Did you know there are ten different ways to say "deep-fry" in Minnan? Chen Shu-hua's "Cooking Talk by the Stove" unearths the voices of Taiwan's everyday food

Did you know there are ten different ways to say "deep-fry" in Minnan? ciN, za, zha, bang, bo, pu, fu, su, zhi, peng... Just hearing these verbs, you can almost see that aromatic, sizzling oil pot, and depending on how much oil there is, how long the frying lasts, how the fried item puffs up, the crackling sound and the crisp texture, a different vivid verb matches each one. In Minnan, "deep-fry" is not a single word, but a whole dynamic spectrum bursting with color, aroma and flavor.

The person who has dug out the sounds and written forms of these rare verbs one by one is Chen Shu-hua, who has spent years researching the history of Taiwanese food and diligently doing fieldwork. From "The Island's Dining Table" and "Changhua Snack Notes" to her latest book "Cooking Talk by the Stove," she pursues the origins and development of every everyday dish with boundless curiosity, radiating an endlessly vast field of inquiry outward from her own dining table, something even she never anticipated.