Typhoon Alley

Typhoon Alley

How I learned to cook Taiwanese food in the alleys of Kaohsiung

By Jay Erickson

seajaycook.com

Oyster omelet, coffin bread, stinky tofu, spring roll, salty rice pudding, braised pork rice, steamed buns, shrimp roll. These are just a few of the comfort foods I need to master to be a good ship's cook in Taiwan.

There are a few simple rules every ship's cook worth his salt has to embrace. Two of them are: To prepare a meal that reminds your patrons of home, no matter where they are from. Similarly, to stock your pantry with ingredients from that region.

I had a series of jobs coming up that required me to cook for twenty-two crewmembers from various parts of the United States and twenty-three Taiwanese scientists, a combination of sailors, researchers, grad students, and technicians, aboard an oceanographic research vessel. Our first cruise would be adding instruments that would update the buoys by sending the collected data to a satellite.

I met the research ship Roger Revelle (belonging to Scripps Institute of Oceanography and University of California, San Diego), in the major southern Taiwanese port of Kaohsiung, on its arrival from working near New Zealand.

Kaohsiung and its 1.5 million people are known recently for hosting the World Games in 2009. But earlier in the 1950s and 1960s Kaohsiung was known around the globe for ship breaking, an industry that salvaged derelict ships from the world's oceans and produce recycled steel for Taiwan and for export. Air pollution from burning materials that could not be recycled, and water pollution caused by oil leaks from the ships, raised havoc on the port. Blame from the shroud of smog that encases most of the eighty-five floors of the Tuntex Skytower some mornings, making it an eerie sight. The smog, it's said, is blowing in from across the Taiwan Straight from Mainland China.

If I wanted to be true to my basic philosophy, then I would have to hit the streets to learn the style of cooking by watching and trying to imitate the masters. I could do this within a seven block walk from the ship, which was docked at Fisherman's Wharf, an old warehouse turned tourist hub for the 2009 World Games.

I waited until ten o'clock in the morning for the street cooks on Chi Hsien 3rd. Road in Kaohsiung to emerge from behind steel roll-down doors and start setting out their gas fired cook-pots on the sidewalk with their soup ingredients sitting near their woks. Small piles of dark red beef riddled with a tangled mass of white streaky sinew, vegetables and simmering organ meat. It wasn't long before the streets had a wonderful noodle soup aroma wafting in the air.

Continuing on my way near the harbor, I passed small store fronts woven in the fabric of the streets and alleys with specialized items from past days of ship demolition. I saw a shop for large pipe valves, and another shop for electric motors, and another with every size of pump, next to a store with glazed Peking duck hanging on display. I had to sidestep a sidewalk chef and step over a mechanic working under a Vespa motor scooter in a cluster of parked scooters before I could pause in front of a produce stand to view their selection.

I could smell the sweetness before I saw the Brunswick bowling pin size papayas, beautifully ripe, yellow with a dark orange huge and light green speckles. Pear shaped wax apples, a translucent mahogany, so juicy and thirst quenching -- the original natural bottled water. Also, long grassy stocks of weeping dark green morning glory with long slender leaves and a hollow stem, similar looking to infant bamboo, and long, thick stocked chay sin, the stem about an inch around with eyes on the stem from where the large, paper thin elliptical shaped leaves were taken off, except for the top remaining leaves. And freshly cut baby boc choy, such a vibrant lime green and tender looking. I need to watch for ways to include these fruits and vegetables into my menu.

I was disappointed to find out that mangos wouldn't be in season until June, a two-month wait before I can satisfy my mango cravings. Although, I did see a family peeling green, golf ball size mangos to be made into a sweet pickle preserve.

I had wandered about a mile away from the ship when I could hear the bellowing combustion of propane burners sitting under large steel woks and the crisp pop and crackle of the hot oil as I came to a kitchen that was setup on the sidewalk of Sinle street. It looked a little more established, with two woks against the back wall and a steam table in front and offered four separate vegetables; stir-fries, whole fried fish, pork belly and a beef dish to choose from. A large deep rice cooker sat in the corner.

