Meal 62. Taiwanese hot pot (three ways) and bubble tea

Enoki mushrooms, cabbage and broccoli

Chia-Heng kindly lets friends in London call her Joyce, because it is easier to remember, similar to my previous hosts Mike from China and Bibi from Thailand... She and her friend I-Ting (simple enough to pronounce that she does not 'need' a European name!) are both vets from Taiwan specializing in wildlife medicine. I have been lucky enough to try their crispy fried chicken a few months ago at a potluck dinner, but tonight the Taiwanese food takes center stage, with 'hot pot' prepared in three different ways. We are with eight people, but when we enter the kitchen, it appears Chia-Heng and I-Ting have procured supplies for about twenty. All the available surfaces are covered in chopped vegetables, including the string like enoki mushrooms (see photo left), which are quite appealing visually.

The three different pots simmering

Chia-Heng tells me that Taiwanese food, in general, is quite similar to 'mainland Chinese food', though it is worth noting there are still differences, also within Taiwan, with food from the North saltier and from the South sweeter. This was the exact same distribution described for Vietnam by An, who cooked for this blog many years ago, though she also mentioned that the center of her country produced spicy food.

Hotpot with 'seafood tofu' and Szechuan spices

Three different hot pots of broth are simmering on the stove stop, including one which is relatively spicy with Szechuan peppers, from a mix by Heidi Lau. Anhui, a Chinese-Singaporean friend present, immediately notices the packaging, pointing out the brand is known internationally for being towards the high end, very good but a bit expensive! I am proud that I am able to 'take the heat' and eat all the items with my chopsticks without dropping anything.
While we listen to a selection of Taiwanese music, Joyce explains that she only really got into cooking when she spent six months in the US with a lot of time on her hands and missing Taiwanese food. I have heard similar stories for many of the people who have contributed towards this blog; many only learned the recipes while away from home as the only way to get access to the familiar tastes from back home.

Chia-Heng and I-Ting serving up the food

The second and third hot pot are cooked in a milder broth, and the very thinly sliced beef and lamb acquires a special 'frilly' texture with a nice mouthfeel. I try to taste all the different broths and ingredients, but after four plates I am definitively stuffed...I think.
As we laugh at the hilariously nineties feel of Taiwanese the hit song 'Bad Boy' by diva A-Mei, I-Ting hands out some special sweets her mother sent her recently, made with chestnut (I create a bit of extra space for these!) and Chia-Heng starts preparing the 'pearls' for the bubble tea. The tapioca balls are slightly sweet and glutinous. They are most enjoyably slurped up with a big opaque straw so you cannot tell when you are sucking them up, so it is a surprise when one or two land in your mouth. My infantile sense of humour shines through when I cannot resist showing them a sign I remembered seeing online from a bubble tea shop in Thailand. The cartoon cup tells customers 'Hi, I am bubble tea!' and two panels later: 'Suck my balls!' Apparently, you can get just the latter printed as a t-shirt too...

Hot pot with finely sliced lamb

Picking out the best bits with chopsticks

On a more serious note, we discuss how Taiwan is mainly populated with descendants of Han (mainland Chinese), who started arriving in the 17th century, with the original indigenous population now a small minority, and many of the indigenous Austronesian languages either extinct or endangered. Having been schooled in the Netherlands, it is surprising I never realised the role the Dutch (East Inda Company) played in Taiwan around this time - establishing a trading post called Fort Zeeelandia and losing it all a few decades during a bloody siege. Chia-Heng mentions that because the Dutch colonised Taiwan for quite a long period, there are some Taiwanese people with a bit of Dutch ancestry, some with slightly reddish hair. Her mom thinks there might be some Dutch genes in Chia-Hengs family as they are so tall! I only have a faint memory of high school history lessons in the Netherlands covering Chiang Kai-Shek, whose Kuomintang party retreated from mainland China to Taiwan in 1949. I never learned (or maybe just forgot) that he led Taiwan for decades, till his death in 1975.
I was aware (as most of us are probably are) of the odd situation where the People's Republic of China does not acknowledge Taiwan (called Republic of China by some) as an independent sovereign state. However, we do not really go into this topic during dinner, prefering to focus on the some other aspects of life in Taiwan, including the special musical garbage trucks utilized by its amazingly succesful recycling programme - one of the world's most efficient!

