Take one part local food tradition, which shares much with southeastern Chinese fare and favors fresh seafood, especially oysters. Add a strong dash of Japanese flavor (like wasabi), culled from 50 years of Japanese colonization that ended in 1945. Then mix in some of China's finest cooking traditions from Chongqing to Shenyang (think Sichuan-style gong bao ji ding -- kungpao chicken -- and northern China-style beef noodle soup) brought here by the Mandarin-speaking Kuomintang elite when they fled the mainland, along with their cooks, in the late 1940s. The result: contemporary Taiwanese food.
首先,选取一部分当地的饮食传统:台北饮食与中国大陆东南地区的食品有很多共同点,比如偏爱新鲜的海味,特别是牡蛎。接下来,再加上一抹浓郁的日式风味(比如绿芥末):这是日本在1945年以前占领台湾50年所遗留下的痕迹。最后,融入中国从重庆到沈阳的那些最优良的烹饪传统:这是二十世纪40年代后期由国民党高官,以及他们的厨师,从大陆带来的(想想川菜中的宫保鸡丁和中国北方的牛肉面)。“当代台湾饮食”就此出炉。