As you all know, I always travel to Taiwan for fun and entertainment, and this time I had the same fun and food, but the itinerary was a bit special - we were going to go into the local markets of Yilan with our friends and use our limited money and time to buy the best ingredients, and then cook up a delicious Yilan-style lunch. If anything goes wrong, there will be no lunch!
"The Appearance of Young Gong
Such an arduous task requires a mentor, and that is Tzu-Wei Fong, the founder of Music Meter. He grew up in Yilan's Nankan Market, a true "local" daredevil. After graduating from the National Chung Cheng University and travelling abroad for three years, he did not choose a well-paid job in the city, but instead returned to Yilan to develop his business, combining Taiwan's food market and culinary culture to promote to foreign tourists, and to make contributions to his hometown.
On that day, he was dressed in a traditional Taiwanese "Agong" outfit (Agong means grandfather in Taiwanese) and was waiting for us in Yilan City. Because Ziwei is actually only 35 years old this year, everyone calls him "Junior Agong".
Nankan Market Guide
After distributing the communication headsets, Ziwei took us to the century-old Nankan food market to take a stroll around. The market was very busy that day, selling everything, wet or dry, and the residents of Yilan were busy shopping and bargaining. We visited a traditional knife shop, tasted delicious fishballs and red turtle kuey teow, a tasty Taiwanese pastry, and met a fastidious old man who kept bundling up pork, salted vegetables and carrots with dried gourds made from gourd skins to make many of Yilan's authentic "salted vegetable knots".
"Bargaining with Local People for Food Ingredients".
All right! After the tour, it was time for the real battle. Zi Wei divided us into 3 groups of 10 or so, and each of us was given NT$100 each, and then lots were drawn so that each group had 20 minutes to buy the ingredients for a Yilan dish.
Lunch was a four-course meal and was very rich :)
First up is my favourite appetizer, "Cold Cucumber", you need to use the traditional wavy knife that you just saw at the knife shop to cut the cucumber, and then add chopped ginger, chilli and garlic to the ingredients. Put all the ingredients into a transparent plastic bottle and shake well.
The appetiser is a limited edition Yilan speciality, "One Skewer of Heart", which is made of oiled tofu skin, coriander and Yilan's favourite smoked snacks such as pig's head skin, vermicelli and offal skewered on bamboo sticks, making it very tasty.
Soup is a dish eaten by the Yilan people during celebrations, "Fairy Mackerel", which is a soup made of salted vegetable knots and clams, which clears the heat and relieves the thirst.
Zi Wei is responsible for the last ingredients of the mystery staple, the music rice and the roulade.
In the end, we won the "Fairy Mistletoe Belt" which had the most expensive ingredients and the most handmade work. My team and I had the urge to rush to the old man just now to buy the ready-made "Salted Vegetable Knot"! (Afterwards, when we really started to make them, we felt that they were actually quite interesting and fun).
We went to the nearest meat stall to buy pork, the owner spoke Taiwanese and we could only "talk with the ducks", luckily with the help of Zi Wei's team we managed to finish the job, after buying the other ingredients, we had to buy the most expensive clams, we were a bit bad at bargaining, we almost didn't have enough money to buy them! After the ingredients were ready, we went back to the station to cook.
Jiao Xi Fan Kariyu Grandma's Art Station
At first, his parents were worried and opposed to Ziwei's work, but in the end, they decided to fully support them. The "Tour Grandma's Art Station" is a revitalisation of her grandma's 80-year-old house by his wife, Huang Xuan Yi. The mysterious main course is actually an anti-traditional braised pork rice - "braised pork rice ball" that they came up with, and the braised pork, which Ziwei called the best in the world, was made by his mother herself. The above shows the love and support from their parents and elders.
After we had made all the dishes, the pregnant Fairy Fontaine appeared and was ready to sing some of her own songs for us. She was ready to sing us some of her own songs and lyrics, and it was hard to describe the feeling of listening to the fairy's voice while enjoying your share of the food with a hungry stomach.
Postscript
In fact, I really envy these young farmers and youths. For those of us who live in busy cities, we have to work hard every day to buy a flat and survive, and although we earn a stable income and some of us even make a lot of money, are we really living a happy life? On the contrary, if you are like Ziwei and the others, if you are doing a job that you really like and at the same time contributing to society, then you are really living a happy life.
Musical Rice Creative Marketing Enterprise/Hangari Tianyou Grandma Art Station
Address: No. 3-10, Ma-chan Road, Jiaoxi Township, Yilan County, Taiwan 262, R.O.C.
Tel: 886 912 420831
Website: https://www.facebook.com/MorningMarketYilan
Yilan Rural Life Cooking Class Ordering Details.
https://www.klook.com/zh-TW/activity/20188-farm-market-cooking-class-yilan/
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