seriously food: Taiwanese Breakfast

We should never ignore the breakfasts of great food cultures. Breakfast usually consists of simple, starchy, easy to digest items and can be an excellent look into what a culture considers "comfort foods," things best eaten when suffering from heartbreak, rejection, fever, hangover (all part of a consistent state of being in your early 20s).

Breakfast is kind of a big deal in Taiwan. From my childhood visits to Taipei, I have wonderful memories of mornings walking down to the breakfast shop next to my grandmother's apartment to fill up a tin can with sweet, steaming hot soymilk and carrying it back with a plastic bag full of greasy delights to be enjoyed at the kitchen table. So, during my recent return to the motherland after more than 10 years, I was insistent on eating authentic Taiwanese breakfast every goddamned day.

The most popular breakfast items in Taiwan are dou jiang (soymilk), and a number of savory starchy items: you tiao (fried dough sticks: light, crispy, and savory, can be dipped into the soymilk), shao bing you tiao (you tiao wrapped in thin, flaky sesame bread), fan tuan (glutinous rice stuffed with you tiao, pork sung, and minced pickles), dan bing (egg pancake), luo buo gao (savory daikon cake, usually includes some ground pork for additional flavor), and man tou/ hua juan (steamed buns in various shapes and sizes).

Top left, clockwise: dan bing, shao bing you tiao, fan tuan

The most important item is the soymilk, which can be sweet or savory. The sweet version is smooth and creamy, and can be enjoyed hot (served in a bowl with a spoon), or cold (out of a cup with a straw). The savory version is always served hot, curdled with vinegar, and includes minced pickles and chopped you tiao.