The Taipei Food Festival is a way to stimulate healthy changes in Taiwan’s food and tourism industries.
The culture of Chinese food goes back literally for millennia. A rich variety of literary and historical sources attest to the extensive variety and exquisite tastes of dishes with names no less exotic than their contents (try “ants on a tree,” “lion’s head,” or “beggar’s chicken”, for example). And today, every dish from the shark’s fin soup at a fancy restaurant to a bowl of spicy and steaming beef noodles at a streetside stand reflect a cooking tradition made durable by the high expectations and critical demands of diners. Chinese have never hesitated to criticize food that is haphazardly or indelicately prepared, for food is taken seriously indeed.
Much more than satisfying hunger pangs is involved. As scholar and author Lin Yutang once said of his fellow Chinese, “All quarrels and disputes are settled at dinner tables instead of courts of justice.” Births and funerals, engagements and weddings, birthdays and festivals, cementing friendships and business deals - all involve eating, and usually the consumption of dishes that are especially symbolic for the occasion.
Because food is central to Chinese life and rituals, it is therefore no surprise that high achievement in food preparation becomes a source of pride. This pride can be found on the family level, such as the cooking skills of a new wife (or husband), mother-in-law, or the owner of a small family restaurant; it can be a source of regional pride, which exalts the superiority of Hunan, Chiangche, Szechwan, or Cantonese food; and it can contribute to a national pride, one that confidently asserts the superiority of Chinese cuisine over any other food tradition, East or West. True or not, Chinese food is a marvel in its diversity as much as in the pleasure it gives.
But no living tradition can survive on reputation alone. It must continue to grow and evolve, yet remain faithful to its historical roots. Gourmets judge contemporary cuisine, not the glories of chefs past. Keen criticism and healthy competition are thus as important to the development of cuisine as a master chef’s creativity and knowledge of the skills and recipes of old.
Happily for diners in Asia, some healthy competition is evolving between Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taipei. Each city wants to claim superiority in the art of Chinese cuisine. For a number of years, Hong Kong and Singapore have held food festivals to increase international awareness of the accomplished chefs at their hotels and restaurants. Now Taipei has thrown its wok into the ring.
The 1991 Taipei Chinese Food Festival, which was held August 10 to 13, demonstrated that the government and the tourism industry are getting serious about putting Taipei on the world map of high-quality gourmet stops. “We want everyone to know that Taipei has the world’s best Chinese food,” says Mao Chih-kuo, director-general of the Tourism Bureau (under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications) and honorary chairman of this year’s food festival.
Planners for the festival, which is slated to become an annual event, included some of the major ingredients necessary for honing a fine edge on food preparation, presentation, and service. Among the events were culinary arts competitions and demonstrations, including noodle pulling, food sculpture, and decorative table settings; lectures by chefs and food critics on such topics as Peking Palace snacks, cooking with fruit and vegetables, and health foods; and culinary displays from many of Taipei’s top hotels and restaurants. There were also dining tours to restaurants specializing in various regional foods, including the Manchu-Chinese imperial banquet (or Man-Han feast).
Taipei had a smaller food festival last year, held as part of the Taipei Lantern Festival. But this year it is a separate activity. The shift is viewed as a greater commitment to improving Taiwan’s food culture. Says Frank Lu (律文川), general manager of the Howard Plaza Hotel in Taipei, “The food festival has a marketing angle. It is good for the industry. All hotels can present the best of their fare, and show that we are striving for the highest standards. Also, the festival encourages creativity.” But within the industry itself, there is a growing concern about Taiwan’s image in the area of standards.
True, there is a tremendous variety of Chinese cuisine available in local hotels and restaurants. Moreover, Taiwan’s geography makes it possible to grow a wonderful array of fruits and vegetables that are common to both tropical and temperate zones, and usually the pork, chicken, and duck served in island restaurants is super-fresh. No long-term chilling or freezing here. And import laws covering foodstuffs have also been relaxed in recent years, meaning that everything from condiments and vinegars to mushrooms and fungi (especially from the mainland) can be used to complement the high-quality local produce. Thus, the standards issue is not primarily an ingredients problem. Instead, it involves preparation, cooking, presentation, and service. And it is here that Taipei’s food festivals can play an imponant role.
“It’s good to get more people involved in promoting Chinese food,” says Mak Hung (麥洪), executive chef at the Grand Hyatt Taipei. “We need this, because Taiwan isn’t as good as Hong Kong and Singapore - or Japan and Thailand, for that matter - when it comes to developing the finer points of preparing and serving Chinese cuisine.” Mak speaks from extensive personal experience, including close observation of both the Hong Kong and Singapore food festivals.
“The standards problem here is a bit complex,” he continues. “Part of the problem is that Chinese cuisine has become somewhat mixed.” This is a frequently heard comment among local gourmets. Chinese cuisine actually designates a closely related collection of regional cuisines. Szechwan food is different, clearly different, from that in Shanghai, Peking, or Canton. But all the styles are still Chinese. In decades past, a Hunan restaurant in mainland China, for example, would serve only Hunan food. When many chefs fled to Taiwan in the late forties, they opened restaurants here with the same distinct regional tastes.
But few of that generation are still active chefs. In contemporary Taipei, restaurants may claim to serve Peking or Hunan cuisine, but it is quite common to find a jumbled mix of regional styles on their menus. Although such mixing means more choices, it also can cause a blurring of distinctions between regional (and sub-regional) dishes. Moreover, it means a loss of menu integrity. A meal is supposed to integrate varied regional flavors into a harmonious whole. Spicing and cooking methods in different regions often vary enough to be incompatible in taste and texture.
