Whenever I go abroad, I like to visit local markets to check out the local produce and get a feel for how people interact. It was with this mindset that I strolled through two markets in Taipei City. One is Shi-Dong Market, known as the “five-star food market.” It is spacious and comfortable, and the vendors’ booths are presented with a sense of design. It feels like a department store, but with a friendlier atmosphere. The other, the Taipei Hope Plaza Farmers’ Market, which opens only on weekends, is a place where farmers bring fresh food from all over Taiwan, linking farm to table. Visits to urban markets not only replenish one’s food stocks, they narrow the gap between urbanites and the land and give us a sense of its abundance.
► Shi-Dong Market
People visiting Shi-Dong Market for the first time are often awestruck, and snap a lot of photos on their phones. The vendors’ booths in the spacious, brightly lit, air-conditioned space are filled with neatly arranged vegetables, fruits, seafoods, and meats. On a hot summer day, a visit to this traditional market is a genuine pleasure.
The freshest food is right here
At the first stall we visit, we learn something new. The owner, a vendor of fresh seafood, kindly explains: “When neritic squid are caught they are transparent, and the fresher they are the more pliable the skin is. When you lightly touch the skin, it changes color slightly.” The squid before our eyes are very fresh: they were caught late the night before and sent to the market early that morning.
Knowledgeable customers buying seafood ask vendors to vacuum-pack their items in separate portions. This both prevents the smell of seafood from contaminating their other purchases and saves time by allowing them to simply defrost individual servings. The market’s meat vendors have likewise purchased vacuum packing equipment to enhance their service.
Located in Tianmu near Taipei’s American and Japanese schools, Shi-Dong Market has many foreign customers with considerable purchasing power. Accordingly, the vendors go all out to supply high-grade products. Even a seller of cherry tomatoes has sorted them by flavor and texture, so that shoppers can choose based on their preferences. Shi-Dong offers an experience akin to wine tasting.
The vendors here are almost all longstanding businesses that have signed contracts with the city government and manage their booths in a businesslike way. For example, the vegetable stall Suhohui, which has been in Shi-Dong Market for seven years, does not display its wares in the cardboard boxes they are delivered in, but instead uses rattan and bamboo baskets. The sign overhead, and the rustic decoration in green and yellow hues that echo the vegetables on the stall, also add to the organic feel of the space.
Suhohui seeks out small farmers all over Taiwan and exclusively sells vegetables from growers who practice organic or toxin-free farming. “These are cabbages from Smangus, freshly harvested wood-ear mushrooms from Douliu, and fennel bulbs from Puli. Just cut them into strips, add olive oil, salt and black pepper, and you get a delicious salad,” says owner Mak Lee, who insists on having ingredients directly shipped from the farm.
Strolling through Shi-Dong Market with a shopping cart is a pleasant experience all year round.
A trendsetting fashionable market
Seeing people pushing shopping carts provided by the market management, you would think you are in a supermarket. However, when you hear the vendors chatting with customers, you know that Shi-Dong is still a friendly, welcoming traditional market.
Yet the neat, clean presentation of the meat stalls is at odds with most people’s stereotypes of traditional markets. For example, the Yongjinhao pork stall has a refrigerated display cabinet to put customers’ minds at ease about the safety of their products. A few years ago owner Chen Zhaoming switched over to an old-fashioned sign with a simple design for his booth. Various cuts of meat are neatly displayed on the stand, and everything is kept clean. Behind the stall there is poster showing the various parts of a pig in both Chinese and English, and an LED sign shaped like a pig with the letters “MIT” (Made in Taiwan) on it. Such details give a sense of the care that Chen puts into his booth’s appearance.
The market provides space for delivery services that work with the vendors, most booths accept mobile payments, and there is a real sense of design to the overall appearance. The result is an atmosphere full of youthful dynamism. But in fact Shi-Dong first opened back in 1992 and was considered well equipped at the time. Since then, there has been continual improvement in its management and in the maintenance of facilities by the management association. For instance, the first management committee emphasized drainage and stipulated that no animals could be brought into the market alive, and later they regulated the size of the booths in order to keep the aisles free of obstructions. Allan He, the current head of the management association, has created a mascot for the market and encourages businesses to renovate their booths and improve their appearance.
The stallholders’ attitude of constant refinement has enabled Shi-Dong Market to keep up with the times. For example, Tong’s Steam Buns, founded in 1953, moved into Shi-Dong early on and today is operated by the founder’s great-grandson. Conforming to the demands of contemporary consumers, Tong’s has adjusted the size and texture of its steamed buns and devised buns that look like cartoon characters. Knowing the potential for foreign tourists to visit the market, fourth-generation operator Weylon Tong brushed up on his language skills. The delicious flavor of his steamed buns has attracted chefs from France and the US, and a pair of young women from Japan who have visited Taiwan three times always make a special trip to Shi-Dong Market to eat them. Seeing the photos in Tong’s phone of him posing with customers from around the world, you get a real sense of the market’s appeal to international travelers.
