And

going through the medical system here in Taiwan, what was interesting was that, you know, all my prenatal checkups, everyone I talked to from the nurses to the doctor, they would say during pregnancy, you know, take care of your baby.

But after pregnancy, take care of your body.

And I just had a hard time sort of like comprehending that because I grew up in the States and I didn't really get it until, you know, the baby was out.

And then all the focus just went to me at the postpartum hotel.

The nurses actively encouraged me to like sleep.

sleep in they you know took the baby non-stop and anytime i was overwhelmed they're like just wheel the kid to me there's a central nursery where the nurses you know change the diapers and feed the kid and they were just like just stay in your hotel room like turn on netflix and like sleep And the idea is that after you give birth, your body is cold.

I'm curious about what different ingredients you add, how they change the flavor.

Oh.

So he's still very much a herbalist.

Um, and then she has, like, a little corner on the side where she's making, like, uh, little cakes and cookies infused with TCM.

And I thought she was the perfect person to partner with.

A, she became a mom around the same time I did, so we were writing the book during our first year of postpartum.

But two, she seems to be more flavor-focused, um, which is what the modern postpartum industry in Taiwan is all about.

A lot of the diaspora were under the impression that postpartum, these medicinal dishes have to be bitter and heavy and, like, very intense, but, um, in Taiwan, radically enough, this period is seen as a period of pleasure.

So how do you recommend people go about sourcing what they need?

Taiwan has the highest amount of postpartum centers

per capita in the world, probably close to Korea.

And that's because our industry, postpartum industry, has been established for around 30 years already.

Now, obviously, in China and Southeast Asia, Hong Kong even, there are postpartum centers, but a lot of these initial centers and these other places were established by Taiwanese people who got roped in and helping them started.

So long story short, there's a deep, deep culture in postpartum hotel.

So I checked into one.

I wrote about the experience for the New Yorker.

Did you get the impression that the practice of sitting the month is less common or dying out to any extent in Taiwan among the younger generation or even in China, if you happen to know that as well?

Clarissa, tell us about your background.

Yeah.

So I've been a food journalist for 15 years now, really specializing in Taiwanese and Chinese cuisine, and I've been based in East Asia for eight years.

And my whole adult career, I've just been telling the story of Asian food for the American audience.

And Hado was sort of born when I was writing my cookbooks.

When you're writing a cookbook for the American audience, you have to sort of test with whatever pantry you can get at most American grocery stores.

So I was using cheap soy sauce, your average brand that you can get, Kikkoman or Lee Kum Kee.

How did you choose to keep it just so tight in such a crowded market?

First and foremost, how would you describe Taiwanese cuisine? How is it different from maybe Chinese or Cantonese, Shanghainese, even Japanese cuisine?

Yeah, that's a really difficult question because similar to how the United States is a melting pot, Taiwan is also a melting pot of influences, even though it might not look that way from a surface level.

So I believe over 90% of people have Han Chinese ancestry, but everyone's family came from different waves of immigration, and that, coupled with foreign influences and colonial influences, really impacted our food culture.

So unfortunately, I don't think there is one snappy sentence that embodies what Taiwanese food is.

And what I did in this book was really divided up into different strains of influences.

So you have the 16th to 18th century Chinese people who were the first major wave of Chinese settlers here to Taiwan.

And those were the people from the Fujian province.

So can you talk a little bit about how the food here is part of Taiwan's global soft power?

There is a politics involved with that Taiwanese identity as created in part by Beijing's coercion and aggressiveness.

Yes.

When I say, you know, beef noodle soup is Taiwanese, it is incredible how many people are mad at me from the other side.

Taiwan has never in its history been ruled by the People's Republic of China and that has made a huge difference in our culture.

Yeah.

You know, even though this was invented from people from China, they were fleeing the People's Republic of China (laughs).

And then they created this in Taiwan, you know, as an act of resilience, as an act to feed their family.

And this is the product of Taiwanese history.