Mom Eating Fish Head: A Brief History of Family Dining at a Taiwanese Food Scholar's Home

A new book by Chen Yuzhen, author of "A Cultural History of Taiwanese Cuisine"

A food scholar's family dining table.
It is longing, it is remembrance.
A mother as seen through the eyes of her youngest daughter.
She is also a Taiwanese mother of her generation.

"I want to write about my mother's dishes."

Food scholar Chen Yu-chen's childhood was filled with the steamy aroma of the kitchen, the sizzling heat of the wok, and the pungent fragrance of seasonings, while the cacophony of the market served as the magnificent background music for a unique era. Her family meals were abundant and vibrant, with five dishes and a soup as the basics, often accompanied by extra dishes. This diversity and constant innovation unfolded a small history of Taiwanese families centered around the dining table.

"A family's dinner table is a family history."

Because of her mother's superb culinary skills, Chen Yuzhen was exposed to the colors, aromas, and flavors of various foods from a young age. The years of family dining experience provided by her mother paved the way for her later research into food culture. "Mom Eats Fish Head" is a scholar who has been immersed in research for more than ten years, looking back to the most initial and purest origin of her personal love for food culture—the family dining table with her mother.

She writes about everything from the home to the outside world, about why and how her mother devoted herself to the kitchen and then returned to the workplace in that era; about the chefs her mother followed, such as Fu Peimei, Li Meixian, and Afa; about the delicious dishes her little family prepared for holidays; about the era her mother lived through; and about the crossroads of women from different generations, her mother and herself, one settling down at home, the other exploring abroad.

"I really want to eat my mom's cooking again, and I want to cook for her again."

Emotions are intangible, yet they can penetrate deeply through the color, aroma, and flavor of food. As Chen Yu-chen said, "These many intimacy and conflicts are either expressed in the kitchen and at the dining table, or become a kind of physical memory." She writes about her mother, while also writing about a period of rapid social change in Taiwan. No matter how far she goes, her mother's cooking is always the center of the universe, the starting point of everything, leaving a lasting impression.

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Hong Aizhu | Writer; Ma Shifang | Writer and host; Yang Shuangzi | Author of "Travels in Taiwan"; Han Liangyi | Writer

About the Author

Chen Yuzhen

Professor of Taiwanese Language and Literature at National Taiwan Normal University, and (self-proclaimed) a travel writer whose talents were wasted on academic research. Author of books including *The Cultural History of Taiwanese Cuisine: National Reflections in Food Consumption*, *Food Culture*, *Are You Full Yet? The Stories of Taiwanese Cuisine You Must Know!*, and *Listening to Prague Sing Love Songs*. A former fan of the Three Tigers TV series. The last drama I watched with my mother was *Hospital Playlist 2*.