Even if you don’t cook at home, at Shi-Dong you can still buy a cup of premium coffee and browse at your leisure, or visit the second-floor food court and try foods from around the world. Check out the vegetarian cuisine at Mother Whale 224 and feel the spirit of owner Jane Tsai, whose aim is to make more people aware of Taiwan’s abundant produce. A visit to Shi-Dong Market exemplifies the beauty of life.
► Taipei Hope Plaza Farmers’ Market
Delights everywhere
Hope Plaza, located near Shandao Temple Metro station, hosts a weekend farmers’ market that brings together food producers from across Taiwan. Although the market does not officially open until 10 a.m. on weekend mornings, not long after nine o’clock regular customers are already enetering the sales area in search of treasure. Parenting author Wang Pitsu, who enjoys researching home-cooked cuisine and strolling through markets, and is very knowledgeable about Taiwan’s farming and fisheries industries, is no exception.
Whenever Wang visits the Hope Plaza market, it is her habit to first make a circuit of the venue to see what good things are available that day. We follow her as she walks like a hunter of food ingredients, moving quickly though the terrain with sharp-eyed alertness. We often find that if we turn our backs even for a second she is already at the next booth, chatting with the owner. Browsing the market for just a single morning really opens our eyes. There are naturally ripened figs straight from the tree, as well as Asian clams, which have long been exported to Japan but are now available at the Hope Plaza because the pandemic has hindered exports. Dried straw mushrooms, sun-dried by the mushroom farmers themselves, are used in the same way as dried shiitake mushrooms, but they have an intoxicating aroma, and even Wang, who routinely visits markets all around Taiwan, says with surprise that this is the first time she has seen them.
Strolling among the booths, Wang takes notice of not only the main products that farmers prominently display, but even more the “private treasures” set off to the side, such as the little jar of 20-year-old dried radish on the stand of a bamboo-shoot farmer, or the hen’s eggs sold by a beekeeper who raises the free-range birds himself.
Hope Plaza arranges for different farmers to set up stalls each week. They also showcase different cities and counties each week, depending on what produce is in season. Farmers bring their finest products to the market and some even hand out name cards and proudly say: “If it doesn’t taste good, feel free to call me and complain.”
Wang Pitsu says with a smile that whenever she comes to Hope Plaza she happens upon unexpected delights. When she sees novel produce, she will always buy some to try out, just to make life more interesting. Despite the two-hour round trip from her home, she finds the market endlessly enjoyable, and comes at least two or three times a month.
Farmers sell their best produce at Hope Plaza. As well as sharing the joys of harvest, they tell us about their farming lives, bringing us closer to the land.
Linking farm to table
Hope Plaza Farmers’ Market was launched in 2001, originally with the aim of helping farmers in Central Taiwan rebuild their livelihoods after the devastation of the 1999 Jiji Earthquake. Enabling farmers to display and sell their goods in downtown Taipei was intended to bring them new hope, so the location was named “Hope Plaza.” This autumn, the Hope Plaza market will enter its third incarnation, on a new site closer to the Huashan 1914 Creative Park and with a design based on the imagery of a mountain range.
Hsu Hwey-ying, a senior executive officer in the Marketing and Processing Division of the Agriculture and Food Agency, states that Hope Plaza seeks to be a showcase for Taiwanese agriculture and to encourage people to eat local foods in season. Farmers supply foods that are certified under the Taiwan Organic, Certified Agricultural Standards, and Traceable Agricultural Products systems, or bear a traceability QR code. Meanwhile, shoppers who come to the venue can interact with farmers directly, chatting about the stories behind the produce they cultivate and the effort they put in, thus closing the distance between farm and table.
Wang is always keen to learn more about good ingredients that she finds, and even travels to the areas where they are produced. For example, she recently went to Pingtung County to visit a coconut farmer she met at Hope Plaza, and she discovered that when harvesting coconuts farmers have to be cautious of lightning, bees, and snakes, and are in danger of falling if they are not careful. Crops that farmers invest so much commitment in deserve to be treasured.
Throughout its existence, the Hope Plaza market has helped many farmers to develop their customer base. For example, peanut farmer Zhang Jianhao not only grows peanuts, but has learned how to make peanut brittle that tastes good but doesn’t stick to your teeth. After building up a clientele at Hope Plaza he was able to buy primary processing equipment. Then there is purple corn farmer Hu Zhihong, who as a novice farmer had no sales channels for his produce, but found a platform to display his goods at Hope Plaza and now even exports them to Hong Kong.
Hope Plaza also has a small flower shop where you can buy flowers by the stem to add color to life. Hsu Hwey-ying says with a laugh that each time she goes to Hope Plaza she spends the whole day there slowly browsing and chatting, and when she gets tired she goes to the cooked food area to try some dishes prepared by teams from farmers’ associations. If she sees something she likes, she asks for a name card and has the product conveniently delivered to her home. She tells everyone that when you come to Hope Plaza for seasonal products, it is like coming to see old friends. The friendly contacts between people are what makes Hope Plaza Farmers’ Market a heartwarming venue that conveys a sense of wellbeing.
For more pictures, please click《Freshness in the Heart of the City: Shi-Dong Market and Hope Plaza Farmers’ Market》
