Yes, but that wasn’t the question. The question was “So…What should I know/be aware of as we make the decision to/not to move to Taiwan?” 
That was the OP’s question.
The thread has now veered off to a discussion of Taiwanese food and food available in Taiwan.
IMO, its all relevant to the OP’s original question. But, if the mods want to split it, so be it.
Same ‘problem’ in Australia. What is ‘Australian’ cooking? is it the bland British meat and potatoes that did the place well for the first 200 years, or is it doner kebabs or hamburgers? Both are more popular, both are available all over the country, but neither qualifies as Australian food. That’s Lebanese and American.
the new Australian cuisine is a blend of many different cultures, like Tetsuya’s and Neil Perry’s fusion of Asian and French styles, the stunning seafood in Sydney, Hobart and other cities, the California-style salads and light fish meals, or the amalgam of Greek, Turkish and North African foods now hitting the restaurants in Melbourne. Chinese foods are Chinese foods. Pasta is Italian. Sashimi is Japanese. They may be well done there, they may be adapted to local tastes (or not), but food of a recipe originating in country X is still X-food, not the place where it’s cooked, even after hundreds of years.
Gong Bao Ji Ting is quintessentially Chinese (though ‘Chinese’ is a pretty broad church). Even if its cooked in Taiwan. Green Chicken curry is Thai. Baked kangaroo tail is Australian, even if it’s cooked on the Moon.
That’s wrong on so many counts. What country claims weiner snitzel? Austria of course even though it is a Muslim recipe.
Certain foods are associated with one country yes. But there is an immense amount of overlap and after a while when a dish becomes thoroughly part of another people’s common eatin habits I think it is pedantic to insist it is not local. Are you willing to say bread and cheese and milk are not Australian, or North American? What about vegetables and fruit that are grown locally but come from another part of the world. Is coffee Italian or Ethiopean?
Gong bao ji ding may be a borderline example but dumplings are as taiwanese as anything. They are made with local ingredients, with local recipes, and have been for generations. They are not a fad, or a trend.
There are foods that have originated in Taiwan. These are “Taiwanese” foods.
水餃 are classic Shandong dumplings. Shandong is in China.
Having been made in Taiwan for generations doesn’t make them Taiwanese.
I don’t think its pedantic to classisfy foods by their place of origin.
How many generations? How readily was stuff like that available prior to the 1950s? I like what you’re saying, because it gives the lie to the old saw that Brit food is all grey meat and soggy greens, but that’s STILL how Brit food is regarded by many, many people, even though it hasn’t been like that since the 1950s.
Anyway, if I had to eat Taiwanese or Chinese food most of the time it would drive me crazy, that’s all I’m saying.
Dumplings of the Chinese style, as are made here, are Chinese. Dumplings of other styles may be Russian, Polish, German, Italian.
parmesan cheese is italian, from parma. Cheddar cheese is British. and so on ad infinitum… bread varies too.
It’s not pedantry, it’s respect, and acknowledgement of cultural precedence. Call white sparkling wine from any other region other than Champagne “Champagne” and you’d be wrong, and breaking the law.
I think there are two different issues here. Where foods originate from and where foods are eaten as part of a local cuisine.
Cheese may be British but to say it is not a local food in Canada is a claim I can’t agree with. Bread, cheese, milk, etc, are all part of our local diet even though none of these foods originates in Canada.
I agree that certain dishes, even if made in a local environment, are not local. For many others though, they do after a time become part of the local diet and can be considered local foods. Especially I would say when the dish becomes localized. Potato chips are probably American in invention but salt and vinegar chips are considered Canadian (even though the idea of putting vinegar on the similar french fry is British).
Mexican food is Mexican, but it has been so thoroughly localized in America that a new term “Tex-Mex” had to be invented. I would say that much of the Chinese food in taiwan can be consider Tai-Chi.
As for respect, I don’t think this is an issue. While there are a few products that are specific to on region (champagne as you mention) most are a medley of ingredients and cooking methods that have come from all regions of the world and have been facilitated by trade.
No argument there.
I know its really OT, but I just can’t let this slide…
Mucha Man said:
Apparently it’s Irish.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato_chip
Taytos Cheese and Onion taste amazing. My Irish flatmate used to have them sent over to London.
No chance of getting them here though I’m afraid OP.
And cheese was invented by either the Arabs or Europeans, not specifically the British.
I don’t think anyone is claiming that Chinese dumplings are not made and enjoyed here in Taiwan. Sashimi (生魚片) is very popular in Taiwan, and I imagine that the Taiwanese may have been eating 生魚片 even longer than they have been eating 山東餃子… but I’ve never heard any Taiwanese person refer to 生魚片 as a local Taiwanese food. Normally, you need to go to a 日本料理 place for 生魚片. Fortunately, if you like 生魚片, there are many 日本料理 places in Taiwan.
