Vegetable
price in Taipei/Carlos Pueblo
Recently the
vegetable price in Taipei is falling due to the supply over the demand
which becomes
a political issue between the National government and the city of
Taipei. The
critic states that too many days off the official auction market during
the period
between the Lunar New Year and the Lantern Day Festival; therefore,
the crops
flooded the market. I believe that the reason is still the supply in excess
with the
regular demand. During the winter season, Taiwanese farmers utilize the
rice field
to grow all kinds of vegetable to have extra income and that is why so
plentiful
vegetable in the winter.
When I was a
child living at my hometown in the central southwest of Taiwan, my
mother used
to purchase a lot of surplus green vegetable such as cabbage,
cauliflower,
and white radish for preservation. We would help her to break up to
pieces,
salty them, and spread up on a large bamboo basket or cloth under the sun
to be dry
up, of course, would apply plenty of salt. She knew when they were done
and kept
into container for future use. Dry radish would be scramble with eggs
while both
dry cauliflower and cabbage would make soup with pig bone or fatty
pork meat.
At that time, we had had no idea of making Kimchi and Takuon, etc.
A few years
ago, Amy’s friend gave her a small bag of dry cauliflower from Taiwan.
She didn’t
know what to do with it which brought me back to my childhood era. I
asked her to
bring back a box of pork legs to make soup. Dry vegetable can absorve
plenty of
fat which would make the soaked salty vegetable tasty to eat with regular
steam rice.
That was how I could finish my two bowls a meal at that time.
There are
also plenty of supply of fresh bamboo shoots in early summer. Other than
fresh cooking
with pork meat or making soup with bones, we can also preserve them
for salty slice
bamboo for both future cooking. Dry bamboo cooking is a very common
menu of
Taiwanese table at the religious tables.
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