Think about your favorite food in the U.S. Is it an American food? Or does it come from another culture? This week, I learned that it can be hard to know exactly why a food is popular in a local community. Kinmen's local foods show that the island's culture is influenced by many places in mainland China, Taiwan, and the island's wartime history.
The first food I tried this week was Cantonese congee. You can think of congee as porridge, but it is made using rice rather than oats. "Cantonese" refers to both the unique language and cultural background of a region in China known as Guangdong province. I think different people will tell you different stories about how this food became popular here. My coworker told me that during the war, a soldier from Guangdong, China, cooked congee for the other soldiers, and ever since it has been called Guangdong congee on Kinmen. When translating to English, we say Cantonese congee, and this has the same meaning as Guangdong congee.
Many more ingrediants will be added to the congee base. The most popular ingredients as well as the thickness of the congee broth varies between Guangdong, Kinmen and mainland Taiwan. People may eat their congee in different ways too. The local way here is to order a fried dough stick to dip into the congee!
I also tried peanut candy this week.
