Children's Day presents

April 4 has always been Children's Day in Taiwan, since 1949 anyway. It is now combined with Women's Day (originally March 8) on theory that mothers and children should spend the holiday together. The gift-giving tradition, however, still continues: Tamsui Elementary School announced on March 11 a list of Children's Day presents to each grade, chess sets and marking pens, mostly:

On this day, pupils would gather at morning assembly and be lectured on by local dignitaries, mostly assuring the kids that one day, they shall become 國家的主人翁 (masters of the nation), etc. This is followed by distribution of the eagerly awaited presents. Then the rest of the day off.

The choice of the presents is still up to local gov'ts and/or individual schools. This year, in a deviation from the tradition, Taichung City decides that the "gift" shall be for each elementary school to adopt a stray dog/cat - to show the students how precious life is. Adding to this, some schools have elected to also distribute small tokens, e.g., pocket tissues.

Back in the 1950s in Tamsui, it was instant gratification, small slices of the savory 米糕 (rice cake, originated in Foochow) wrapped in blood-red paper, donated by local businessmen:

The memorable 米糕

Happy Children's Day!

Rice wine Part 2: Fermented glutinous rice

Not only Zhailai and Penglai, the more expensive glutinous rice (糯米) can also be fermented to produce different grades of wine.

酒釀JiuNiang, in a separate category, is from limited fermentation with 1-2% alcohol, in other words, alcohol-flavored rice. This is a popular winter-time snack, either by itself or served with beaten eggs and/or dumplings. Prolonged fermentation does increase its alcohol content; although for true wine-making, it must be done in a winery.

酒釀, a snack food that appeared in Taiwan in ca 1949 or soon after

HongLu紅露酒-making starts with already-made, raw glutinous rice wine, to which red koji (紅麴) is added for a second fermentation. The final alcohol content is between 14.5 to 22 proof, in between hard liquor and beer, a viable niche.

Source: http://taipics.com/alcohol.php

紅露酒 can trace its origin to Hokkien 紅老酒 that went into industrial scale production in Taipei in the 1910s before the state monopoly took over. After the war, it was out-competed by the always-in-demand Rice Wine and the post-war newcomer Saohsing Wine (紹興酒, see below), and faded away quickly after 1987. It regained some popularity in 2004, through the efforts of folks in Yilan where it was once privately made.

Source: http://taipics.com/alcohol.php

By and large, the Taiwanese were unfamiliar with Saohsing Wine which originated in Saohsing area in ZeJiang, China, and it had quite a number of variations with 13-15% alcohol. The R&D of Taiwan Saohsing actually started in 1949, ordered by the then recently arrived new regime, in Puli Winery (埔里酒廠, established in 1917, nationalized by the Japanese Colonial Gov't in 1922, and again by the ROC in 1945). A small quantity went on market in 1953. This wine was a favorite of Chiang Kai-Shek whose hometown was near Saohsing. Each year, immediately before his birthday, an exclusive collection called 介壽酒 ("long life to Kai") would be prepared under watchful eyes before sending to the Presidential Palace for Chiang's very public birthday celebration; although no common folks ever had the privilege of having even a sip. Ironically, 介壽酒 is now mass-produced to satisfy the demand of visitors from Communist China.

The quality of Saohsing was much improved in 1955 when those refugees evacuated from DaChen (大陳) well-versed in Saohsing-making were invited to participate in its production. As a result, this wine became the bestseller in Taiwan. The quality was further improved in 1965 by using 5-year old stock as the base for more blending, and the wine became the mainstay served at national banquets, official functions, and of course private celebratory parties.

Lesser quality Saohsing is also used in cooking. The most popular is the chilled appetizer, drunken chicken (醉雞).

埔里酒廠 wine storage cellar

Puli Winery was devastated in the September 21, 1999 earthquake. The near total loss of aged stock was a huge blow. The Winery, however, bounced back in 2003 when its surviving 10-year-old cellar stock (十年窖藏精釀陳紹) was made available to the public. The Winery is now very popular with casual tourists and wine connoisseurs alike. Its campus has been re-built complete with a very informative museum and numerous food stalls in the front yard (grilled koji sausage is a must-try).

