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3.3 Staple Foods (Indigenous)
The daily staple diet of each of the established Taiwanese aboriginal tribes varied according to their environment, the common culinary staples being millet, dry-land rice (up-land rice), with taro, sweet potato and yams reigning supreme throughout. In addition to the staple of grains, the aboriginals’ diets were frequently supplemented with vegetables, fish, meat, livestock, game and poultry.
Food-habits did tend to vary from tribe to tribe, although virtually all tribes shared common everyday dishes. An example of an everyday meal might have included gruel made from millet and or rice, supplemented with taro and sweet potato or other vegetables.

The Puyuma, commonly added salted fish or smoked meat to their dietary profile, finishing the meal with a type of turnip cake washed down with beer. The Paiwan people, the most affluent of the Taiwanese aboriginal tribes, often supplemented their daily staple with the bounty of the land and sea. They enriched their diet with deer, wild boar, fish from river and sea, crabs, shrimp and wild plants. Boiling and baking were primary cooking methods of the Paiwan.
Seasoning and spices employed by the aboriginal people typically included salt, hot pepper (chilli) and ginger, and, it is interesting to note that the aborigine’s diet typically shied away from the use of sugar, vinegar and garlic. The limited use of sugar in the aborigine’s diet may well be the third defining culinary marker separating the indigenous Taiwanese from the Han Chinese migrant in Taiwan.

3.4 Taiwanese Diet ~Han Chinese Migrant (19th and 20th century)
The Han-Chinese migrants have continued to settle on the island of Taiwan since the early seventeenth century. The food-ways of the Chinese migrants during this period appeared to “stay true” to their ancestral homes although the daily diet was naturally hybridised by the produce of their adopted home.

This trend of culinary hybridisation by the Fujian migrant is not limited to the Taiwan experience but the evidence of successful culinary hybridisation can also be seen through the rise and popularity of the Nonya cuisine of Singapore and Malaysia.

Nonya cuisine was the product of a marriage between simple clean Fujian culinary technique (Chinese) and the vibrant spices and flavours of the Malaysian pantry.

Chinese migrant workers from the mainland that arrived in Taiwan to aid the Dutch on the sugar and rice plantations during the period of Dutch occupation (1624~1661), hailed from virtually all of the various ethnically different Chinese regional clan groups, however, it was the Hakka and Fujianese that made up the greater proportion, hence a hybridised culinary repertoire for early Taiwanese cuisine was strong on agriculture and enriched by the island’s abundant supply of fish and seafood, the overall dietary pot-pourri reflecting the culinary characteristics of these individual’s ancestral past.
Judging by the survey, it would appear that for many Taiwanese residents of the post-1948 era, the island’s abundance of natural resources were often out of reach for the average family. Thus, creative and innovative dishes arose from the simplicity of the times.
As a reflection of an earlier era, Taiwanese, even as young as 30 years of age, can recall times when soupy broths, a common dietary composite were made with taro or sweet potato enriched with pork bones. The addition of pineapple on special occasions set the rather dreary broths apart from the otherwise monotonous aspect of the regular meal. Over the ensuing years, dishes such as these have become nostalgic classics; they are now re-appearing and gracing the menus of local restaurants throughout the island, and in Taiwanese restaurants abroad.

An investigation of the evolution of contemporary Taiwanese cuisine would appear to expose a cache of nagging questions for the investigator. For instance, for the period of time over which such dietary evolution occurred, there existed an apparent lack of variety in the Taiwanese diet, such that it could be said that the daily table was typically monotonously repetitive, while a review of the relevant literature would suggest that at the time Taiwan represented “a land of plenty”. What actually is the truth? And is it reasonable to assume that the Taiwanese residents’ collective cryof poverty at that time was correct? How can it be that the Taiwanese aboriginal population were apparently living the high life with venison jerky, abundant seafood and a hundred different plants available to them, whilst the Han immigrants appeared to languish over a miserable bowl of soupy rice?

W.H Bode, in his work entitled European Gastronomy, points to climate, geography and natural resources as keys to the general framework of regional diets for a variety of different locations, his observations appearing to be well suited to the Taiwanese experience and especially relevant during the stated time period (late 19th~early 20th Century). It would appear that the Taiwan case differs slightly to Bodes' study in that, it is probably true that climate, geography and natural resources did shape the regional cuisines of Europe. However, it would appear in the Taiwanese case, the aboriginal tribes, as hunters and gatherers differed from those of the Han-Chinese immigrants as the aborigine was free from the socio-economic constraints of a market economy.

1.  Methodology
   The proposed focus of research is directed to the period spanning from 1980 to the present, with grounding in the region’s cultural heritage dating back to the time of Japanese occupation from 1895 to 1945. This historically important period in Taiwan’s development is also a gastronomically significant era, the events of this era having influenced the food-ways of the island’s inhabitants to this day.
    
   The major focus of the proposed project will deal with the dietary characteristics of the urban population residing in and around Taiwan’s third largest city, Taichung. This being a cosmopolitan city of one million people, situated centrally on the west coast of the island. Taiwan’s capital, Taipei, is situated two hundred kilometres to the north of Taichung. To the south is the sprawl of Kaohsuing, the largest city of Taiwan with respect to area, but with the second-highest population density behind that of Taipei. Taiwan is home to 22 million people yet the inhabitants of all three cities share much in common as the island is small, covering an area of just 36,000 square kilometres.

Necessary research for the completion of this study involved substantial literature review, with the majority of information available only through electronic resource. Research involved case studies of changes in food-habits in neighbouring countries that appeared to mirror the case for the Taiwanese example. An example of this may well be seen in the opening of the American fast-food franchise McDonald’s, in Japan and Seoul.

