Spirits Steal Mantou 鬼搶饅頭

鬼搶饅頭

文林言：洞庭山多餓鬼，其家蒸饅頭一籠，甫熟，揭蓋見饅首唧唧自動，逐漸皺縮，如碗大者，頃刻變小如胡桃，食之味如麵筋，精華盡去。初不解其故，有老人云：「此餓鬼所搶也。起籠時以硃筆點之，便不能搶。」如其言，點者自點，縮者仍縮。蓋一人之點，不能勝群鬼之搶也。

Spirits Steal Mantou

Wenlin said: On Dongting Shan were many hungry ghosts, his family had just steamed a load of mantou, but when they lifted the lid they saw the steamed buns whispering to one another of their own accord and gradually shrinking, from being as big as a bowl down to the size of a walnut, as if their very essence was being devoured. To begin with nobody could understand what caused this, but an old man said, “These have been stolen by hungry ghosts. When you set up the steamer, mark them with a red dot; then they won’t be able to take any.” Following his instructions, each was marked, but they still shrank. One person’s mark alone can’t defeat the thievery of a horde of ghosts.

Yuan Mei 袁枚, Wang Yingzhi 王英志 (ed.), Yuan Mei Quanji 袁枚全集 [The Collected Works of Yuan Mei] (Nanjing: Jangsu Guji Chubanshe, 1993), Volume 4: Zi Bu Yu 子不語, juan 22, p. 424.

貓空 Maokong

This weekend I finally made it to Maokong 貓空, a hilly area to the south of the city proper, best reached by the gondola from the Taipei Zoo MRT stop (NT$60, or NT$50 for students like me).

The gondola ride is very impressive indeed, swaying gently over several thickly wooded ridges crammed with bamboo and all sorts of other vegetation.

There are actually two classes of gondola ride – the standard and the deluxe ‘crystal’ ride, the latter with a glass-bottomed cabin and insanely long queues, the former with perfectly good angled windows and almost no waiting at all.

When you finally reach Maokong the feel is a little like an Indian hill station (but colder and damper, at least this weekend).

Tea is definitely the focus, with various cafes and teahouses scattered along the few winding roads, and small hedges of the stuff in places.

Some of the teahouses have trays of leaves drying outside, and the Taiwan Tea Promotion Centre even dispenses free mugs of Tieguanyin, and has an impressive garden.

For some reason the only thing I took photographs of was this fallen leaf – I like it a lot.

This cafe (the one with the white-painted woodwork and the cat in its logo – I’m really not sure what the name was, but turn left out of the gondola stop) has very impressive tea and waffles, which I can’t recommend highly enough.

After lurking a bit too long, the weather turned chilly, and the sun began to set in a beautiful way over Taipei during the return gondola ride.

More food…

This week has been a good one for eating. The weather has been cool and very damp, so aided concentration on hunger and curiosity. Last Saturday I pottered over to the farmer’s market thingy

that sets up just outside Guanghua digital new heaven computer land.

農特產品展售廣場

The row of stalls selling hot food rarely disappoint the peckish visitor (even the clueless ones like me), and I soon found myself tucking into a plate of pumpkin rice noodles  竹塘南瓜米粉

竹塘南瓜米粉

These are certainly tasty, if not too beautifully served (or photographed). The next day I wandered off to Hsinchu 新竹 to meet my language exchange partner, who introduced me to a strange but rather good Hsinchu delicacy, 肉圓 – these seem to be like the stuffed steamed dumplings I have had elsewhere but the spicing is different, and they are apparently cooked at very high temperatures, until they become alarmingly translucent!

肉圓

The slightly sweet spicy sauce could be too much in large quantities, but served alongside a fairly simple meatball soup [for which I am struggling to find characters online] it works rather nicely.

Today I returned to the farmer’s market place and this time sampled the 山豬肉飯 – apart from this being some sort of delicious combination of fatty pork, onions and coriander, served alongside rice, pickles, tofu and braised vegetables, my dictionaries and I are all failing to explain further. In addition to this, I managed to muddle-headedly focus on the tofu and braised vegetables when taking the photo today, so there is just a hint of pork in the top corner. It all tasted great, though.

山豬肉飯