Rice wine Part 1: Mi-Jiu 米酒

Taiwan, being the land of rice riches since even before the Qing era, rice wine [米酒MiJiu] was a natural byproduct. In fact, many old Taiwanese customs steeped deeply in this home brew. For example, to stimulate hair growth of a new-born, ginger slices dipped in rice wine were used to rub the baby's scalp. During the Dragon Boat Festival端午節, the character "王" was written on a child's forehead - to ward off evil spirits - with 雄黃 (realgar) dissolved in rice wine. After giving birth, rice wine not only was a cleanser for the mother's body but also for preparing chicken soup rich in blood-regenerating components, especially 當歸 (danggui, Angelica's root). And a cup of rice wine was always offered to guests arriving from China as a gesture of welcome.

The old way was no more complicated than introducing 酒麯 (wine koji) into steam-cooked Zhailai rice - known therefore as the Zhailai method, and hoped for the best. Sometimes when things went wrong, then instead of wine, vinegar was the product.

The famed Red-label Taiwan Rice Wine starts out with Penglai Brown Rice (蓬萊糙米), through fermentation, then the crucial step of distillation to obtain up to 11% alcohol (v/v).

Source: http://taipics.com/alcohol.php

Before the taxation of alcohol beverages started during the early Japanese colonial rule (of which 60% were rice wine), there were around 1,000 wine makers of various sizes. This number dwindled to 200 after taxation. And in 1922, the national tobacco and alcohol monopoly act went into effect thus ending the private enterprise era.

In 1927, a new way of making rice wine, the Amylo method, was borrowed from a factory located on the outskirts of Saigon and widely applied for mass production back in Taiwan in 1931.

The Amylo method entails the following: First, mix rice, water and hydrochloric acid, and cook the mixture under high temperature and high pressure until liquefaction. After cooling, add Rhizopus delemar to break down the polysaccharides (i.e., starch) and Saccharomyces (yeast) to produce alcohol, both done at 36C. The fermentation takes only 8-9 days.

Initially, there were Rice Wine Nos 1 to 3 with increasing alcohol content. The 20.5 proof No 2 was re-named 赤標米酒 which became the predecessor of the post-war Red-label Taiwan Rice Wine (see bottle label above). Blending remains a secret; although the formula appears to be [raw rice wine]:[molasses alcohol] = 6:4. At one point in the mid 1940s, the ratio was changed to 4:6 owing to a war time and post-war rice shortage. Increasing the molasses alcohol content further, through blending, then it became 太白酒 (Taibai wine, below), the least expensive, hence very popular rice wine in Taiwan.

Source: http://taipics.com/alcohol.php
The slogans in red were typically seen in the 1950s.

The tobacco and alcohol monopoly law continued after 1945, until abolished in 1987 when Taiwan joined the WTO. The National T&A Bureau 菸酒公賣局 has lost its market share since: Tobacco products are down to less than 30% share and the most popular Taiwan Beer, to less than 70% (2014 data). With the increasing prosperity and changing tastes, 80% of Taiwan Rice Wine are now used, somewhat wastefully, as cooking wine. And 太白酒 and many other Taiwan monopoly brands are long gone.

Taiwan saké 初霧

The First Mist saké

Saké made in Taiwan? You bet. World-class, too, no less. We will now take you on a journey to Wu Feng (霧峰), Taichung, where it all began.

First the background. To make saké, a consistent supply of high-quality wine-rice must be available. The recent development of YiChuan Fragrant Rice (益全香米 or 台農71號) fits the bill perfectly. This strain was bred from the Japanese Kinu-hikari (絹光) strain and a Taiwanese native 農稉 No 4 (a legacy of the Penglai rice) that finally entered the official registry in Year 2000, after 9 years of exhaustive testing. The name YiChuan is in honor/memory of Kuo Yi-Chuan PhD (1946-2000), the project leader.

