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!