Food 4 -

If I think about it seriously, my stomach and my identity are actually not that different.

I remember a class in Poland, where we talked about National Identity, and there were group reports. There were actually two Taiwanese in the class. During the first discussion, we sat down and looked at each other. Taiwan's identity is extremely complicated, and it lacks the so-called unified national cognition. In the Republic of China, China, China, Taiwan, and even the Republic of Taiwan, the possibilities are superimposed and the identity is diminishing. When it comes to the national identity spectrum of Taiwanese people, it is different. A point in a multidimensional scale composed of ingredients, different cultural elements, and different social concepts is not a unified concept that can be explained clearly in 15 minutes.

So how does the report summarize? We put up a slide filled with food.

From braised pork rice with precious milk, carefully prepared soup base to scallion pancakes with eggs and cheese, Japanese food mixed with Taiwanese food, Chinese food with sugar, American burgers with marinated pork chops, various grilled and fried foods, we both cooked it. They were all hungry. Food is, after all, the only identity that Taiwanese people can unanimously agree on.

My stomach doesn’t need a meal, but it definitely can’t be boring.

I had Japanese food for this meal, so don’t repeat it the next time you eat. Growing up in Taipei, I always had plenty of choices to choose from without worrying. So for a long time, I didn’t like Taiwanese food. Every meal was a different style of exotic food. Cuisine.

But the older I get, the more I like the local flavor. I look for local snacks during my travels. When I return to Taiwan, I love to crawl into the alleys. I go to Tainan to eat pot-roasted pasta, and go to Ningxia. I ate oyster omelette from that stall at the night market, but when I returned to the UK, I didn’t mind eating all kinds of exotic dishes, especially Korean spicy ones, which I didn’t get tired of eating for several days.

I have been traveling for a long time, and my colleagues from all over the world know that I love to eat, and they always take me to their favorite stalls. In Kuala Lumpur, we sat on the dark side of the road eating Nasi Lemak and drinking hot Teh tarik; in Seoul, my colleagues took me to a barbecue restaurant. Not only barbecue, but also roasted black pork. I ordered a pot of spicy soup and listened to the stove. The pork was sizzling and dripping with oil; in Thailand, my colleagues and I visited famous local restaurants and ate raw pickled crabs until we sucked our fingers.

I may not travel, but my stomach probably doesn’t like to sit there. My mouth is itchy more often than my feet are itchy, especially in the UK. When I get tired of cooking, I feel the need to travel and eat.

If there is any difference, it is probably because I grew up in Taiwan, where the diet is light, but I also secretly love Chinese food that is heavy in oil, salty and spicy. It was only after I turned 30 that I became aware of the many cuisines of Chinese cuisine. Part of it was when I started traveling to China on business, and part of it was when I started to live in the UK for a long time and slowly started to experience it. I especially like spicy Sichuan food, but after a few years of heavy training and trying to eat cleaner, my stomach gradually became less efficient at digesting heavy-flavored food, and I sometimes get greedy.

After thinking for a long time, I realized that it may not be that my stomach and my identity are synchronized, but that my identity has greatly matched my taste buds and stomach, but so what? I live a life of freedom and happiness despite the title of foodie. Maybe it’s because the food addiction that requires traveling is difficult to suppress. As long as there is a place with delicious food, it is home. As I write this article, I just feel like sighing, oh, it’s been a long time. Are you back in Thailand?