Shimiwu Chef's Challenge (1): Awakening the Taste Buds with Natural Ingredients

From melamine and plasticizers to maleic acid, a string of chemical additives has overrun the pearl milk tea, tofu pudding, meatballs, noodles, pudding, frozen treats and other foods people love to eat every day, plunging consumers into a panic of "what on earth is still safe to eat?" As the food industry pursues maximum output and profit by using cheap chemical additives to deceive consumers' taste buds, chefs play a crucial gatekeeping role in the journey from farm to table.

Su Yi-fan, the chef at Beitou Shimi Wu, a handmade dessert and chocolate shop with a modest reputation, stresses natural ingredients and resists chemical additives when selecting ingredients, and the attitude of farmers toward the land and plants is an even greater source of inspiration for her in judging the quality of ingredients and developing new products.

Su Yi-fan, born in the 70th year of the Republic of China (1981), is a top graduate with a master's degree from the Graduate Institute of Building and Planning at National Taiwan University, and also a partner and chef at the handmade dessert shop Shimi Wu. All the desserts in the shop, from ingredient sourcing and research and development to production, come entirely from her and her business partner's own hands. Because she insists on natural ingredients, uses no chemical additives, and can make good use of the original flavors of various ingredients to weave together the most pleasant flavors in her desserts, she has earned a modest reputation in Beitou.

Series reading: The Chef's Trial

(This series of articles is sponsored by the Jianzhen Environmental Education Foundation for personnel expenses, but the foundation does not interfere at all with news topics or interview writing, ensuring journalistic independence.)