Open Market

Last week before the typhoon I took a little trip to the market in the village.  It is a short distance away but can be a little intimidating.  Around 5:30-6:00pm it is PACKED.  The butchers and grocers bring out all of their products at about 4:30 and everyone flocks in.  

People come in from the surrounding "countryside" (I put quotes around that because you would never consider it countryside, but the Taiwanese do.), and this is where they do all of their shopping.  Because the crowd is made up of "rural" people, I am even more of a novelty when I go to the market than I am just around town.  At this market is probably where I have felt like an outsider the most.  Through all of the hustle and bustle I am always keenly aware of people stopping their shopping to stare at me.  I can hear their thoughts, "What's the white girl doing here?"  

The last time I went, I tried to covertly snag a few photos for you.  The quality is not great, but when you are the center of attention the last thing you want to do is overtly take a picture of a butcher.  It is a great way to piss a few people off.  This market is far different from what you would see in the states and sometimes I still cringe at the state of cleanliness.  

This stand was pretty cool.  You would tell the man which fish you wanted and then the woman would scale and filet it for you.  The mobile thing above his head whirls around and keeps the flies away.  No, the fish are not on ice.  Those suckers were probably swimming in the ocean 2 hours before I took this photo though. 

At this stand you can get your chicken, goose, or other fowl.  Freshly defeathered too.  Nothing like getting a fluff of down feathers in your mouth when you're shopping for meat.  

I failed to take a photo of the actual butcher's stand.  I would have loved to have purchased some meat but there was one problem.  I haven't learned enough Chinese to ask, "When you killed this animal a couple of hours ago, what sound did it make?  Moo moo, cluck cluck, oink oink?"  Yes I can tell chicken from beef when I see it raw but it is difficult to decipher the cuts of meat.  Pork belly is a really big deal here, they LOVE it, but it is unlike any pork belly I've seen before.  I think some of it had bones in it.  Also, what do I do with an entire pork belly?  I don't know how to say, "I'd like one eighth of that."  So I chickened out.  My adventurous side kept telling me to just give it a try but the market was bustling and I didn't need tiny Taiwanese grandmas shouting at me for taking too long.  

The market doesn't just sell fresh meat.  They also sell... well I am not really sure how it is prepared.  Hmm.  I'll show you. 

I apologize for the blur.

These are smoked (??) whole fish  You can buy them by the plate.  On the far right you can see some pork belly that has been also smoked, maybe.  

This woman serves a whole bunch of boiled, roasted, and otherwise prepared meats and produce?  She is serving up some pigs ears at the moment of this photo.  I know it is hard to see, but just the right of the pole there are a bunch of ears.  Down the row a little are hooves.  To which animal they belonged, I'm not sure. 

As children, my siblings and I would often nag our mother to tell us what was for dinner.  When we reached a critical point of annoyingness she would respond with "Pig's feet and goat ears."  This puts a whole new perspective on that saying....

In this bunch are also some cuttlefish (no, I have no idea what it is), bamboo, snails, tofu, and a bunch of other unidentifiable options.  I think they are all the exact same color because I think they are all cooked in some combination of soy sauce and super concentrated tea.  I could be wrong though.  

Here is more of the same.  It may seem that you have no idea what any of this is by looking at it.  I didn't have any idea what it was when I saw it in person.  I see some seaweed.  And tofu  And.... I'm not sure.  

There are also big stands of fruits and vegetables.  I have purchased from these before because usually you can just buy one melon, communicated by pointing and saying "ee ga," or when it comes to vegetables you usually bag up how much you want and take it to a lady to weigh.  When it comes to paying I often have them repeat the amount 15-18 times, or I just hold up money and look at clerk questioningly and they take what out what I owe them.  It has worked well so far.  

The only downside to the market is the stand right in the front that sells Stinky Tofu.  I'm not a big fan of tofu to begin with but when it smells like horse manure, my brother's tennis shoes after a full day of matches, and burning flesh all in one... well I try to avoid it.  There are varying levels of pungency to stinky tofu.  The origin of stinky tofu is widely disputed.  In modern times it is made by fermenting tofu in a brine made from fermented milk, vegetables, and meat.  Sometimes they put in dried shrimp, bamboo shoots, various greens, and Chinese herbs.  Industrially produced stinky tofu is only fermented for a few days, while homemade and "high quality" stinky tofu can be fermented for months.  It is often served deep fried.  Eek.  

Stinky tofu isn't the only highly pungent food here.  Have you heard of durian?  It is an innocent looking melon type fruit with a hard shell.  Inside it is orange and sticky and gooey... and smells like rotting human flesh.  I'll let you think about that for a while. 

1000 year old eggs are also a Chinese delicacy that is quite interesting.  They are called pidan here and it is essentially an egg (duck, chicken or quail) that has been preserved in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, quicklime, and rice hulls.  They hang out in this mixture for up to a year  The yolk turns dark green or gray and smells like sulphur and the white turns into a dark brown, kind of tasteless jelly. 

1000 year old egg. 

And I think I will leave you with that.  :)