let’s travel to Taiwan..Matsu

The pristine waters off Matsu provide abundant fishing grounds, and fishing vessels regularly return to port loaded with big catches of shrimp, sardines, Jew fish, grouper, pomfret, “Buddha’s hand” clams, and all sorts of seaweed.

Coastal aquaculture products include oysters and seaweed. Since as far back as anyone can remember, fishing has been the lifeblood of Matsu. Of the many fish products from Matsu, perhaps the best known of all are fish noodles and fish balls.

Fish noodles are a special type of noodle particular to China’s southeast coastal region. They are made from four parts cornstarch and six parts eel, drum, and other high-grade fish. The mass is then rolled, pressed, cut, and dried in the sun. They go excellently in a hot pot, and are also very delicious served as a regular bowl of noodles.

Because of the high fish content in the fish noodles made in Matsu, when you eat them it practically feels like you’re eating a noodle-shaped fish ball. When made into fried noodles they are very chewy and carry a tasty fish flavor.

Li Huo-chin, a woman from Tangchi Village in Peikan, has been making fish noodles for over 20 years. She says that she and her husband can make more than 200 packets a day, but they aren’t so popular any more, and it’s a good day when they sell even a hundred packets.

Mrs. Li also makes fish balls, which, like most fish balls in Matsu, have a high fish-to-flour ratio. The flour-stuffed fish balls they make on Taiwan can’t begin to compare with Mrs. Li’s light-grey delicacies, which have a nice, firm bite.

Back in the days when all fish balls were made by hand, they often joked in Matsu that if a couple who made fish balls got in a big spat, you should be sure and buy their fish balls the next day, for the husband and wife would both work off their anger the next day by pounding the fish paste extra fine, which would result in especially delicious fish balls.

Today all fish balls are made with the aid of machinery, but Mrs. Li stresses that fish balls have to have lots of fish meat in them to be good, and there’s no fooling people on that score.

As soon as I walked into the store, I saw Mrs. Li telling some customers how good her fish balls were and how they should give them a try. Although they kept declining, Mrs. Li still went back into the kitchen and brought out a big bowl of fish balls. And there were a lot more fish balls than broth!

As we sat around eating the fish balls, Mrs. Li, speaking in Fuzhou dialect, lamented that her four sons and two daughters had all gone their various ways, leaving no one to keep the business in the family.

“Young people today don’t want to do tough work like this, and I’m not sure how much longer I can keep it up myself either.” She asked me to be sure to write in my article that she would be glad to teach for free any young people willing to learn the trade.

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