Cook the local flavors once more

Breakfast of purple waxy corn and Taiwanese sweet potato

From: Hualien: the sea and delicious everyday life

Waxy corn with purple, white and yellow kernels

In Taiwan, breeders have developed sweet waxy corn that carries both sweet kernels and sticky waxy kernels on a single cob. There is a "rainbow" type, with purplish-red and white kernels alternating and thin, sweet skins, and a "purple-black" type rich in anthocyanins. The corn I had also mixed purple and white kernels, with a chewy texture quite unlike corn in Japan.

Ingredients

Purple waxy corn (zi nuo yumi)
Taiwanese sweet potato
Dragon fruit
Oolong tea

How I made it

Steam the purple waxy corn
Halve the dragon fruit and cut it into pieces
Plate the corn and sweet potato, and brew oolong tea in the pot

Sources: foodnext.net

This moment in the journey

A morning of purple waxy corn

Breakfast began in the kitchen of my lodging. First, I put a knife into a dragon fruit. The star of the morning was zi nuo yumi, purple waxy corn, rarely seen in Japan, with purple and white kernels mixed on the cob. I steamed it, set it on a plate with a Taiwanese sweet potato, and made oolong tea.

One bite, and the texture was astonishingly chewy, nothing like the corn I know from Japan. Only mildly sweet, and I loved it. The Taiwanese sweet potato had a simple sweetness that is easy to get hooked on. It is wonderful, too, that fresh tropical fruit is so easy to come by.

On the window, a red paper charm for 2023 with the character 旺 (prosperity). In the lane behind the house, a tabby cat in the yard was watching me. A cheerful morning in Taiwan.

Watch this scene on YouTube1:05

Read this scene in the full journey