It was in Brooklyn, not too long ago that I became enamored with
organic, whole, and whenever possible, local foods. Hitting the farmer's
markets became a weekly ritual and my bike was used more for trips to
the coop than leisure or exercise. This food culture, or conglomerate of
food subcultures was also easy to find in cute restaurants around the
city. And, likely quite annoyingly, I even became preachy about it to my
family.
While this obsession with certain types of foods is still pretty new, it
was deeply entrenched when I made my way to Asia, and posed challenges
to my usual open, I-have-to-try-everything-once-
in-the-name-of-authentic-cultural-experience
approach to eating while traveling. I have thrown back fried insects,
various indiscernible (and texturally diverse) animal parts, and mystery
foods from every group, and even things i wasn't supposed to actually
eat, with only the fear of not eating it in the correct way. Chicken's
feet are a delicacy in Chinese cuisine? No problem! But the chickens are
probably raised in a cramped commercial farm and pumped with
antibiotics? Yikes! Ok, no problem, in this Buddhist-dominant part of
the world it's easy to go vegetarian (and without simply making fake
meats). But then, many vegetarian menus feature a lot of soy, which is
so frequently genetically modified. Vegetables abound here, but Taiwan
is on the short-list of worst offenders for pesticide use. And not
speaking Chinese further complicates my quest for the kinds of foods I
like.
Before coming over to Taiwan I found a handful of organic restaurants
reviewed online. One review was for a chain of small groceries that
often have prepared foods, if not small restaurants within. And I was
delighted to find that there are a variety of such markets, both chains
and seemingly independently run. I fact, I've gotten pretty good at
spotting the ground nut powders, grain crackers and dried fruits and
nuts in window displays that these places usually feature. I don't even
mind that the stuff is a bit pricey. I do, however, mind that a lot of
the products come from the US. Certainly it is not always the case, but I
so often I have to choose: avoid pesticides and antibiotics in my food,
but require a ridiculous amount of petrol to get it to me, or go with
the locals, but eat it without really knowing where it came from or
what's in it. Even the local non-organic fruit shops, while much
cheaper, feature items proudly bearing USA or Chile stickers.
So the search continues for foods that are indigenous and grown without chemicals.
