Growing up in Taiwan meant that I had the opportunity to experience a myriad of foods that the Taiwanese have come up with in the past few decades. While most Taiwanese foods taste delicious, their names and ingredients can be awfully off-putting. Here are 8 of the stranger-sounding yet delicious foods.
1. Stinky Tofu
The hardest part of this dish to accept is definitely the fermented smell. Depending on the restaurant and whether the fermented tofu is fried, steamed or braised, the stinky tofu smell can range from mildly unpleasant to gag inducing. However, once you’re able to get over the smell, the dish is surprisingly flavorful and addicting. Let’s just say it’s an acquired taste.
2. Some sort of Intestines
Taiwanese people do not like wasting food, so leave it to them to turn every part of an animal into a dish. Often served as a side to noodles or rice, intestines taste chewy and sometimes rubbery, with a unique rich taste that stays in your mouth. This dish is not for weak stomachs, so order accordingly when you go to a Taiwanese restaurant.
3. Pork Floss
Pork Floss, also known as Rousong, is used in many different ways, including on bread buns, in congee, or just on regular rice. It is made of dry meat product and has a savory taste that turns sweet after a while in your mouth. Since pork floss can be found on the shelves of most Asian markets, for college students, pork floss with rice is an easy and quick solution to a decent breakfast that doesn’t damage your wallet.
4. Ba-wan
From the outside, ba-wans are simply giant meat dumplings with a chewy, translucent dough. While the idea of giant meat dumplings may gross some people out, these bowls of deliciousness, paired with a flavorful sweet sauce, is one of Taiwan’s most famous foods. Every time I visited my grandparents in Taiwan, we would go to the local ba-wan stand for its piping hot ba-wans even in scorching hot weather. It was definitely worth it.
5. Iron Egg
As a kid, I loved going to Tamsui and begging my parents to buy some iron eggs. On the outside, the eggs are smooth and hard, chewy and cold. On the inside, the yolk is basically a regular yolk with a more concentrated flavor. Its usual shape and size for an egg scares away a lot of people, but once you get over the appearance of the egg, I promise you will not be disappointed.
6. Scallion Pancake
In the US, we’re used to the idea of pancakes as sweet and syrupy, but in Taiwan, vendors stuff scallions and green onions into dough to make scallion pancakes. These doughs of deliciousness are the bane of my existence as they contribute to approximately 90% of my carb intake after 10 pm in Taiwan. I have no regrets.
7. Oyster Pancake
First scallion pancake, now oyster pancake. Seems like the Taiwanese really like their savory pancakes. Oyster pancakes were my favorite dish to eat at the night markets in Taiwan even though I had no idea how the chewy, translucent part of the pancake was made. Doused with a savory sauce, the oyster pancake usually consists of eggs, lettuce or some sort of cabbage, oysters, and bean sprouts.
8. Pig/Duck Blood
This is probably the food that most foreigners have the hardest time wrapping their heads around. There are just so many questions associated with this. How is this made? Why is it cut into cubic shapes? How is it even solid? Do people really eat this?
The answer is yes, people do eat pork blood. For real. Pork and duck blood are extremely common in Taiwan, and it is often served in soups at morning markets for breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. This dish has a salty taste and the pork blood itself has a unique flavor that you’ll only understand if you tried it once. This is the one dish that scares even my Chinese friends, so it is definitely not for the faint-hearted.
