Turkey Rice: Taiwan's Comfort Food

A recent month-long on-line poll conducted by the government’s Council of Agriculture named Chiayi chicken rice as the tastiest rice dish in all of Taiwan, garnering over 400,000 votes. For those who don’t know, the moniker “chicken rice” is a misnomer since it is actually made from turkey meat. This is due to the Chinese word for turkey, literally “fire chicken”. Anyway, winning first place does make a lot of sense. It is a simple meal that is eaten anytime of the day, consisting of slices or shredded chunks of boiled turkey breast served on top of a bowl of rice with grease and some other “sauce” spread over it to add flavor. Different shops offer various side dishes, such as sautéed cabbage, tofu stewed in soy sauce and my favorite, pidan doufu, or thousand-year-old-egg with tofu. There is also soup, including fish balls in clear broth or miso, or bean paste, soup, a dish borrowed from the Japanese.

Though I have never been to it, the Fountain Chicken Rice Shop in the center of the city is the most famous in town and is always packed from morning to night, with tourists and regulars alike. A shop previously located near my old house has that rustic quality that would make American health inspectors cringe, but there was always a line at lunch time. I personally prefer a small shop on Chueiyang Road owned by the parents of one of my son’s old classmates. The clientele are office workers or students, usually male, in for some Taiwanese fast food, only cheaper and better for you than a Mickey Dee’s meal. Whenever my Taipei in-laws come down for the holidays, they always have one meal of chicken rice.

My sister-in-law ran a chicken rice shop for a few years and did rather well with it. Shortly after she had opened shop, however, the city government had instituted a one-way street law and stationed police on corners to enforce the new ordinance. The problem was that my sister-in-law’s shop was merely ten meters from the corner, but in order to get to it, even a scooter driver would have to go around the block. Within six months, businesses, including my sister-in-law’s, had successfully petitioned the city government to make scooters exempt from the one-way traffic code, making Chiayi apparently the only major city in Taiwan to have such a privilege.

These accolades are a reward for the government’s efforts last year in declaring one month “Chicken Rice Month”. (I think it was August.) There were taste-testing contests and educational events giving the public a greater appreciation of this ultimate Taiwanese comfort food. However, I wonder how popular it will remain. With seven McDonald’s, a half dozen KFC’s, three Starbucks, as well as Domino’s and Pizza Hut, how many of today’s youth in Chiayi will one day think back on their Saturday lunches and remember turkey and rice or burgers and toys. Even when I heard about the survey from a TV news report, I was in a small Italian restaurant woofing down some spaghetti carbonara.