Lunshan Tribe Camellia Seed Oil, from the local homeland
Photography/Li Jiaye
It was not until around the 1970s that Taiwan entered the era of bottled and canned cooking oil.
Before that, buying oil by the measure was a daily consumer practice and also a steady, long-lasting expression of human warmth. Old and young alike carried glass bottles or copper cans that had been refilled with oil who knows how many times, making regular trips to the oil shop, and while there, catching up on all the neighborhood gossip. I vaguely remember the smell of the oil shop, with sesame oil, white sesame oil, camellia seed oil, peanut oil, soybean oil and others drifting through the air. The scoops and scales in the oil shop were always sparkling bright, and the metal oil drums held all kinds of oils waiting to be sold at the going price. That truly was an era of contentment, when people took only as much as they needed.
By contrast, today, even though food safety incidents keep occurring and each time the whole of Taiwan is in an uproar when they happen, for people who have grown used to convenience for far too many years, it seems hard to return to those days of carrying a can to buy oil, so once the incident passes, it all fades away lightly. Even so, finding out where oil products come from, and even using oils with greater stability, is something we as consumers should at least understand further.
Letting the benefits of the camellia tree be rediscovered
On the East Coast, the Bunun village of Lunshan in Zhuoxi Township, Hualien, has several quite large camellia tree orchards, the best raw material for good oil, and well worth investigating.
Utterly different from the West Coast landscape, the East Coast landscape is magnificent and majestic, and even the rice paddies stand there free and unrestrained. There, you cannot help but submit to the greatness of nature. Yet despite the splendid scenery, the human landscape is bleak and desolate. Lunshan Tribe is full of a typical real example of Taiwan's rural skip-generation upbringing: elderly people raising the children their own sons and daughters cannot afford to raise in the city, living somewhat at the mercy of fate. Fortunately there is a Reverend Wen Guangliang, who was unwilling to let his hometown wither away. He gave up a church in the Fengyuan area with relatively more resources and returned home, trying to find a way out for his people.
Returning to his hometown, Reverend Wen faced a situation of dwindling elders, children wandering about, and few people to care for them. Every so often, he even had to hold a funeral, which also meant the tribe's population had shrunk by another two-hundred-somethingth. Yet he had little time for sorrow. Besides shepherding the indigenous people of Lunshan, he also served as moderator of the Bunun Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church, and had to patrol the fields and water every day. He regarded himself as the burden-bearing "Amos" of the Bible, at once a pastor called by God, a shepherd tending sheep, and a farmer, busy running in circles all day long.
After the 921 earthquake, Wu Meimao, a biotechnology researcher who set aside her own work and went deep into indigenous tribes to help them with organic farming, also became Reverend Wen's helper in reviving their homeland. Meimao inspected Lunshan Tribe's crops and resolved to let the benefits of the camellia tree be rediscovered. In addition, she urged Reverend Wen to try planting high-economic-value medicinal crops such as chrysanthemum, dang shen, and red quinoa, giving the tribe's indigenous people a chance to live self-sufficiently.
That day, Reverend Wen drove along a mountain road overgrown with weeds, first visiting Sister Mao's mandarin orchard in the village. The orchard was full of mandarins bigger than a fist, and among them she also raised sturdy, spirited nine-jin chickens and naked-neck chickens flying about everywhere. Hanging on the bamboo shed beside them was an icon of Jesus crucified. "Because Sister Mao's chickens were stolen before, she simply hung up a picture of Jesus to guard against thieves, asking Jesus to watch over her chickens for her," Reverend Wen explained.
The place where the camellia tree orchard is located happens to offer a view of the crisscrossing Huadong Rift Valley. The camellia trees' branches run wild, full of wildness and strong vitality. Although they had already set fruit by mid-September, they could only be harvested after "Frost's Descent," once the fruit was truly ripe and full of oil. The local indigenous people's once-a-year source of income depends on these camellia seeds.
The more than 40 hectares of camellia orchards are especially precious
In the 1950s and 1960s, because ordinary people lacked cooking oil, the government distributed camellia seeds to people in remote areas to plant, so they could supplement their own oil supply. But when the price of betel nut was very good, these camellia trees were almost completely cleared away, leaving little left on the whole island, and even the raw materials of old brands relied heavily on camellia seeds from Vietnam. By comparison, Lunshan Tribe's more than 40 hectares of camellia orchards are especially precious.