Due to a relative paucity of information concerning the food-habits relating to a significant period in Taiwan’s history (1950~1980), the researcher suggests that the results of a proposed survey, aimed at a sector of the Taiwanese community, the parents of the residents of which most likely suffered through a time of migration and economic hardship, and who might be able to provide appropriate information pertaining to what would have constituted a typical daily meal.

The historical roller coaster of the last 350 years in China and Taiwan coupled with present cross-strait difficulties, and the seemingly futile search for political recognition on the world stage, suggests for Taiwan, that it is a nation seeking the confirmation of its own national identity. It is within this context that the researcher intends to determine changes in food-habits and identify how these new food-habits may contribute to a new national identity for Taiwan.

An important aspect of the subject pertaining to Taiwan’s gastronomic history must be seen in the light of Mainland China and its general history, and this dissertation will take into account the similarities of both China’s and Taiwan’s past histories. Both countries share the memories of oppressive regimes, whether under communism (China) or military dictatorship (Taiwan). Both countries were geographically, culturally and politically isolated until approximately 150 years ago, yet the two

countries share a common cultural heritage. Significantly, the fundamental difference between the two countries is that Taiwan suffered the fate of subjugation by aliens several times, whereas China has enjoyed domination as well as sovereign rule by their own people. It is important

to note that both countries boast a diversity of dialects, yet both embrace a similar national language, Mandarin.

In the winter of 2003~2004, prior to the commencement of the preparation for this dissertation, the researcher became aware of a relative paucity of data pertaining to the eating habits of the new wave of Han-Chinese immigrants. Personal interviews were conducted by the researcher with the focus to; (as it were) open up a window of information.

General discussions with people listed as personal communications did involve the directing of a number of informal questions to them, questions which were designed to cover a portion of the study period, namely the 30-year period between 1950 and 1980 inclusively. For this reason a group of approximately 30 local people were interviewed in order to explore, personally, the details of these questioned peoples’ family’s daily diet over the prescribed study period (Appendix Two).

This researcher has chosen to include the findings in this section, so as to provide a platform from which the reader can gain a better understanding as to the changes in Taiwanese food-habits over the prescribed study period.

4.1 Selected personal interviews

Selected such interviewed people included the following:
            1) A-Ping
A-Ping, (male born in 1975) a recent graduate from the Kaohsiung Hospitality College, is a Taiwanese citizen whose great grandparents constituted a part of the mainland Chinese immigration “wave” to Taiwan, arriving from the Fujian province in the later years of the nineteenth century. They settled in the Chang Hua area of central Taiwan at the base of the mountain ranges separating Taiwan’s east and west. According to A-Ping, his great grandparents subsisted for a large part of their lives on a typical family meal of rice soup thickened with sweet potato, white turnip cake and sweet potato leaves, the principal flavouring agents being salted white fish, garlic and soy sauce. The migrant “ingredient” inherent in the cooking of the Fujianese émigrés to Taiwan was typically the use of pork fat (lard). A-Ping, recalling that his grandparents often subsisted on a diet of steamed rice with rendered pork fat, was chosen as a subject suitable for the purpose of this survey based on his background training in the food industry and the understanding that his family had resided in the same rural community since immigrating to Taiwan more than a half-century ago.
             2) Liu Tse Kuan
The researcher’s parent-in-laws are Hakkanese immigrants, arriving in Taiwan in 1948 as part of the Chiang Kai Shek contingent of political migrants. (The term “political migrants” is used for this group of migrants based upon the understanding that the war in which they participated was in many respects an attempted coup. The general, Chiang Kai Shek, a Nationalist, was intent on the overthrow of the communist guard and his troops were sympathetic to this cause). The ubiquitous bowl of rice soup with sweet potato was virtually these two people’s solitary daily staple at meal times. Supplementary protein and flavour was found by way of preserved pickles, dried fish, tofu and peanuts.
 3) A-Tsou
 A-Tsou, (male born in 1974) another young chef of Han-Chinese heritage and raised in the mountainous regions of eastern Taiwan, tells a different story of his family’s cultural heritage and their food-habits as compared to the immigrant Han Chinese to Taiwan. He tells a similar tale to that of the Taiwanese aborigine, one of the abundance and spectacular variety of available food. The average Taiwanese diet at the time was closer to the wheat-based diets of northern China with noodles, man-tou, chicken, river fish and shrimp, corn, wild plants, field mice, rabbits and even snails being commonly encountered, as one would expect from this land of plenty.
               4) Tsen Su Rong
               Tsen Su Rong a female (born 1966) of pure Taiwanese heritage (as best as can be ascertained) and living on the west coast, cites her grandparents as subsisting on a diet of rice soup supplemented with sweet potato and enriched with pork or fish during the period 1948~88.

4.2 Acquisition of data

It is therefore proposed that the acquisition of data (outside of personal interviews and observation) relating to the proposed dissertation will fall into the following categories:

1. Gastronomic influences
2. Borrowed foods and ingredients
3. Appropriation of foreign food-habits
4. The “Taiwanisation” of borrowed food-ways
5. Dimensions of change within the gastronomic genre
6. National foods and national identity
7. Wealth as a catalyst to change

4.3 Obstacles encountered during the conduct of this research

Obstacles to the conduct of the research project and the presentation of subsequent findings were realised as a consequence of an apparent dearth of relevant literature in the English-language literature and also due to problems associated with a shortage of reliable translation of Chinese work relating to such a “young” subject.
For this reason, reliance upon e-resources and parallel studies pertaining to a similar subject (eg, globalisation of food culture) from neighbouring Asian countries has proved beneficial to this study paper.