US influence pervades the modern Taiwanese diet.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/04/11
By: Steven Crook and Katy Hui-wen Hung

Credit: Reuters/TPG

A culinary gulf separates the typical Taiwanese and the average American, yet the United States has had an underappreciated impact on the Taiwanese diet. The influence is profound, and goes beyond the ways in which the U.S., the world’s topmost food exporter, has changed eating patterns on every continent.

Much of the economic assistance Taiwan received from the U.S. in the 1950s and ‘60s came in the form of food or technology that helped Taiwan boost local food production. In 1954, the U.S. government began buying surplus crops from American farmers and making them available to Taiwan and other allies at artificially low prices. The same year, the Sino-American Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction introduced the Irwin mango. Now known to every Taiwanese as the aiwen (愛文芒果), this cultivar has largely replaced the smaller, greener so-called “native mango.”

After 1959, the U.S. funded the introduction of Yorkshire, Landrace and Duroc boars to improve local swine. Because the latter two breeds are accustomed to eating corn, not the sweet potatoes leaf and sundry leftovers traditionally used to fatten pigs in Taiwan, the promotion of hybrids led to a dependence on U.S. feed grains.   [FULL  STORY]