According to Mr Huang Ching-Chien黃景建, General Manager of Wu Feng Farmers' Association (霧峰農會), in 2002, this new strain of rice went into wide cultivation locally; its high quality has proved an instant hit. And a decision was made to try and use YiChuan rice produced from all 250 hectares of fields in Wu Feng to make Taiwan saké. A consultant, 廣井忠夫Hiroi Tadao PhD of Tohoku University in Sendai was appointed and engineers/technicians from Taiwan dispatched to Niigata Prefecture, the saké country, to learn the art and science of saké-making. And in 2005, a distillery (霧峰農會酒莊) was planned and established in 2007 to also promote the saké brands.

There are all together 14 steps in traditional saké-making, now summarized below:

The principal ingredient is of course the rice, which must first go through stringent preparation processes in order to obtain the rice core. Each grain of rice is consisted of the outer cortex that contains protein and lipids, and the inner nucleus or core, which is rich in starch. Only the core, 60% of the total weight, is suitable for wine-making (the removed cortex is used for making rice crackers). After this polishing, rice-washing then ensues and with which, an additional 2% of the original weight is removed. Washing is done by using the clear and sweet spring water shipped in from Puli (埔里). Then the rice cores are soaked in the water and allowed to absorb 25-30% (w/w) at 10-15C. The excess is then quickly drained - done within a predetermined time.

初霧‧純米吟釀

Then comes the most important step: Steam-cooking to ensure the rice cores are hard on the outside and soft on the inside. After a rapid cooling, the cores are divided into 5 equal parts, and one of which saved as the first batch of the wine-starter rice (酒母米) and another for koji (麴) preparation. Koji is made in a special room at 30-42C; from 220Kg of the original steamed rice cores, only 70 grams of koji can be made, which is then divided into 4 equal parts with one dedicated for making the wine-starter (酒母, literally the mother of wine).

By mixing koji酒母, water, and wine-starter rice together with yeast and Lactobacillus, the fermentation process starts to break the starch down to glucose residues and from the latter, ethanol is generated. This step takes about 20-25 days or when the foaming from carbon dioxide formation stops. The mixture will now contain about 20% alcohol. This final mix is loaded into cloth-sacs and hydraulically pressed to release the liquid, known as the new wine (新酒), which is further filtered and sterilized (at 65C) to eliminate impurities and residual yeast and bacillus, respectively.

荔枝蜂蜜酒

The newly formed saké is stored at 15-20C for 2-6 weeks so it'll reach maturity. And after another filtration come blending, bottling, and the final packaging.

The Distillery has been very active in its R&D. Not only saké, recently minted liqueur and fruit wines by the Distillery have also begun receiving international accolades. Among the many awards, 純米吟釀 has received silver medals at Vinalies Internationales in Paris (2011 and 2015), gold/silver medals for 燒酎 at the International Spirits Award in Germany (2011 and 2012) and a gold medal for 荔枝蜂蜜酒 from Concours Mondial de Bruxelles in Brazil (2014).

For more on wine selection, contacts, location and direction to 霧峰農會酒莊, click here.

Rice Part 2: Penglai Rice 蓬萊米

Source: http://taipics.com/taipei_schoolshospitals.php

During the Qing era, migrants from Hokkien brought with them the 秈稻, commonly known as Zhailai rice (在來米) to Taiwan. In 1752, it was discovered that rice cultivated in Pintung area could yield crops twice a year. This strain was then widely distributed. And the resulting increase in output had turned Taiwan into a major rice supplier to the Hokkien homeland.

Father of Taiwan Penglai Rice (1886-1972)

There were numerous different Zhailai sub-strains with varying qualities, however. Also, Zhailai was deemed unacceptable to the Japanese who generally preferred their own sticky short-grained 稉米. Therefore, starting in 1900, the Japanese Colonial Gov't ordered experimentation of rice breeding, importing 1,256 strains from Japan and settling on 752, represented by the Nakamura中村 strain, to be inter-bred with 236 Zhailai strains. By 1906, the purification and improvement of Zhailai were largely complete, with nothing to show for the Japanese needs, however. ［Note: The most notable strains were 臺北101號, 苗栗2號, and 臺中35號, among the more than 100 newly developed cultivars.］Worse, the cultivation of the Japanese strains was met with repeated failure.