To sweeten the bubble tea, some amazingly poetic descriptions of tasting sweetness on the packet of sugar!

Meal 61. Brazilian feijoada with farofa and pão de queijo

Kneading the pão de queijo mix with eggs

Patricia has been roped into this meal with months of advance. She is doing a MSc in Wild Animal Health in London (like I did 7 years ago) and has invited along some of the other vets on the same course. They had a lucky escape from cooking for the blog as Peruvian, Colombian and Chilean meals had already featured! Somehow Brazil had eluded me till now, though a kind Brazilian colleague did offer to send some pictures after his girlfriend had cooked a traditional meal..."That's not how it works!" I had to tell him.

I always liked that from appearance/colouring, almost anybody could be Brazilian; there is such diversity, displayed by celebrities like footballers Pele, Neymar and models Adriana Lima and Gisele Bündchen. Like the latter, Patricia is of German extraction. She mentions that all her grandparents were born there: her dad's parents fled to Brazil, and her mother's parents fled to Argentina to escape the war.

The pão de queijo balls are ready to go in the oven

After I learn Patricia's mother grew up in Argentina, I ask her who taught her to cook traditional Brazilian food like feijoada. The short answer is that it likely involved the family's long time empregada (housekeeper), nicknamed Mel (Honey) who has taught both Patricia and her mother about traditional dishes. Mel herself has also learned how to make many German dishes (from Patricia's mother mainly). Based on my fascination with the topic (as only very rich households in the West have housekeepers), we get into a bit of a discussion on class and social mobility, favelas and so on. Many years ago, I had asked a (well educated) friend from São Paulo if he had ever been to a favela, the low-income urban areas well known from movies like Black Orpheus and Tropa de Elite. He had answered "Of course, when I visited the home of our housekeeper!" and the situation is somewhat similar for Patricia, though she has also visited favelas through her work as a vet, to treat dogs there. She does mention that all three of Mel's children graduated from high school and her daughter is now training to be a dentist, suggesting that she might be one of those who will manage to bridge the class divide.

Pão de queijo, crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside!

We also touch on what the experience is like of going to the famous carnaval, which is somewhat different in the streets from in the official Sambadrome where the samba schools perform. But both involve music, dancing and drinks! Back to food, as during all this talk, Patricia has managed to produce some delicious pão de queijo from a mix that promises it is 'easy to prepare'! This seems to be true, as it mainly involves kneading the mix (tapioca flour and powdered cheese) with eggs, forming balls and placing them in the oven. I venture that some people might make it from scratch (there are recipes online!) but Patricia says in Brazilian cities, most people will choose for an even easier route, buying frozen ones, or freshly prepared ones from a bakery. They are carb-laden, cheesy hot deliciousness and I would recommend them to anybody who loves cheese. I do my very best to restrain myself, as I need to save some space for the main course. By the time all the invitees have arrived, Patricia has given instructions to produce some amazing cocktails (a caipirinha made with juiced lime, sugar, muddled strawberries and cachaça). Apparently there are many fruity variations of caipirinhas, with limes, passionfruit or raspberries, and sometimes using vodka (called caipiroskas!).

Anything called feijoada involves black beans, onions and lot of meat, mainly pork. Patricia had

The main dish - meaty feijoada with a side of farofa

given me the bag of beans to soak well in advance of the dinner, and lugged a pressure cooker (plus the rest of the ingredients) halfway across London to my place to finish the process. Spare ribs, pork sausage, salted beef and bacon bits all go with the beans to create a truly tasty, truly Brazilian meal that we all snaffle up. It's accompanied by white rice and a side dish called farofa, again made with tapioca flour and eggs plus some fried onions. This is the first time I've had authentic feijoada after more than a decade of hearing about it from friends, and I am happy to report, it does not disappoint!

After eating the food, drinking the cocktails, and hearing all the stories about Brazil, I feel even more convinced that a long visit is in order...

Vet friends ready to tuck into the main dish...they've already made some headway on the caipirinhas!