Coming from a country that has a rich cuisine with lots of seasonings, ways of cooking…etc, I can’t say that I expected anything good nor bad from Taiwan’s food.

My first face to face with Taiwan’s food would be the famous fried chicken, I was a newcomer so I had some people that I met here took me out to what is going to become my first visit to a nightmarket (Shilin nightmarket in Taipei), so back to the fried chicken, I liked it although I thought it was sort of too oily and seemed quite unhealthy as a meal, let me just say that I wasn’t impressed at all.

I remember I had an indian roll after that and on and on…Japanese cheese sticks,American hotdogs, fried dough (comes from North Africa), Japanese fish balls….I was constantly looking for something that belongs to Taiwan’s cuisine and is not some sort of imported culinary concepts…after a couple of days, I had to look no further, I had found something that locals consider as a local dish and that foreigners (or at least most of them) run the other way as soon as they get in touch with its smell, for those of you who guessed, yeah you got it right, Stinky tofu (cou tofu).

The name and the distinction of the smell matches perfectly, it STINKS, but I wasn’t going to back off, I’ve had similar experiences previously (Rockfort cheese to name one and I loved the taste) so there was, with my courage and determination, making my way through the crowds, zig zagging between the stinky smoke coming from the vendor stand, speaking out my only chinese words learned at the time in a clumsy tone (yi ge which means one or I want one) and finally reaching for the bag of sliced fried and nevertheless stinky tofu with a hand, and giving the vendor the coins with my other one, first bite, chewing…………

Ben-0

Stinky tofu-1

Now how would I describe my deception merging with my disapointment, hmmm….Imagine a tasteless cube of bean curd, sunk into a pile of greasy oil, then snatched out of that nasty oil and finally blasted with a dark soy sauce and lots of chili sauce(Taiwan’s chili sauce has not nothing but Hot chili, it’s not seasoned, no sir). First, I busted in tears the chili was a sneak preview of your first inhalation if (could be a when) you go to hell, then what comes after the spicy taste? nothing but the taste of the greasy oil, I felt bad, for my stomach, for all the people who were going to have the same experience or had it already and generally for the gourmands and gourmets.

Throughout my 4 years in Taiwan, I got to learn that what is tasteless to me and probably to other foreigners, is delicious to locals and what tastes horrible to me and the rest of us, is….still delicious to locals, well you get the idea…Taiwan food and I will just never be friends, we won’t call each other or not even bother to send an email, Taiwan food and I is like that date you had when you were young and fool and although you insisted on staying till the end of the first date by courtesy, you have realized since the first seconds that you and your date have nothing in common and you would rather walk the other way, even if it meant taking a further way back home.