Mother of Penglai 末永  仁 (1886-1939)

In 1921, the director of agricultural affairs of Taipei Prefecture 平澤 龜一郎 found that the 草山 (now Yang Ming Shan) 竹子湖 area was similar in weather to Kyushu and proposed that Japanese rice cultivars be empirically planted here to improve the odds of survival (see photo below). Cross-breeding of Japanese strains had actually started in 1922 at Taichung Agricultural Experimental Station, going somewhat against the gov'tal orders of improving Zhailai strains for Japanese use first.  And in 1924, it was finally successfully done between 龜治 and 神力 strains by Mr 末永 仁, under the direction of Prof 磯 永吉. In 1925, the Gov't relaxed its Zhailai first policy. So in 1929, the most promising hybrid 臺中65號 was selected and planted in Yang Ming Shan under a shortened germination schedule (幼苗揷植法). Surprisingly, it also readily adapted to the warmer weather in southern Taiwan where the farmers began cultivation, thus quickly replacing the lesser 嘉義晚2號 (found in 1926 from the 伊予仙石 strain). Together with another disease-resistant Nakamura-Zhalai strain the 高雄10號, these two eventually became the most widely planted rice crops. The twice a year harvests proved not only enough for consumption in Taiwan but also for export to Japanese mainland.

The origin site of Penglai cultivation

The name Penglai Rice (蓬萊米) was coined in 1926 by Prof 磯 at a national rice and grain conference in Taipei. He was one of the few Japanese invited to stay after the war who finally retired from National Taiwan University and returned to Japan in 1957, after serving Taiwan for 47 years. In gratitude, Taiwan Provincial Council voted to send him and his family 1,000Kg of Penglai rice every year as a life-long pension (see the original draft below). Prof 磯 passed at age 86, two years short of his personal wish of 88 (88 in kanji is 八十八, the 6 strokes of 米 rice), a humble man who had always attributed the success of Penglai to his co-workers and the cooperating farmers, but never himself. 

The cross-breeding success between 龜治 and 神力 strains that finally yielded the revolutionary 臺中65號 remains a mystery, since both parental strains were sensitive to the seasonal change in daylight duration, but not the offspring. As it turns out that an extra segment of DNA of 1,901 bases was somehow incorporated into the genome of 臺中65號 rendering it insensitive to the sunlight duration. This is most crucial to the twice yearly planting/harvests in Taiwan. The source of this DNA segment has only recently been identified and traced to the aboriginal dry-land rice strain. Apparently, its DNA segment had somehow "contaminated" the initial 6 generations of 臺中65號 breeding. Inadvertently through cross pollination? No, not under the meticulous care of Mr 末永. Genetic introgression? Perhaps, but how? Most definitely, an angel who happened to be passing by had done it in answer to the rice-children's plead for help for their beloved and overworked parent, Mr 末永. This, we the people of Taiwan have absolutely no doubt.

Rice Part 1: How to breed a new strain

Instead of "how are you?" the Taiwanese greet one another with “吃飽未 (pronounced jia-ba-ve)?” which in Singapore becomes "have you eaten yet?" - thus suggesting a common Hokkien origin. This unique greeting can be interpreted as an obsession with food; although more to do with rice, the indispensable filler, taken 3 times a day with or even without side-dishes. Indeed, who wouldn't equate a full stomach with well-being.

Successful harvests of the rice crop are of the utmost importance throughout Chinese history. Shortages were rarely tolerated by the populace and famines often led to riots, revolts and dynasty changes.

Improvement in the yield, disease resistance, and quality of rice is therefore a state responsibility in modern times, actively pursued by very dedicated folks who often regard developing seedlings as their own children. These researchers are sometimes aided by angels passing by (路過的天使) in discovering a revolutionary new strain.

