Food and the Market in Taiwan

Ben buys most of his food at or near the marketplace. The day market (from early until about 5 or 6) sells fresh fruit, fish, meat and other grocery items as well as clothes, household stuff (see the man with the spices). In the evening, it turns into a closely packed array of fast homemade food vendors.

The alleyways are crowded with shoppers, but also a row of vendors set up carts down the center. When the police make their twice nightly sweeps, the illegal pushcarts down the center disappear into alleyways until it is all clear.

In spite of the 80+ temps, the only iced food I saw was some fish. Everything else is just made fast and served quickly. Some of the more established places have refrigerators in the back, I'm sure.

We had some great food already- for breakfast, we had freshly made (and naturally sweet) soy milk and egg and bacon wrapped "tortilla" (see the top pictures). For dinner we had a 3 meat dish with rice, cabbage and tomatoes. The man in the photo is cooking the meats- duck, pork and chicken, then he uses a big cleaver to chop it into bite sized pieces.

Right before we went to bed last night, Ben ran out and got some more food (not that we needed it). I had small fried balls of potato bread. Paul had a sausage in a rice flour wrapper with veggies. Ben had ramen noodles with a spicy sauce.

I'm definitely loving this food, as Ben describes it: It's homemade, just not at home. I'm hoping to buy a good local cookbook for our first international dinner with Leah and John.