Thursday, October 12, 2006



Hospitality in Taiwan means never letting your guests go hungry. Out hosts made sure that we were fed. They always made sure we got to lunch and dinner on time. Several times we had multi course meals, and they were not the paltry 7-course meals you can get here in the states where one of the courses are a spoonful of sherbet and one is coffee or tea. Ten course meals occurred several times, all of it wonderful! We learned not to take seconds on the first courses. Tea was always available, but we had to ask for water. And of course, no fortune cookies!

I often hear that Chinese food is westernized so that more Americans will eat it. If it had originally come from Taiwan, that would not have had to happen! The only thing I would change is soups (which have no seasoning, just the natural fat flavor from the animal) and beans for dessert. I have nothing against beans, but I really see no reason to puree them, add no sugar and serve them as dessert. (I see no reason to puree anything!) Just so you know, you really can eat raw ginger (slivered and put in in vinegared soy sauce, it is great with dumplings), pork dried to the point of looking like wool and sea cucumber (no flavor, just don't think of slugs). It was all wonderful.

The last course was fresh fruit. In the picture is watermelon and pineapple. The green one is very hard, not very juicy, and good. The red skin with white fruit and black seeds is dragonfruit. We were told that it is like kiwi, but only because they both have little black seeds. It had very little flavor, but it was juicy.

What surprised us was that it was actually 3 days before we had any rice! We had dumplings (meat and/or vegetable wrapped in dough, noodles (which originated in China, not Italy), breads, sweet potatoes...but lots less starch than here in the states.

And, of course, after a full day of activities and food, we came home to a host family -- who thought we were hungry and prepared more food for us!

We have ten rules for the exchange students that come to the US. I add rule #11: "You will gain weight. Just deal with it." I am proud to say that I have obeyed rule #11!

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