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Taiwanese Cuisine Increases Your Appetite
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Transtlate Taiwan lies hundred miles away from the Chinese mainland. The cuisine of this mountainous island on the edge of the Pacific is of Chinese character. Apart from the staple, rice, Taiwan abounds in snacks, fruit, vegetables, and seafood.
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Pineapple bun |
A visit to one of the island's ubiquitous seven to eleven convenience stores finds Taiwanese are great snackers. There you will find various different snack foods, including traditional favourites like tea eggs and dried squid, watermelon seeds, pineapple bun, deep fried broad beans, dried tofu, puffed rice cake, radish cake, rice dumplings in Bamboo leaves (zong zi), sausages -sweeter than European sausages, soft tofu dessert (dou hua)
Sugarcane is the street side snack. The 'skin' is shaved off and it is cut into lengths and sold by the bagful. You need good teeth, and don't forget to spit out the fibre once you have chewed the juice out of each mouthful.
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Cucumber salad |
Taiwan is also known for its range of appetisers. Few dishes, in fact, are eaten without some sort of starter or side dish. Typical ones are like Pickled cucumber salad, anchovies with peanuts, clams pickled in soy sauce, jellyfish salad, stewed appetizers egg, seaweed, tofu, pig's ear, pig's skin, various pig guts etc.
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Oyster soup |
While stir-fries are plentiful, Taiwanese food is characterised by stews and soups. A ten course banquet will probably have four or five on the menu. Here is just a small selection of typical dishes.
Rice porridge is the standard tradition breakfast dish. Taiwanese have adopted the sandwich, but strictly for breakfast only. The range of fillings is limited: fried egg, ham and diced cucumber, and dried pork floss pastry omelette (dan bing) is a common breakfast dish.
One kind is bamboo and pork chop soup. Thick soups called geng, with minced pork pieces orsometimes squid, clam soup, oyster soup, pork ball soup, fish ball soup, egg drop soup, miso soup, "green vegetable" & tofu soup, seaweed soup, corn soup, pig's blood soup.
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Jellyfish |
As you might expect, seafood is plentiful and very fresh. Clams, oysters, prawns, crab, cuttlefish, squid, sea cucumber, jellyfish, seaweed, shark, saury, salmon etc. enjoy popularity.
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