Food

"Food, glorious food, that's what I live for." ~ Oliver
"Gotta eat to live." ~ Aladdin
Necessity is the mother of invention.

Eating in another country is so different. I came to Taiwan thinking to myself " you gotta try everything, even if you think that you won't like it. you have to at least try it." I've done way more than try things! Somethings are so strange looking, weird and contorted. Each place cooks their rice differently. All the open air resaturants (more like a corner shop) have questionable sanitation. And I've plunged myself into this totally different food culture ready and willing.

Mom and I have eaten breakfast out twice now. They usually serve a fried or scrambled egg with ham or bacon or turkey wrapped inside a flat totilla/crepe like pancake. Very good and tasty! Also dumplings in any shape or form are popular for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Some are small circular dough balls with pork inside. Some are made with the dumpling dough rolled out, the filling laid on top and rolled up and cut into slices. We watched a lady in the day market make dumplings. She took a small ciricle of rolled dough, about as big as a lady's palm, and piled a small bit of shreaded pork into the center. She then folded the dough in half and pinched the sides shut.

Some of the drinks are interesting. The tea here is hot or cold. Hot tea is "red" tea or milk tea. The red tea is our typical black tea although usually much sweeter. The milk tea is just that, a sweet, creamy tea. It can also be served cold. They also like fruit drinks. Fruit grows prolificly here and they use any and all in a drink. I found a new fad in the bottom of my fruit drink , tapioca balls! Small black balls of tapioca pudding in the bottom of the drink slide up the straw with the rest of the liquid. Soft and squishy in my mouth. But good. I decided after a lot of tapioca that I liked it good enough to have it again, although it wasn't my favorite.

Every meal is eaten with chopsticks. On the first night Aunt Melody offered me a spoon when she saw me struggling with my sticks. I refused knowing that if I didn't try I wouldn't get the hang of it. Mom and I have done better and better eating with two tiny sticks in our hands. It's kinda fun now that I understand the technic.

Saturday night, Cynthia's parents took us out to dinner. They order so much for us to try. Here is a list as a sample of what we've been eating. This is in the order of what was served to us when during our meal.

1) Shrimp and rice cake wedges w/ sauce
2) pork slices in thick fat
3) veggies plate consisting of carrots, green onion stems, bamboo
4) finally our rice came. It was seasoned with bits of salmon! I loved it!
5) bamboo and chicken soup. Mostly stock with tiny bits of chicken and some leaves similar to spinach and the inside of the bamboo shoots.
6) pig intestine
7) fried fish in a sweet and sour sauce
8) tarro cubes
9) cheese fish on bamboo shoots
10) lamb chops
11) candied sweet potato dipped quickly in ice water (it carmalizes fast)

I'm glad that we told the Mr. and Mrs. Lu that we weren't very hungry. :-)