Memory and wheat – Mekong Review

The mere considered some locations conjures up sure meals reminiscences for me. Taiwan is a working example. Strolling down a facet road within the much less gentrified a part of the capital metropolis, Taipei, one will come across tiny family-run meals stalls which have been in enterprise for many years. There’s beef shank soup with hand-pulled noodles and scallion pancakes shattering into flaky shards at mild tugs—dishes that illustrate scrumptious collisions born out of Taiwan’s diaspora historical past. However the tiny island nation can also be well-known for pioneering culinary traits that get exported overseas. The final time I visited in 2019, brown sugar boba milk tea with gold foil and tacky matcha cream puffs had been in excessive demand.

My favorite meals are these with winding, intimate histories—dishes which have nourished and introduced consolation to my forebears in opposition to the backdrop of a tenuous post-war period and tumultuous politics.

American support to Taiwan simply after the Second World Struggle performed a significant position in establishing the wheat flour business and even reshaping the Taiwanese palate. Waves of immigrants, from areas of mainland China the place wheat thrived in temperate and chilly climate, additional strengthened a rising urge for food for floury meals. At present, the prominence of wheat within the quotidian lifetime of Taiwanese folks is unmistakable, from the crispy you tiao (savoury fried dough sticks) served with soy milk for breakfast, to the xiao lengthy bao (soup dumplings) that one by no means appears to tire of for dinner.

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