[A Man's Vegetable Market]Preface: In Search of Earth's Food

Author's note: The following is the preface to my recent book "A Man's Vegetable Market." I apologize that the text is rather long, over two thousand characters, but it is very important, and I hope that after reading it everyone will change the way they see vegetable markets.

Our bodies contain an ancient digestive system that was fixed in place tens of thousands of years ago, suited to the foods of the agricultural age, but the foods brought by today's industrial civilization seem like food from outer space, with so many conditions and problems that it is caught off guard. Besides actively seeking out organic and naturally grown food, when we go to traditional vegetable markets to buy groceries, it is as if we are also searching for the food of the Earth. How should one buy groceries at a traditional market, what problems have arisen with our food, and how can we buy safe food - I have a set of personal expectations and ideas that I want to share with everyone.

●

Before I turned thirty, I was a bachelor who rarely bought groceries or cooked, and could not tell one grain from another.

After I married and had a child, I began learning starting from the vegetable market near my home. When ordinary people go out to buy groceries, they always have to consider what their family will eat and how many days' worth to buy. I, however, was like someone touring the Grand View Garden, often drawn in by the bustling scene and forgetting the real purpose of buying groceries.

The reason I insisted on visiting vegetable markets during later travels probably also grew out of this kind of pleasure in wandering and looking around. In the past, wherever I went, I also tried the local food. But no matter how delicious the food, it was always cooked by someone else, and there was a layer of separation in my heart. If I walked into a vegetable market, saw the ingredients in their original form, and knew the environment in which they were grown, only then did I seem to feel at ease, and gain a more solid understanding of the local life and customs.

On several railway trips, I had this kind of profound experience. For example, once I took students to Longtian to visit the old station, the street scene, and several well-known drink shops. In less than half an hour, our walk was over, and we still wanted more. Afterward, I noticed that after crossing the road there was a vegetable market, so I went to take a look along the way. There we saw an abundant harvest of tree seeds, and avocados being transported in one basket after another, which told us what local seasonal produce was available. There was also a snack shop beside it, with a huge sign reading "grass carp porridge," reminding us that not far from this place was an area for farming grass carp.

With this visit to the market, our understanding of this small town became vivid and concrete. A vegetable market has never been merely a place for buying and selling fruits and vegetables; it largely plays this kind of function and role as well. On a trip to a town, if we lack the observations and experiences of a vegetable market, it is hard for us to have an experience close to local life.

People who enjoy wandering through vegetable markets are probably rarely like me, as if I were going there to chat. After making a round of the whole market, what I love most is asking vegetable sellers and fruit growers about this and that. After returning home, if I have bought fruits and vegetables, what I am busy with is not washing, cutting, and cooking, but first carefully examining them and looking through books and catalogs, wanting to gain broader knowledge and imagination from the ingredients I have just obtained.

For a while, I even visited frequently. The vendors selling fruits and vegetables surely did not like people like me, who would buy only one or two items, yet want to take the opportunity to ask clearly about the origin, characteristics, and cultivation methods of the vegetables. I would even investigate thoroughly where the seller lived and the growing environment of the crops.

This is my pleasure in buying groceries, whether near my home or as far away as Taitung and Hualien, China, where I lived for a time. Looking at a city through a vegetable market, I am used to this kind of life perception, sketching a green map of a town's core.

Vegetable markets in Taiwan, China always differ from north to south, and the east and west are even more completely different. After many years of travel, the many miscellaneous impressions of vegetable markets have now been pieced together, and I probably also have an overview and a concrete new angle that I want to discuss with everyone.

The writing content of this book can perhaps be treated as a vegetable market. In a vegetable market there are all kinds of teachers, and I am like a child who loves to ask questions, constantly raising confusion and wanting to know the answers. I try to divide it into five major categories, so that everyone can clearly understand my knowledge and thinking, as well as the inspiration I gained there.

(This book is published by Yuan-Liou Publishing and will be released in September)