A Bite of Taiwan

On Sunday we celebrated "Bwei Ye", which is one of the smaller lead up festivals to the Lunar New Year. Traditionally Taiwanese ppl make offerings (food and prayers) on the 2st and 16th of every month to the Earth God who protects things like your house, land, crops, businesses. Sunday was the last 16th of the year (ie. December) and the last offering of the year, therefore its a pretty huge feed. In pre 20th century poor agrarian Taiwanese society, people used to only eat meat and better food when they make offerings to the Earth God, so the 2nd and 16th are big days.

On Bwei Ye we eat Lun Bian - which is a version of spring rolls - the wrapping is a lot larger and bread like than the Cantonese spring rolls that we get in NZ. Its made by "pasting" or "throwing" a big lump of wet dough onto a hot hot-plate leaving a thin layer to cook for about 3 seconds before removing as quickly as possible. I had the pleasure of watching this done at the ShiLin Night Markets on saturday - it really is an art. You serve Lun Bian with peanut powder, coriander and sweet chilli sauce (smooth paste not lumpy like the Singaporean version) , and then roast pork or roast firm tofu for the vegos, any kind of veges that's handy, and off you go with your roll. Similar fillings is used for Gua Bao, another food you eat at Bwei Ye - its like a white chinese bun and its pretty much like a sandwich version of Lun Bian.

YUM!!