Being a tourist has
its advantages and its disadvantages. Obviously, being able to see famous
landmarks and architectural structures is the main reason for visiting a
country. However, amidst the busy sightseeing schedule, one often forgets to
take in the full cultural experience.
Whenever I travel,
I like to spend at least a part of my trip visiting non-tourist areas (or less
tourist-congested areas). It’s really nice to see how locals live, where they
live and what they eat.
For this part of
the trip, we went out of Northern Taiwan (where Taipei is), and into Central
Taiwan, to a little township called Guan Xi (關西鎮). There
are no high buildings or major shopping malls or major stores of any kind.
Locals harvest their own food and make a living by opening small shops offering
various sorts of services or products. What’s great about this type of setting
is that you can buy local Taiwanese fruit and vegetables for an extremely cheap
price and enjoy some of the best street foods on this planet.
We went to the
local marketplace to take a look around and discovered some of Taiwan’s unique
fruits.
Wax apples (莲雾) are reddish-pink, pear-shaped, and have a
really unexpected crunchy and juicy taste. My favorite Taiwanese fruit by far! Because
of its crunchy texture, it’s a very refreshing fruit to eat, especially on hot
days.
Another interesting
fruit are “ZaoZi” (枣子), which is a type of prune. This fruit is half the size of a fist, is
oval in shape and green in color. It’s very crunchy as well, but not nearly as
sweet as waxed apples. In fact, ZaoZi are a perfect fruit for diabetics,
as there’s not a lot of sugar in it. Even with its blander taste, I still think
it’s really good, probably because it’s so crunchy and unlike any other fruit
we have back in Montreal.
Guavas are called
“BaLa” by locals, and they have so much more taste when they are freshly picked!
I also had the
opportunity to taste my very first passion fruit! Passion fruits are apparently
very very expensive in Taiwan, and not everyone likes them because they are especially
sour. The inside of a passion fruit is filled with seeds and each seed is
covered with this orange/yellow coat of fruity slime (so delicious!). You’re
supposed to eat the seeds with the fruit slime together. But, as I said before,
passion fruits have an extremely sour taste (and by that, I mean I scrounged my
face for a good 3 seconds in order to recover from the first impact of
sourness).
Starfruit are at
their freshest, here in the warm and humid weather in Taiwan. We have starfruit
in Montreal, but they tend to have a thicker exterior skin and rather bland and
dry flesh. The starfruit we tasted in Taiwan was not only soft and sweet, it
was also juicy. In fact, it was so juicy that it dripped all over the place
with each bite we took! I didn’t know a starfruit could hold this much water!
Another interesting
fruit worth mentioning is custard apple, which is also called Buddha fruit,
because its looks like the top of a buddha’s head. Its bumpy greenish brown
exterior is very unappealing, and I have to say, I wouldn’t have bought it if
the lady at the fruit stand didn’t urge me to try it. Turns out, the exterior
green skin is very thick and can’t be consumed – it’s more of a protective
carcass. The inside of this fruit is globs of white goodness, stacked neatly in
rows in the interior of this green shell. I can’t really explain it, but the
globs of white are very sweet, slippery and almost gooey. There’s not much to
chew, but there’s also a lot of juice that comes out of this fruit.
Other fruits that
were pretty interesting to try were the local strawberries. The strawberries in
Taiwan (and in Asia) are tiny. I usually buy Costco strawberries back in
Montreal, and those strawberries are huge and rather tasteless, in my opinion.
In contrast, Asian strawberries are more on the sour side, which gives it a
nice natural taste.
Moreover (and I
think I’ve mentioned this already in a previous post), the locals in Taiwan are
so friendly and welcoming that it made the whole experience so much better. We
bought all our fruit in one haul at a big fruit stand and even if we looked
lost and confused trying to decide what and how much to buy, the fruit lady was
eager to recommend us the local fruits that were good and even showed us how to
pick the freshest ones. If that wasn’t enough, when she found out we were going
to eat the fruits immediately after our purchase, she volunteered to wash a few
of them and cut them for us! After, she even gave us three packs of seasoning
for the fruits (Interesting fact: Taiwanese folks sometimes season their fruits
with something called “SuanMeiFen” (酸梅粉),
which has a sweet and sour taste. Pretty good, but I personally still prefer
eating fruits without the seasoning). I guess they didn’t get many tourists in
their area, which can explain their eagerness to impress us, but so far, all
Taiwanese locals whom I’ve met have all been as welcoming and kind as the lady
at the fruit stall!
(Other Interesting
Fact Numero 2: Taiwanese folks like to sprinkle salt on their watermelons prior
to consumption. Still have yet to try this myself)
The small town of
Guan Xi is also known for its “Old Street” (老街),
which is a single narrow street cramped with stalls selling local specialty
foods. I had been looking forward to trying various 台湾小吃
(Taiwanese snacks). However, when we got to this part of the town it was pretty
early in the morning and a lot of stalls had not opened yet. A few discoveries
that are worth mentioning: Taiwanese bubble tea is as good as people say it is,
blueberries in Taiwan are really good but very overpriced (the blueberries are
really tiny, and have a nice sour tang to them).
I had my first Taiwanese bubble tea in Guan Xi
(actually, I immediately ran to the first bubble tea stall I saw) and it was as
good as the rumors say it is. Authentic bubble tea doesn’t come in all the
array of flavors offered in North America; there is only the natural flavored
type. So bubble tea in Asia is just Bubble Tea (珍珠奶茶). No need to deal with Watermelon Bubble Tea or
Taro Bubble Tea or Honeydew Bubble Tea etc. Actually, the authentic bubble tea
(as I learned), is simply just milk added to red tea. Anyways, the milk tea
itself is not as sweet as the stuff in North America; it tastes more like tea (which
it should) than anything else. Also, the added bubbles were the silver lining
of the drink. Let me say one thing: I will never enjoy the plastic-y bubbles
they put in my milk tea back in Montreal ever again. The bubbles in Taiwan are
freshly made from glutinous rice, and they’re much less chewy/springy. The
bubbles are gooier and have a sticky film that adheres the bubbles together.
Very delicious indeed.
