Sweet potato (Food)

If you ask a Taiwanese what crop can represent Taiwan, possibly he will choose sweet potatoes 蕃薯(fan shu3) , or also named地瓜(di4 gua). Why?

        sweet potato 

 (from fm4715/魯獅 flickr.com)          

Taiwan
(from yfps.tpc.edu.tw )

  

Well, first of all, the map of Taiwan is shaped like an erect sweet potato. Second, the sweet potato is tough, full of vitality and easily planted, which hardly needs any care. It will survive even when cut into pieces. Recalling Taiwan’s history of the past century, you’ll know why.

Before we moved to Taichung, I put a shooting sweet potato that was supposed to be cooked to the earth in my little backyard. Every other few days I got a dish of 蕃薯葉(fan shu yie4), sweet potato vege on my dinning table. It’s very safe cause no chemical is needed when growing it.

The word 番(fan) or 蕃is used to refer to those non-indigenous crops, such as 蕃茄(fan qie2), tomato. It is said sweep potatoes have been introduced from the south America by the Spanish.

During the Japanese-ruling era (1895-1945), sweep potatoes had been the staple food of Taiwanese people. Though Taiwan produced rice itself, the crops were mostly sent to Japan. People who broke their backs planting rice ended up eating little of their produce. What was put on their table was mostly sweet potatoes that were dried and shredded. Some elders have told me that they hated to eat sweet potatoes because they’d been fed up with them when they were young.  

Another peer of mine once told me that she kind of felt reluctant to eat蕃薯葉because it used to be called 豬菜(zhu cai4), pig’s vege. Being a city child, I’ve never had the experience of what some of my peers had as a kid. They had to chop up the leaves of sweet potatoes to feed pigs. That’s why it was called豬菜in the past.

Who could predict that this “pig’s vege” later would be considered a healthy food and consumed a lot by the modern people? It’s the same with 蕃薯, which used to be the poor’s staple.

I once read that Taiwanese called themselves 蕃薯仔during the Japanese-ruling era to distinguish themselves from the Koreans, who were also colonized by Japan then. It was not only because of the shape of this island, but also the perseverance spirit and vitality it symbolized.

After 1949 when Chiang Kai Shek 蔣介石 led his troops to Taiwan from China, those soldiers from China were called 芋仔, taros in the South Min Dialect as a contrast of 蕃薯仔. Later as they grew older, the word “old” 老(lao3) has been added as老芋仔. Two names for crops have now become labels for people from different places.

The Beatles has a song “Let It Be.” In Taiwanese we have a proverb that conveys a similar notion, which goes in the South Min Dialect as 時到時來擔，無米再煮番薯湯, Do not anticipate troubles and worry too much. You can at least cook sweet potato soup when running out of rice.

So when you see online the name 蕃薯藤(fan shu3 teng2), sweet potato vine as an entrance website, you certainly know its origin.

蕃薯葉=蕃薯叶

豬菜=猪菜

蔣介石=蒋介石

時到時來擔，無米再煮番薯湯=时到时来担，无米再煮番薯汤