I am proud to be a Taiwanese American. What does it mean to be a Taiwanese American? It means different things to different people. To me, being a Taiwanese American is about understanding where I came from and knowing that there was a profound history of struggle and perseverance that long predated my comfortable life in America. I hope to impart that same appreciation for the heritage and history of Taiwan onto my kids as well.
One way of staying in touch with my cultural roots and preserving those roots for my children is maintaining an appreciation for the food of Taiwan. Like many cultures, Taiwanese people have a deep love for food. Being an island, Taiwan inevitably is home to many delectable seafood dishes like oyster omelets and fish ball soup. Taiwanese people also love their noodles from beef noodle soup to oyster vermicelli.
Many Taiwanese dishes also feature pork...fatty pork. Taiwanese people sure do love themselves some fatty pig! Whether it is served as a main dish like a Taiwanese pork chop, in a steamed bun called a Taiwanese hamburger, or as an accompaniment with rice, pork is a staple of Taiwanese cuisine.
Indeed, when I was a kid, my family ate our fair share of pork. I think my parents truly bought into pork as being the "other white meat". However, contrary to what advertising might imply, the fat content in most pork is closer to that of beef than it is to chicken. After all, the saying does go, "fat as a pig" for a reason.
As I mentioned in a previous post, you can cut down on saturated fat by avoiding store bought ground meat, including ground pork: http://doctorchrisko.blogspot.com/2013/07/cooking-for-your-kids-you-take-good-and.html
In the following clip, instead of using store bought ground pork, I show you a tasty Taiwanese dish made healthier by grinding my own meat from lean pork tenderloin:
Many thanks to the North American Taiwanese Women's Association for their permission to feature recipes from their excellent cookbook, Taiwanese Homestyle Cooking.
To purchase this book, go to: http://cookbook.tacl.org/
To send a donation to NATWA, visit: http://www.natwa.com/page/support.html
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