Lucky Chow

All around the island are artists whose medium is Taiwan’s traditional ingredients and foods. Danielle visits an indigenous-rights activist’s lunch box canteen and the cooking studio where a young couple perfect the sticky-rice confection kueh. A Michelin-starred chef deconstructs an iconic Taiwanese dish, lu rou fan, while a mad scientist of fermentation breaks down stinky tofu.

Taiwan is steeped in tea, as beverage, ritual and way of life. Danielle meets a tea grower who processes the most tender leaves by wok-frying them, and shares sips with an expert in the ceremony of brewing and drinking tea. A San Diego surfer displays the delicate tea pots he makes to honor his adopted culture, while the baristas at Odd One Out dispense gourmet bubble tea.

A lot of cities claim to never sleep, but Taipei makes good on that promise. Danielle visits a 24-hour prawn pool where she catches dinner and tours a popular night market, tracking down oyster omelets and shaved ice. At the port of Keelung she walks down a dark alleyway to a bar straight out of “In the Mood for Love,” where the local catch is served fresh from the nearby seafood market.

Taiwan’s earthly obsession with food has a spiritual dimension as an offering to the spirits who watch over the vulnerable island nation. Indigenous men of the Rukai tribe hunt for wild boar in the mountains, while in the rocky tidal zone the matriarchal Amis forage the sea’s bounty. At Buddhist temples, dizzyingly diverse vegetarian menus speak to how food can cultivate compassion and connection.

Across Taiwan, there’s a growing movement to produce familiar pantry staples – soy sauce, hot sauce, tofu, rice – in a hand-crafted way that respects the island’s legacy. Two brothers take over the family soy sauce factory; a tofu maker uses traditional methods, as well as water from a bubbling mud volcano; and a collective of young urbanites seek out a life farming rice.