Indeed, breeding a new rice strain is an extremely laborious process that requires a lot of hard work (and sometimes luck).

In the 1920s, the Japanese Central Gov't decreed that mainland Japan was to develop industry, and its colony Taiwan, agriculture. The initial emphasis was on sugarcane to alleviate sugar shortage in Japan. Rice quickly became a runner up, however. Eventually how much land was to be allotted to each crop became a hot issue that could only be resolved by increasing the crop output. Plus, the rice must be of the quality that could be sold in the Japanese market.

As to exactly what are involved in the R&D process, a recent case in Hokkaido can shed some light. In 1980, researchers at Kamikawa上川 Agricultural Experiment Station set out to develop a new strain of rice that was to be competitive with the best from Honshū, i.e., Koshihikariコシヒカリ越光 and Sasanishikiササニシキ笹錦. This was a tall order because Hokkaido was too cold for southern rice strains and the native strains were known to be of such a poor quality that "even birds won't touch".

The quality of rice is defined by its amylose and protein contents. The less amylose, the stickier it gets when cooked, and the lower its protein, the fluffier and whiter it will be. Unfortunately, amylose accumulates in cold weathers. The challenge was then to develop a cold-resistant low-amylose strain for Hokkaido. Here is a short excerpt from a report [source: here]:

"...about 100 varieties are crossbred each year, and 150,000 to 200,000 offspring are produced. For the first three or four years, succeeding generations are raised to establish the desired characteristics. Tests are performed on flavor, cold and disease resistance, and yield, and the most promising hybrids are chosen. Following this, farmers grow a test crop..."

The lineage of Yumepirika

The test hybrids were then compared with Nanatsuboshi七星 rice, grown at the Kamikawa station, and graded according to whiteness, luster, aroma, texture, flavor, stickiness, softness, and overall quality.

Success finally came in 2012, in the form of Yumepirika ゆめぴりか (i.e., the 上育453 strain) which is a combination of the Japanese word for dream (yume) and that for beautiful (pirika) in the language of Ainu (Hokkaido aborigines).

Beautiful Dream

So now, Yumepirika is a well-known name brand (above), sold all over Japan. In Taiwan, the R&D was on a much grander scale (see Part 2).

Guava

The history of guava in Taiwan is fairly simple, it was introduced from China in 1694. Its Chinese name is 番石榴 (savage pomegranate). Taiwanese called it 林菝仔(Na-bu-la). Southern Taiwanese dialect puts it as Bala (might have been Portuguese as pointed out by Katy Biggs), and further reverse-translated into Chinese, 芭樂 (Ba-le).

Pearl guava

Presumably, there are 150 different varieties of guava. We know of only 2, Pearl Guava (above) and Red-cored Pearl Guava (or Watermelon Guava) (below). 【Note: The Milk Guava is simply from Pearl Guava trees watered with expired and slightly fermented cow's milk.】

Watermelon guava

Guava is grown in Southern Taiwan in about 6,000 hectares of groves and available year round. Leading in production is 燕巢鄉Swallow's Nest Village in Kaohsiung. Wild ones can be found everywhere in Taiwan, with the fruit the size of a Tankan, still quite edible.

Source: knifeedgeforums.com

Interestingly, the seed-embedded core of guava refuses to be processed in children's small intestines, so the fruit was generally avoided by knowledgeable kids (expert opinions to the contrary notwithstanding). A good alternative use of guava is to turn the perfectly Y-shaped hard-as-steel guava branches into slingshots. Rubber strips cut from the inner tube of a bicycle tire works better than rubber bands (above). Sparrow-hunting with slingshots was a national past time for children in the 50s.

Factoids: (1) Guava and tomatoes are both banned as offerings to the gods/spirits, because the seeds cannot be digested that might displease those being honored. (2) 芭樂票 refers to a bad check, a kite or a dud, an inevitably bounced check.