As health awareness gradually rises, locally produced camellia seed oil should by rights have higher economic value. Unfortunately, these local farmers do not understand manufacturing and marketing, and have handed the top-grade oil over to olive oil that crosses the ocean and claims to be rich in monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids.
In fact, for these oil products written in Italian and Spanish, how pure are they really? And are they really the "first cold-pressed virgin oil" boasted on the product labels? Most consumers can only leave it to the manufacturer's own conscience, lacking any standard for judgment.
Judging purely by nutritional composition, oils high in monounsaturated fatty acids can raise good cholesterol (HDL) in the body and lower bad cholesterol (LDL), which is extremely beneficial for preventing heart disease. Camellia seed oil is rich in 82.51% monounsaturated fatty acids, in no way inferior to olive oil's 72.85%. At the same time, camellia seed oil's flash point is 223°C, also higher than refined olive oil's 207°C. This clearly shows that camellia seed oil has every advantage yet lacks the marketing budgets of big brands, and only a few old brands, supported by loyal consumers who know them well, still retain a small market.
As the season enters golden autumn in October, the camellia seed harvest season has finally arrived, and once again they must face the problem of insufficient labor.
Only through an ever-renewing cycle of consumer behavior can good be repaid with good
It turns out camellia seeds must be picked one by one by hand; they are a truly labor-intensive crop. Moreover, the camellia tree has few natural enemies; the only problem is that the orchard is overgrown with weeds. In the past, the Bunun people would spray herbicide, but after Wu Meimao came into the tribe to provide guidance, she strongly urged the locals to stop using herbicide and let the land's vitality return. Although the land gradually became purer, when harvest time came, the problem arrived: with weeds growing wildly before their eyes, Reverend Wen first had to hire people to clear them. Because the area is so large, by the time one side was cleared, the other side had grown lush again. Truly, "autumn grass cannot be cleared away; it grows again when the 'autumn' wind blows." Given Lunshan Tribe's current population situation, Reverend Wen was worrying about where to muster the labor for the harvest. "Just relying on these tribe grandmothers, we won't be able to finish harvesting," he said, troubled.
Besides, even if all the camellia seeds were harvested, these Bunun elders who do not understand value-added processing would still have limited income. 10 kilograms of wet fruit can only yield 2.25 kilograms of oil, and the ones who really make money are the downstream processors and manufacturers. "In the past, we just sold the wet fruit directly to the farmers' association, and the price was entirely up to the farmers' association," Wu Meimao pointed out. Therefore, she was planning to teach the local indigenous people two processing steps: removing the outer shells of the wet fruit and sun-drying them, "which can increase income by at least 50 percent."
Wu Meimao, determined to revitalize this tribe, hoped to give these camellia orchards more diverse value. After this year's camellia seed harvest was completed in November, preparations were set to begin for building a tribal goods consolidation center. Starting with supplying oil that people can eat with peace of mind, then producing organic pineapple, May peach, citrus, camellia and so on, and then planning and organizing several camellia orchards such as white-flowered big-fruited, red-flowered big-fruited, and golden-flowered small-fruited, and even building a second screen house to graft and grow ornamental camellias, raising their recreational value.
Although they had outlined a beautiful vision, seeing so many vacant houses and the sparse village scene, one still could not help asking Reverend Wen: "Seeing your hometown so desolate, and the work you do may not bring immediate and obvious change, have you ever doubted God's existence?" Reverend Wen, who leads this tribe in striving upward, replied without hesitation: "No. Life inherently has high mountains and low valleys. I believe God has never abandoned us."
Every time Wu Meimao brought up with Reverend Wen that they could try planting some other crop, the answer she got was always: "I'm busy to death, and you're coming to make trouble again!" Even so, Reverend Wen truly could not stay idle. He kept looking for crops that could give his people more stable income, and even channeled mountain spring water to raise fish. All of this had only just begun...
Whether this "homeland of good local oil" can rise up from the ground depends on gaining recognition from more consumers, because only through an ever-renewing cycle of consumer behavior can good be repaid with good, and can these indigenous people be willing to grow clean crops.
Further reading
Lunshan Tribe: On barren land, heaven's gift grows