Taiwan’s first Michelin star chef Andre Chiang (江振誠) yesterday said that the nation needs to examine the status of Taiwanese cuisine from an international perspective, adding that it needs to consider the next step after an increased emphasis on the use of local ingredients.
“Through the Taiwan Culinary Exhibition, we can think about if we should advance Taiwanese cuisine to the next level, or if we should stick to same cooking methods and concept,” Chiang said. “I hope we can all digest the message of the culinary exhibition this year and try to represent them in culinary exhibitions in the future.”
Based in Singapore, Chiang’s restaurant is lauded by the New York Times as a “top 10 restaurant in the world worth a plane ride,” and Wallpaper recognizes Chiang as one of the world’s best chefs.
He attended the Taiwan Culinary Exhibition this year at the invitation of the Taiwan Visitors Association. Aside from giving a lecture on cooking, he was also asked to be a judge for the young chefs culinary competition.
Though Chiang said he believed that there should not be any competition in cooking, he said the competition serves as platform to demonstrate the skills and ideas of young chefs.
Chiang stressed that the definition of Taiwanese cuisine should not solely refer to dishes made using local ingredients, adding that people should understand local cuisine by understanding the history and way of life of Taiwanese.
Seeing the food at the exhibition, Chiang said that he was particularly impressed by the dishes made by Aborigines.
“They show an understanding of the ingredients, like they are living with these ingredients every second of their life. They are not trying to tell a story about the dish. Their response was honest and direct, which is what really moves people,” he said, adding that people should consider what Taiwanese cuisine is really about.
He said that the nation should strive to make the quality of the food its strong suit, such as creating cuisine based on the 24 solar terms on the Chinese lunar calendar.
“I think foreigners will envy what we have [24 solar terms], but are we really proud of it ourselves?” he asked.
Chiang also noted that the nation should first overcome the culture of doing things quickly.
“Compared with other Asian countries, we have neither the advantage of making food in a quick manner nor the advantage of quantity. We can only compete when we take time to do one thing perfectly, which is one thing we never learn,” he said.
“If a young person comes and says he wants to work for you, and you ask him to first sign an eight-year contract, he would probably run away. This is what happens when you focus on doing everything quickly, because the person does not see the value of spending time learning to do one thing perfectly.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday voiced dissatisfaction with the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans- Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), whose latest meeting, concluded earlier the same day, appeared not to address the country’s application. In a statement, MOFA said the CPTPP commission had "once again failed to fairly process Taiwan’s application," attributing the inaction to the bloc’s "succumbing to political pressure," without elaborating. Taiwan submitted its CPTPP application under the name "Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu" on Sept. 22, 2021 -- less than a week after China
ALIGNED THINKING: Taiwan and Japan have a mutual interest in trade, culture and engineering, and can work together for stability, Cho Jung-tai said Taiwan and Japan are two like-minded countries willing to work together to form a “safety barrier” in the Indo-Pacific region, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday said at the opening ceremony of the 35th Taiwan-Japan Modern Engineering and Technology Symposium in Taipei. Taiwan and Japan are close geographically and closer emotionally, he added. Citing the overflowing of a barrier lake in the Mataian River (馬太鞍溪) in September, Cho said the submersible water level sensors given by Japan during the disaster helped Taiwan monitor the lake’s water levels more accurately. Japan also provided a lot of vaccines early in the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic,
THE GOOD WORD: More than 100 colleges on both sides of the Pacific will work together to bring students to Taiwan so they can learn Mandarin where it is spoken A total of 102 universities from Taiwan and the US are collaborating in a push to promote Taiwan as the first-choice place to learn Mandarin, with seven Mandarin learning centers stood up in the US to train and support teachers, the Foundation for International Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan (FICHET) said. At the annual convention of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages held over the weekend in New Orleans, Louisiana, a Taiwan Pavilion was jointly run by 17 representative teams from the FICHET, the Overseas Community Affairs Council, the Steering Committee for the Test of Proficiency-Huayu, the
A home-style restaurant opened by a Taiwanese woman in Quezon City in Metro Manila has been featured in the first-ever Michelin Guide honoring exceptional restaurants in the Philippines. The restaurant, Fong Wei Wu (豐味屋), was one of 74 eateries to receive a “Michelin Selected” honor in the guide, while one restaurant received two Michelin stars, eight received one star and 25 were awarded a “Bib Gourmand.” The guide, which was limited to restaurants in Metro Manila and Cebu, was published on Oct. 30. In an interview, Feng Wei Wu’s owner and chef, Linda, said that as a restaurateur in her 60s, receiving an
RSS