Taking the Black: Dark Secrets of Taiwanese Cuisine
2024 / October
In Taiwan’s rich and varied culinary traditions, some foods have names that might put off even the most adventurous gourmands, and others look unpalatably black. But in fact these dishes and ingredients offer vital clues to our culture and to the daily lives of the Taiwanese people. In order to understand their enduring charm, this month’s Cover Story demystifies these bafflingly bizarre foods and the businesses that produce them. Here we explore classic ingredients such as century eggs, black soybeans, and black pickled radishes; heat-beating beverages like grass jelly tea and Chiou Shui Tea; traditional black dishes including “flies’ heads” and silkie chickens; and Taiwan’s “buried treasure”—black truffles and black peanuts.
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Featured Story
The Taste of Time:
All About Black Radishes
What kind of food carries on the dietary knowledge and wisdom of past generations while also being popular with contemporary gourmets and gourmands? Hsu Zong, a culinary writer whose mission in life is to spread Taiwan’s dietary culture, proposes four criteria: The first is that the food can b......
Dark Mysteries on the Dining Table:
Century Eggs
Richard W. Hartzell, an American-born author who has spent nearly 50 years in Taiwan, wrote that century eggs might be the most representative Taiwanese food, because they utterly baffled the imaginations of foreign observers.......
Black Soybeans
Did you know that black soybeans do not like too much sunlight? Did you know that despite their somber appearance, they’re either light green or pale yellow inside? It is thanks to their black hulls that the tea, soy milk, and soy sauce made from these beans are richly fragrant and nutritious.......
Herb of the Immortals:
The Story of Xiancao
In Taiwan, don’t be alarmed if you’re offered a glass of a dark liquid. Gruesome as it may look, this murky drink will not upset your bowels, nor is it meant to test your courage. This is actually grass jelly tea, made from xiancao, a.k.a. Chinese mesona (Platostoma palustre). In summer, you h......
An Off-Putting Menu Option
—The Origin of “Flies’ Heads”
The late veteran journalist Norman Fu, who was assigned to the Washington DC beat for 31 years, mentioned in his Deep Throat and Whistleblower, a book about English slang, that the owners of a Chinese restaurant in the States used word-for-word translations of the Chinese names of the dishes o......
Silkie Smooth:
All the Deets on Black-Boned Chickens
There is a Chinese idiom “a crane among chickens,” which refers to something that stands out from the crowd. But if you place a black-boned Asian “silkie” chicken among a flock of ordinary chickens, it may be hard to pick it out, for the great majority of silkie chickens have white feathers, w......
Buried Treasure:
Taiwan’s Black Peanuts and Truffles
Whether it be “Black Diamond” peanuts, which have purple or black skins and are known as a Taiwanese specialty, or Taiwanese truffles, whose commercialization is still in its infancy and awaits the commitment of more resources, both are examples of dark “buried treasure” nurtured by the soil o......
Truffles
In 2023 a research team from the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute (TFRI) of the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) discovered a new species of black truffle in Taitung County’s Taimali Township, and named it the Taitung black truffle (Tuber taitung) after the county. The truffle grows in areas be......
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