Taiwan is home to some interesting delicacies. Today I had dinner with a friend at my local night market. We bought little snacks from various stands and ate until we were full. The first stand had some really nice chicken. The guy chops it up and tosses it in a garlicy, gingery, dressing and serves it in a bag with some wooden poking sticks. It's tasty. You can choose which part of the chicken you want chopped and dressed. I go for the breast or leg/thigh as they're safe and familiar. But if one wishes he can have all sorts of chicken bits. Intestines, necks, cockscomb, partially developed un-laid eggs, or even chicken ass (I kid you not) are all available. I've heard it said that chicken ass is good for your skin. Luckily I was blessed with good skin and thus don't need to test the validity of the saying.
Next I had some Taiwanese sausages. These are quite tasty. I usually get the little meat sausage crammed inside of a big sausage made of some intestine stuffed with rice and fat. The fellow cuts open the big sausage, crams it full of all sorts of tasty delights, and then puts the little sausage in there and wraps it up to go. Yummy stuff which I heartily recommend eating should come across it.
After the sausage I went for some sweetness with a tasty caramel apple. This turned the tables as I of course have eaten caramel apples on many occasions, while Xu Xin had not. It was a Granny Smith, with a slightly soft caramel covering. I choose to have mine with peanuts but a multitude of flavours are available.
Duck Head & KneesLastly just to up the strange food quotient for the day we had some deep fried duck head. I'll admit I wasn't keen on this idea. They look horrendous. They don't smell particularly good. And well, they're duck heads. The duck head booth is similar to the chicken booth in that it has all sorts of duck pieces, except the duck booth has no regular duck meat. Just strange pieces of the duck, some of which I didn't know could be eaten. Knees for instance. The guy was nice enough to throw in two free knees with the head that we bought so that the silly foreigner could try them. Along with knees and heads he has necks, stomachs, livers, duck ass (again, not kidding), and the most prized part of the duck: the tongue.
When asked why people eat duck head he replied "because it is sweet and fragrant." Which isn't far off the mark. The knee I ate was both sweet and fragrant. But not in a particularly pleasing way. I wasn't big on the head and only ate a small piece of the cheek. The cheek tasted pretty much like the knee. Chewy, sweet and fragrant. It isn't the sort of thing I'll ever eat again, but I can understand why some like it. After passing on the majority of the head I tried to think of some weird Western food that a Taiwanese person would pass up. I came up nil. Maybe a bloody rare steak? I don't know.
They certainly seem more open minded about food here in Taiwan. I've no idea whether or not it relates to a history riddled with famine, or other influences. Europe has certainly suffered from her fair share of food shortages, but still to the best of my knowledge, passes up on duck tongues and asses. I've heard it argued that in some eras and areas the more exotic and hard to come by a food object was the more highly prized it was by the Chinese. Little value was placed upon nutritive sustenance or the pure carnal pleasure of eating the object, value was in rarity.
Also, to appreciate the Chinese diet one must understand the influence of Chinese medicine, which I certainly don't. Foods here, especially exotic ones, are imbued with various health giving properties. They not only provide nutrition but are purported to alter one's body systems in numerous mystical ways. The subject is entirely too complex for me to even try to get a handle on. Different foods have different effects on one's fluids, blood, qi, spleen etcetera. Balance is the ultimate goal, attainable by finely tuning one's intake of various substances. I have no idea how (un)balanced I am. But I do know that regardless of its possible beneficial effects I will not be eating chicken ass anytime soon.
