Eat Taiwan!

In celebration of the Taiwanese community’s long history of hospitality and friendship with Scotland, the Edinburgh-Taiwanese community is bringing together a showcase of tasty Taiwanese street food and dynamic culture at the 2016 Edinburgh Taiwanese Food & Culture Fair – Eat Taiwan. The event takes place tomorrow at Southside Community Centre.

Eat Taiwan is a new event designed to share cultural and foodie traditions with locals and the Taiwanese community in Edinburgh and connect communities closer through a lively, fun-filled event including dance performances, film and traditional story-telling.

Speaking about this new culture and food event, Miaochen Gray, vice-chair of the Taiwanese Chamber of Commerce in Scotland (TCOCS), said: “We have a growing group of Taiwanese people across Scotland including many students who are educated at our Scottish universities and the export market for whisky to Taiwan rates as the fourth biggest – so we continue to foster good community and business links and skills exchange with Scotland.

“Taiwan has a long heritage of food & drink culture influenced by its indigenous population and close Asian neighbours.

“We take great pride in using local Scottish ingredients here to demonstrate the features of Taiwanese street food and show we can satisfy local appetites with a new twist on our food and introduce some unique traditional Taiwanese cuisine to Scotland.

“Throughout the event, we hope to make the local Taiwanese people and students living here feel a sense of home during this celebration season. From food to culture, art to film and music, and innovation to creation, we aim to illustrate the unique style of collaboration between Taiwan and Scotland.”

The traditions of Taiwanese tea culture will be demonstrated in a Taiwanese special tea ceremony (Sado) using high mountain tea, Dongding oolong tea and bubble tea – highlighting the changes in tea tasting that combine various flavours to develop a new image for the Taiwanese tea culture.

Food available for purchase on the day will include the most popular dishes, snacks and sweets:Taiwanese hot-dog, Turnip cake, Vegetarian fried rice noodles, Rice dumplings, Scallion pancake (V), Honey Lemon Aiyu Jelly, Sesame Ball, Gua bao, also known as steamed bao, pork belly buns.

Cultural events during the day will also include:

Dance: Dragon dance; The Third Prince dance; Scottish Ballet Dancing Show

Film: Taiwanese filmmakers showcase; V Day, Mr. Brown‘s clock, Movement in Progress – directed by Chih Peng Lucas Kao and The Last Day, an animated short film with music composed by Terry Peng.

Story-telling: Edinburgh Chinese-Mandarin Bookbug Club – storytelling and nursery rhymes showing how local Taiwanese who live in Edinburgh cultivate the traditional Chinese education for the younger generation and welcome local Scottish families to enjoy this event together

Please note: Entry cost £1.50 cash only and under-five’s free entry.

Coupons to be bought at the entrance to trade with food starting at £3 per course.

Saturday 15 October from 12PM – 3PM

Location: Southside Community Centre, 117 Nicolson Street, Edinburgh