Food is the most important thing for people; food is a kind of culture, and Taiwan is no exception.

It would not be an exaggeration to call Taiwan a "food island" or "eat in Taiwan".

Taiwan is rich in products, with abundant food, an abundance of vegetables and fruits, many livestock and poultry, and abundant fisheries.

Therefore, Taiwanese people are very particular about their diet.

There are approximately 100,000 restaurants and 250,000 food stalls on the island. Walking on the streets and alleys of cities in Taiwan, restaurants and snack bars are located one after another.

A comprehensive review of Taiwan's daily meals, banquets, and snacks is roughly the same as that of Fujian and Guangdong, but it also has the following characteristics: First, Taiwan's food tradition originated from Fujian and Guangdong, but there are changes, and it has the characteristics of Taiwan.

Its own local flavor.

For example, the famous snack in southern Fujian, "Chinese rice dumpling", is made from sweet potato powder, fried rice cakes and shredded garlic leaves.

Dip it in hot sauce or ginger vinegar before eating, usually when winter midges are in season.

Taiwan's "Chinese Omelette" is available all year round. It uses sweet potato powder and squid as the main ingredients. In addition to shredded old garlic leaves, there are also leeks, green onions or other leafy vegetables.

Served with hot sauce, ginger vinegar, sand tea, curry, peanut butter, etc. before eating.

Another example is that some people in Guangdong are snake eaters, and some people in Fujian are rat eaters. However, folk in Taiwan eat both rats and snakes, and have created a unique rat and snake restaurant, which is better than those in Fujian and Guangdong.

Secondly, there are many Taiwanese snacks.

Taiwan has everything that every province in mainland China has, and there are many snack foods with unique Taiwanese local characteristics; such as papaya milk, aiyu ice, bubble water, taro ice, etc. for beverages; golden snails, silver barley, and rice cakes for cakes.

Red "rice cakes", etc.; pastas such as moon noodles, eel noodles, etc.; meat products such as tribute balls, mountain and river meat, "coffin rice", etc.; seafood products such as fried snails, fried nine holes, Xishi tongue, etc.

Lobster hot pot, Changhua meatballs, Keelung sweet and spicy, Hsinchu tribute balls; Tainan Dingbian Chao; nourishing Sishen soup, Angelica duck, etc., all have their own unique flavor and local flavor.

It is worth mentioning that all parts of Taiwan, including small towns, have famous snacks, and Taiwanese people talk about them.

For example, Daxi in Taoyuan has dried tofu, Tamsui in Taipei has fish balls, Grandma’s iron eggs and Ajii, Yonghe City in Taipei County has authentic Yonghe soy milk, Hsinchu County and City have tribute balls and rice noodles, Chiayi has chicken rice, and Nantou has Shaoxing wine.

Rice cakes from Taichung, sun cakes from Taichung and pig trotters from Ashuishi...it really has everything you need.

As for oyster noodles, stir-fried flower twigs, preserved vegetables and eggs, fish soup, danzi noodles, etc., they are available in almost every small shop in Taiwan.

But Taiwanese friends will tell you which one is the most authentic because it has been open for decades, or because this one was the founder.

Take Danzi Noodles for example. The authentic century-old restaurant is in Tainan City. Its name is "Du Xiaoyue Danzi Noodles". Everyone in Taiwan knows it, and it is the only one in Taiwan. There is no other shop.

The store's furnishings have always maintained a traditional style. There are no high tables or big chairs, but small tables and low stools. Customers walk into the store and sit around the fire, watching the waiters making the dishes on the spot and gossiping about the history of "Dou Xiao Yue".

More than 90 years ago, there was a man named Hong Taro in Tainan who made a living by fishing.

However, from May to August every year, it is the season when typhoons are raging, making it impossible to go to sea.

So, he had no choice but to find another way to make a living, shouldering the burden of making pots and stoves and rice noodles and noodles, and started selling pork noodles from his hometown in Fujian.

Because this time of year is called "Du Xiaoyue" by fishermen, Hong Yu's noodles are also called "Du Xiaoyue Danzi Noodles" and have been passed down to this day.

Speaking of Tainan, it also reminds me of another famous snack, which has an appalling name called "coffin board."

This is how it is made: deep-fried thick slices of toast bread are hollowed out, filled with milk batter, chicken, potatoes, green beans, etc., and then covered with the hollowed out bread crust.

Coffin board is a "joking name" for diners, so the boss simply named it after him.

Third, Taiwanese food is mostly made of rice products and is characterized by sweetness.

Taiwan is China's famous "rice warehouse", with a wide variety of rice products, such as dumplings, cakes, glutinous rice dumplings, rice dumplings, rice balls, balls, rolls, etc.; there are no less than a hundred kinds of them.

There are also many cake shops in Taiwan. Each store has its own secret recipe passed down from generation to generation, and refines various "signature cakes" to attract customers.

Since Taiwan produces a lot of sugar, Taiwanese food has always been characterized by "sweetness".

Sugar is often added to the delicacies at the banquet. For example, "fried chicken rolls" are served with a little sugar on the center of the plate. Sugar must also be added to the egg soup with shredded cabbage, pork, and cabbage.

As for the food in the small shop, there are many desserts and preserves, even soups.

Fourth, snacks are concentrated in night markets.

I have tasted all of these famous Taiwanese snacks, but the ones that left a deep impression on me and are still fragrant to this day are freshwater fish balls, crab soup from Keelung Miaokou, and tomato slices from Cijin, Kaohsiung.

In Tamsui, Taipei, there are many places making and selling fish balls.

First, beat the best shark meat into a pulp, add a little corn starch and water, mix well, wrap it in minced meat, and the meatballs are made.

Freshwater fish balls are very chewy, so be careful when eating them. You must first take a small bite of the fish balls and suck in the meat filling and soup inside, and then you can chew.

The food stalls at Keelung Miaokou have been around since the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty, and now there are two to three hundred stalls.

The snack crab soup there is made of 6 kinds of ingredients including fresh shredded bamboo shoots, fresh shredded mushrooms, nostoc, and crab leg meat. It is full of color, flavor and flavor. Sitting by the stove and eating a bowl of crab soup, I feel that there is no better delicacy in the world than this.

As for the tomato cutting plate in Cijin, Kaohsiung, green tomatoes are cut into pieces, placed on a plate, dipped in soy sauce and plum powder, and then put into the mouth. The taste is really indescribable.

Of course, the most concentrated place for snacks is the night market.