OMG it's really happening! Of oyster omelettes and journey's beginning.

So, let's talk about Asian Eats!! We'll start with a favorite of mine from Taiwan...

Creation.

The night market chef who created this humble yet fabulous 'oa jian,' 蚵仔煎 or oyster omelette, in a Taichung night market in 2016 blended sweet, plump little Taiwan oysters with egg, a little sweet potato starch, crispy green scallions, fried it up on a hot griddle, and ladled a mysterious sweet sauce over the whole thing. 

The delicate, fluffy, mouthwatering treat has been a staple of Taiwan cuisine for decades if not 100s of years! It is a favorite of my Dad's from childhood: at 86, he still loves to wash it down with a bottle of cold Coke. Some enterprising night market chefs tuck it into a steamed bun, which Dad is scarfing down in this photo.

Vibin' ancient eats.

If you think about deep time, things get interesting: the little oysters hail from Taiwan's 6.000+ year old seafood traditions, the sweet potato starch and chicken eggs from China's great crop domestication experiments 10,000 years back. Scallions have likely been in recipes since the Ice Age (would Madame like some scallions with the mastodon filet?). The mystery sauce certainly includes soy sauce of fermented soybeans and also borrows a tangy sweet punch from good old ketchup...

What's in a flavor?

This oyster omelette is an amazing dish with origins shrouded in time. It blends elements of water, earth, air, fire, and even metal to get it cooked up and on your plate - as this hardworking night market chef is doing.

So yeah, I know: the street food of Asia has been blogged out the yin-yang, so to speak. But is there still a lot more to discover? How do time and local culture factor in? Have things changed since the Covid shutdown?? I'll soon be headed for Asia after a three years absence to see how Dad is doing, check out what's going on foodwise, and start a research project: please stay tuned and drop in often!