Two tables stood in the parking area of the street and four tables stood inside a small room. All were adorned with plastic red-checkered table cloths, a container with chop sticks, a liter of soy sauce and red chili sauce with fermented white beans. In the back was a little space for storage. I saw green onions and morning glory brimming out of boxes on the shelves. On the steam table my eye caught the dishes made up of the items I previously saw at the produce stand. Chay sin, with its stem peeled and sliced lengthwise and cut on the diagonal in half-round pieces sitting in a light garlic sauce. Another dish had slender inch long slices of eggplant, cooked in a dark and slightly sweetened soy sauce with fresh, thin slices of spicy red chili. And just out of the wok, bright green two inch cut stems of morning glory.

I pointed to those selections to sample and with a bowl of rice I had dinner and a clear idea of how to prepare three dishes. I paid my bill of $90 N.T. or about $3.00 U.S.

I made my way back to the ship and gave the chandler my add--on produce order so he could deliver it the next day. The chandler is the local person in charge of gathering all the items that are necessary to do our jobs in the deck, engine room, bridge and galley departments like, cleaning supplies, stationary, machine parts and food provisions.

"All available hands are needed to help with stores" is the announcement over the public address system when my provisions arrive by truck the following day. My provisions, usually on pallets, need to be put in a cargo net, and brought on board ship with the ship's crane. The crew use a pellet jack to wheel them inside where the boxes are hand stacked in the elevator and sent down three decks to where my walk--in freezer, walk--in refrigerator, and dry stores are.

The chief Scientist Ren Chiett Lien, or RC, needed to get his equipment on board the ship as well. Three new weather buoys that looked like eight foot round doughnuts with a ten--foot stainless steal tower on top to host the array of instruments. Also lifted onto the ship were stacks of railroad train wheels used for anchoring the buoys. Line to reach thousands of feet to the anchors. Wooden crates and metal boxes came on board packed with the instruments that would read and send back the data such as, air temperature, barometric pressure, humidity, solar radiation, wind direction and speed, water temperature, conductivity, (which gives salinity) water pressure, water current direction and water current velocity. But when it was time to bring the ice cream on board the loading operation came to a halt and yielded to the prized perishable cargo.

Ahsha, at five--foot one--inch tall she has short dark hair and broad shoulders, with a constant craving for potato burritos. She's my able assistant and holds the marine cook position, and recently, she came back from three months in Japan studying Japanese food. So this was a great opportunity for her to continue working with some interesting Asian ingredients.

Kate, a Taiwanese scientist with a pleasing smile and a brown and black colored bandana wrapped around her head most the time, would volunteer to help in the galley, when she wasn't busy incubating phytoplankton in varying amounts of sunlight to measure the effects of prolonged overcast days during typhoon season. I showed her my sour dough bread starter and told her " I'm a scientist too" and we both laughed.

For the next two weeks Ahsha and I would make stir fries with different combinations of tofu, eggplant, curries, greens and fish, to the delight of our Taiwanese scientist guests. For the grand final dinner Asha wanted to do Peking duck with dumplings. Kate helped prepare the perogi style dumplings, filled with leftover adobo chicken. Ahsha boiled and then fried the dumplings.

To prepare the ducks, we bathed twelve ducks, one at a time, in a simmering solution of water, ginger, cornstarch, honey and apple cider vinegar. The recipe asked for the ducks to be air--dried. It was quite the sight to have the ducks in the walk--in cooler, stacked in milk crates five high to air--dry with the chill box fan. Asha roasted the ducks to perfection. I made the batter for the pancakes and Kate poured them on the griddle. Little four--inch round crepe like pancakes to wrap de boned duck meat with sliced scallions and hoisin sauce. It turned out fantastic.

We had a couple of days remaining and we were becoming anxious to get back to port as the weather started to pick up. I just finished grilling some eggplant with garlic, red chili and a touch of hoisin sauce, when I was told that we were going back to the first buoy to fix the piece of equipment that transmits data to its satellite. So a couple of science technicians went out by our small workboat to bring the instrument back to the ship to be worked on. We should have sent out rodeo cowboys to do the work the way that buoy was bobbing and spinning, making it very difficult to unbolt the transmitter--about the size of two large coffee cans put end to end-- while the technicians were holding on tight and turning three shades of green.

With time running out to get the work finished, and a cost of over twenty-thousand dollars a day for the ship time, It took two days before the weather calmed down enough to let the technicians get back out to install the unit.

In that kind of weather it makes it hard to work in the galley as well. Some days you just have to put together some North American comfort food like hearty beef barley soup with Macaroni and cheese and fresh baked sourdough bread, and let the local Taiwanese dream of getting back home for stinky tofu and salty rice pudding.