Of greater concern, however, is the homogenization of taste that occurs in restaurants serving a mix of regional cuisines. Less care is taken to differentiate regional spicing and cooking methods, and it is perhaps here that food service professionals and gourmets alike have the greatest lament. “Consistency of key importance,” Mak says. “There are certain ways to prepare the food in each region. But if these are mixed with other ingredients and methods of cooking, the dishes are lost. And when they’re gone, the standards are also gone.”
In recognition of this fact, Chinese food festivals in Taiwan and elsewhere always include food competitions that are based upon distinct regions. For example, according to Mak, the Grand Hyall entries in the festival competition this year will be a Shanghai dessert and a Cantonese main dish. But this does not mean that the Grand Hyatt’s Chinese kitchens will be producing exact copies of traditional dishes. “We are taking this opportunity to present the Hyatt’s philosophy of food,” he says. “Sure, each dish will have a heavy Chinese touch, but we will present it in a modern way. It will be straightforward, but elegant. The accent is on a nutritious, fresh product - and we don’t use MSG.”
As Michel Sram, executive chef at the Taipei Hilton, says: “Cuisine is always changing. This is true of both Chinese and Western food. The goal is to be creative, yet still be based firmly on tradition. This way you draw in the diners.”
Lu echoes the upbeat marketing attitude. “The international hotels in this city have a great opportunity to show what their kitchens can do. The Howard Plaza organized tours for its guests to the food festival exhibits (at the China External Trade Development Council exhibition hall at the Taipei Airport) in order to expose them to the great variety of food available here.”
But there is a down side to past experience with food competitions and festivals. “Some hotels take a lot of effort to enter a food competition,” Lu says, “but after it’s over, they couldn’t care less.” He adds that it is one thing to reach higher standards, and another to maintain them.
Standards are on everyone’s minds these days. “Part of the reason,” Mak Hung says, “is that so many people in Taiwan are now travelling abroad. Now they see what restaurants can do in the way of food and service, and when they come back they expect the same thing here.” In addition, Taiwan travellers are realizing that they have a mistaken sense of superiority about the quality of the local cuisine. Chinese food in Hong Kong and Singapore in many ways out-classes what can be found in Taipei restaurants.
While there may be increasing pressure from diners for better fare and dining ambience, it will not come easy for a number of reasons. First, Taiwan has no professional hotel and restarant management school where skills in cooking, food service, and management are honed. “One private institution does have a department in this area,” says a hotelier who prefers to remain anonymous, “but no quality hotel or restaurant is going to hire their graduates”
According to Hunter H.T. Eu, deputy director-general of the Tourism Bureau, the government has no near-term plan to push for developing such schools. “I expect that the private sector will do this first,” he says. “Of course, all the international hotels have in-house training. But as far as I know, there isn’t enough support yet to develop this kind of program in one of our universities.”
In fact, some steps have already been taken in the private sector. One is helping train chefs by exposing them to visiting professionals through lectures and other special programs, and placing promising chefs and food managers in European schools. Ernesto and Maria Brawand have set up a business in Taipei which in part targets food and beverage professionals. “One of our main concerns is to change the local attitude toward food service professionals,” says Ernesto Brawand, who has had considerable local experience in hotel and restaurant management. “For example, unlike Europeans, people here usually don’t consider a chef to be a professional. We want to help change that attitude.”
Chef Mark of the Grand Hyatt is deeply interested in this topic: “You really can’t say that the professionalization of chefs has arrived in Taipei.” But he adds, a bit glumly, that in fact, “there really aren’t many genuinely professional chefs here.” According to Mak, many talented and promising young chefs learn the basics while working in restaurants, but before they become highly skilled they leave to open their own establishments. “People here like to be their own boss,” he says, “so it’s difficult to keep good people in the kitchen long enough to train them fully. They work for a year, think they know everything, and leave.” He adds that the sort of program set up by the Brawands is a step in the right direction, but much more is needed.
“The leading hotels have a role to play in developing the profession,” he says. “We need to show people that being a chef is a career choice, and a very good one.” He adds that some more organizational support would help. For example, there is no active chef’s association in Taipei, while the association in Singapore is extremely active, especially in the food festivals. Lu of the Howard Plaza agrees: “The allitude in Taipei is too localized and protectionist,” he says. “Instead of working hard to get a team effort going here, every one competes with each other. So many hotels become protective of their own interests and promotions.”
Thus, it is not surprising that so many hoteliers and food service professionals are pleased with the concept of a Taipei Food Festival. “But this is just the first step,” Lu says. “We need to make it more internationalized, and we need to work more with expatriates and travelers to Taiwan. For example, the judges for the competitions should not be from the local food industry. We could invite airline club representatives or Chinese food experts from other countries.” Mak agrees. “Judges need to be experts,” he says. “Otherwise, how can chefs respond to the evaluations and improve?”
Tourism Bureau staffers are well aware that this year’s food festival drew some criticism. “Staffing and funds are always a problem in these things,” says one of the festival planners. “Right now, we are putting more emphasis on local participation. But we have many ideas about expanding the festivals and making them more international.”
In fact, the local angle is already paying off, because criticism is bringing Chinese food issues into focus. Here as elsewhere, food festival activities are a healthy stimulant in changing the status quo. For example, the judging question has prompted a broader suggestion. Some hoteliers and chefs are now talking about asking the Tourism Bureau to establish a formal restaurant award system to bring greater recognition to those places serving the best in Chinese regional cuisine. “And we really could use a general brainstorming session on future food festivals,” Frank Lu says. “The government needs to do things on an interdepartmental level, and we in the industry also need to work together better. Then we can really get things done.” The attitude augurs well for building Taipei’s image as the center for Chinese cuisine.