Well, I guess we’ll have to disagree, at least with respect to Chinese dumplings. Even the Taiwanese still often describe the dumplings they sell as 山東餃子, while referring to a certain noodle dish from Tainan as 台南擔仔麵. I know that whenever I talk about the food my MIL makes and especially her 餃子, my Taiwanese colleagues and friends all remark that they must be good because my MIL is a 山東人. Still other stores in Taiwan sell 山西刀切麵. If these distinctions are used and accepted by the Taiwanese, then perhaps they are more than simply pedantic.
Well, when someone says, ‘Taiwanese food’, I take that to mean the curious mix of traditional Taiwanese and Chinese food that’s available in Taiwan. Even traditional Chinese food such as shui jiao is, I would argue, Taiwanese food when eaten in Taiwan. It’s Chinese food ‘with Taiwanese characteristics’.
I would say that although there are certain dishes that are uniquely Taiwanese, the vast majority of the ‘local’ food one eats here is a blend of Chinese and Taiwanese. And I love that boiled chicken dish! What could be healthier than boiled chicken on rice? Well, boiled vegetables on rice I suppose, which I eat often.
As for salt, I can hardly eat at restaurants when I go back to the US because all I taste is salt. I never noticed that while growing up there.
And the age thing I was pointing out only to make a point that eating here regularly for years hasn’t seem to have adversely affected my health. I wish I were 30… OK… 28.
The taiwanese also refer to their major holiday as Chinese New Year, which is no way argues that this is not a local holiday as well. If we ask what is Taiwanese culture, or what are the major festivals, the answers would incude festivals and tradtions that mostly are of mainland origin. Would you then argue that the Taiwanese should not consider these their own? I don’t think you would anymore than you would sugest Christmas is not an integral part of American culture.
Similarly, if asked what is taiwanese food, I would not restrict myself to a few greasy dishes that I don’t like but would include a number of Chinese dishes that I would now consider part of the local cuisine (regardless of what locals may call them). As I said, there are many dishes I would consider Chinese, and not Taiwanese, but there is a lot of overlap. Tea, though a drink and not a food, is Chinese in origin but it is certainly part of the local food and drink by any standards.
At some point you have to accept that a dish or food becomes local. Where is your cutting off line?
I disagree. According to your logic, American spaghetti is actually Italian food. So, the next time I pop open a can of Ragu spaghetti sauce, I’m eating Italian? Nonsense.
Taco Bell, Mexican food? And by your logic, the strange wannabe-western pastries available in some Taiwanese bakeries are, in fact, western food. Clearly not the case. They’re Taiwanese creations, hence, Taiwanese food. They may have been inspired by western cooking, but that doesn’t make them any less Taiwanese.
How about cheese hot pots? Western or Taiwanese? Clearly Taiwanese. How about ‘hun bao’, those greasy pork-based sandwiches with a sweet sauce available from any breakfast vendor. American? I think not, but the American hamburger was their inspiration. I could go on and on. Oh wait, here’s one, how about the sweet potato French fries? There’s a curious one. Based on an American food, the inventor of which based it on a French food that probably doesn’t even exist in the form we see French fries in the US.
Food is like language. It changes constantly. It borrows and reinvents, and once it borrows and reinvents, it is by definition, local.
That’s a fair point. But, I think that if you wanted to distinguish festivals as either Taiwanese or Chinese, and that is what we are doing with the food, you would distinguish them by place of origin.
Again, this is a fair point.
On a case-by-case basis, which is why I don’t disagree with you on every single item of food, but do disagree that 山東餃子 can be properly/appropriately labeled a Taiwanese food.
I guess I look at it in a sort of trademark attorney’s way of looking at “secondary meaning”… Secondary meaning arises when consumers have come to identify a trademark with a particular producer/seller over time. There may well come a day when the people of Taiwan no longer associate 餃子 with Shandong… but, as far as I can tell, that day has not yet arrived. As far as I can tell, most Taiwanese today still consider 餃子 to be a Chinese food. At least if you are distinguishing between Taiwanese and Chinese foods.
That isn’t my logic.
I’m not discussing or making any claims about hybrids or inspired food items.
Nonsense. All food is a hybrid and inspired. ‘Taiwanese’ food, by any definition, was inspired by Chinese cooking, unless you’re referring to aboriginal food, which might be a different story.
The people other than the aboriginals (whose origin is open to debate) who call themselves Taiwanese all originated from China. So, Taiwanese food was unequivocally inspired by Chinese cooking.
OK, here I would agree. Taiwanese do consider 餃子 and loads of other dishes to be Chinese, but that’s like Americans considering spaghetti and tacos to be Italian and Mexican. It doesn’t change the fact that those foods are in some way unique in the way in which they’re prepared to America.
Toast, as it is sold in Taiwan, is not toast as it is consumed in the US, but it is still considered ‘foreign’ here. That’s simply semantics.
Let me rephrase my argument. If a food is only available in a specific country, regardless of the food’s name or inspiration or hybrid-quotient, does that not make that food a local dish? I can’t imagine the hun bao that vendors sell are available anywhere else on the planet, I certainly hope they’re not, so doesn’t that make them uniquely Taiwanese?
I’m taking the argument to the extreme, I realize. Shui jiao prepared in Taiwan, depending on who prepares them, may very well be identical to those sold in Shandong, but I think you get my point.
I rest my case.