year, the rainy season was longer than usual, so there were hardly any customers. The noodle shop couldn’t sell any brewed eggs, but it would be a waste if they were just thrown away. So Mrs. Huang would repeatedly put the eggs back in the pot to brew after letting them dry on the counter. These “over-brewed” eggs would then shrink and appear very dark in color and hard. But they also turned out to be chewy and rich in flavors, so it got popular among customers. Mrs. Huang then established her Iron egg brand in 1974, which is the well-known Grandma’s Iron Eggs 阿婆鐵蛋.
You could try making iron eggs at home, too. First, we’d peel boiled eggs and put them in a pot full of soy sauce, sugar, spices such as Star anises, bay leaves, peppercorns, and more. Stew the eggs for an hour to give it a nice color, and take them out to let them dry. Stew and dry them back and forth for two to three times, and yea you’ll have some nice homemade iron eggs.
Next up we have 四神湯, which means “Four Gods Soup”. This typical soup with Chinese herbs has a story thats dates back to the Chianglung Emperors time in the Ching Dynasty, which is around 1700’s. It is said that when Chianglung traveled from the capital Peking all the way to the south with his four ministers for inspection. The four ministers were too exhausted and got ill due to the long journey. The emperor ordered to search for a good doctor to cure his men. Of course a doctor was found, and he subcripted a herb soup that contains Gorgon, lotus seeds, Huaishan, and Poria cooked with pig stomach. The four ministers recovered after eating the soup, which also made the emperor really happy. This soup was then called “ four ministers soup” before it changed into the name “Four Gods Soup” we know now.
Today, the 四神湯 you see in Taiwan has pearl barley in it rather than Gorgon, and pig stomach’s replaced with pig’s intestines. I know the ingredients might sound quite intimidating for some people, but 四神湯 is a healthy dish that’s good for our digestive system. It is also heart-warming to eat in the cold winter.
Last but not least, let’s take a look at our dessert of the day. In Taiwan, we love hand-shaken drinks such as tea or milk tea with chewable toppings like the famous boba, or jello or pudding. 青蛙下蛋 is a drink that you’d easily find in night-markets. Its name 青蛙means frog 下蛋 means laying eggs. But don’t worry, the sweet drink has nothing to with either frogs or eggs.
青蛙下蛋 was originated from shilin night-market, the drink contains syrup, sometimes creamer or milk, and Tapioca balls, you might know them better as bobas as in boba milk tea. 青蛙下蛋 uses unflavored tapioca balls, which would look white, and often with darker color in the center. The bobas we are more familiar with nowadays are dark brown, because there’s caramel added in them. The creator of 青蛙下蛋 came up with the name because of how the bobas look in the pot, when he had the idea to mix them in brown sugar, which looked just like frog eggs.
Today, stands that sell 青蛙下蛋 provides various ingredients other than boba and milk to add in the drink, such as ice jelly, mung beans, and lemon. Customers could choose what they prefer, and order their own special drink. My personal favorite combination is boba with mung beans and milk.
So that’s a wrap! Five Taiwanese delicacies with weird names. Huh they turned out to be not so weird after all. I hope you do try out some of these foods on your next visit to a night-market in Taiwan! I promise you! Taiwanese food never lets you down!
You are very welcome to comment on the review section and write your food reviews or tell us about your Taiwanese food adventure.
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