An establishment of the authenticity of Taiwan-ness through design is a factor of a number of parameters that include the shape, typography as well as the color that is adopted in a given design. Taiwan culture has specific shapes and colors that are representative of certain symbols just as is the case with numerous other cultures. The paper discusses into the details such features with references to a few selected foods as shown below.
Extracted from https://www.ytower.com.tw/recipe/iframe-recipe.asp?seq=G02-1273
Main ingredients: butter, flour, egg, sugar, pineapple jam
Symbol: Pineapple cake in Taiwanese sounds similar to the meaning – prosperous and to come forth. This expression passes on the expectation that numerous kids will be destined to the family. Thus, pineapple cakes are frequently given as commitment endowments.
History: Pineapple cake was invented during the Japanese colonial period when Japanese industrialists brought different pineapple cultivars into Taiwan. By 1930s, Taiwan became the third largest exporter of pineapples.
That notwithstanding, when pineapple creation in Taiwan moved toward residential deals and utilization of crisp pineapple, nearby bread shops tried to utilize this surplus in cakes. While pineapple cakes had generally been created as stylized nourishment, a mix of legislative advancement and globalization promoted the pineapple cake. Pineapple cakes have turned out to be one of the best offering trinkets in Taiwan (Brown et al., 2004).
Since 2005, the Taipei City Government has run a yearly Taipei Pineapple Cake Cultural Festival to encourage the development the neighborhood the travel industry and advance offers of the pineapple cake. In 2013, the income from Taiwan’s pineapple cake bread shops totaled NT$40 billion (US$1.2 billion), and offers of pineapple cakes have likewise supported agrarian economies in provincial parts of the nation.
Contemporary pineapple cake pastry shops have made minor departure from the conventional pineapple cake. The filling may likewise join protected egg yolks or other dried natural products, for example, cranberries or strawberries (Chow, Harootunian & Miyoshi, 2007). Bread kitchens may likewise add winter melon to the pineapple stick. This training was at first a push to make the tart pineapple filling more attractive. In any case, in contemporary bread shops, adding winter melon to the filling might be viewed as a pointer of lower quality. The yearly Taipei Pineapple Cake Cultural Festival frequently includes a challenge in which bread shops contend to make pineapple cakes that consolidate whimsical fixings, for example, rice or Taiwanese tea (Cohen, 2006).
Package design:
Extracted from https://www.ytower.com.tw/recipe/iframe-recipe.asp?seq=G02-1273
Extracted from https://www.sugar.com.tw/en/product/product-4528
Main ingredients: maltose (condensed malt sugar), flour, butter, egg
History: The initial suncakes were made by the Lin family in the She-Ko zone of Shengang Township, Taichung County (now part of Taichung City). The Lin family utilized dense malt sugar as a filling for cake cakes. Later on, baked good creator Wei Qing-hai changed the cakes to their current frame.
In spite of the fact that not initially called “sun cakes”, they were given the name by the proprietor of “Sun Booth”, a standout amongst the most renowned cake shops that offers them. The name was not trademarked, and other baked good shops have utilized a similar name for their very own sun cakes (Cohen, 2006)
Symbol: Moon
Design:
Extracted from https://www.sugar.com.tw/en/product/product-4528
Extracted from https://www.instacart.com/stop-shop/products/141909-goya-soda-crackers-9-pk-8-0-oz
Main ingredients: flour, seasoning, salt, pepper, green onions
Package design:
History: Soda crackers were portrayed in “The Young Housekeeper” by Alcott in 1838.
In 1876, F. L. Sommer and Company of St. Joseph, Missouri began utilizing preparing soft drink to raise its skinny saltine. At first called the Premium Soda Cracker and later “Saltines” due to the preparing salt segment, the creation rapidly wound up mainstream and Sommer’s business quadrupled inside four years. That organization converged with different organizations to shape American Biscuit Company in 1890 and afterward after further mergers turned out to be a piece of Nabisco in 1898.
In the mid twentieth century, different organizations in the United States started offering soft drink saltines in Puerto Rico and alluded to them as “Fare Soda”. Rovira Biscuit Corp. of Puerto Rico additionally began offering their soft drink wafers with a similar name. The expression “Fare Soda” turned into a nonexclusive term in Puerto Rico for these saltines. In 1975 Keebler Co. was denied a trademark for the term since it was “only engaging”.
In the United States, Nabisco lost trademark assurance after the expression “saltine” started to be utilized conventionally to allude to comparable wafers (see nonexclusive trademark for how this happens).
The name “saltine” had been set in the Merriam Webster Dictionary in 1907 with a meaning of “a thin fresh wafer generally sprinkled with salt”. In Australia, Arnott’s Biscuits Holdings still holds a trademark on the name “Saltine”. They were made in the United Kingdom by Huntley and Palmers, and furthermore in Australia and New Zealand under the brand name Arnott’s Salada.
Design: Saltines have been contrasted with hardtack, a straightforward unleavened wafer or roll produced using flour, water, and now and again salt. Be that as it may, in contrast to hardtack, saltines incorporate yeast as one of their fixings. Soft drink wafers are raised bread that is permitted to ascend for twenty to thirty hours. After the ascent, antacid soft drink is added to kill the over the top sharpness created by the activity of the yeast. The mixture is permitted to rest for three to four more hours, to loosen up the gluten, before being come in layers and afterward prepared.
Level saltine wafers have punctures on their surfaces. Amid heating, the external layer of batter solidifies first, confining out-gassing of advanced gasses. The punctures interface the best surface to the base surface to keep the saltine from padding because of these developed gasses.
Extracted from https://www.fairmontmoments.com/food-drink/big-island-chicken-wing-bento-box-lunch
History: Amid the Japanese time, train travelers either ate at a feasting vehicle or picked an ekiben. Notwithstanding, ekiben boxes were just accessible at stations, not in train vehicles.
Under the Chinese Nationalists’ standard from 1945 onwards, an assortment of private providing food administrations jumped up as railroad transportation picked up prominence. These administrations were then incorporated by the Taiwan Railway Administration in 1960, slowly forming the significant wellspring of incomes of the organization other than transport itself.
On 9 Jun 2000, the pork slash bento, which had been ceased for a long time, returned out in the open on the Railways Festival. The initially assessed one thousand boxes to be sold ended up being an offer of more than 90 thousand because of their prevalence (Williams, 2005).
On 26 Feb 2015, Keikyu Corporation started its conveyance of Taiwan Railway Mealboxes.
Design:
Extracted from https://www.fairmontmoments.com/food-drink/big-island-chicken-wing-bento-box-lunch
Bento box is not authentic: Bento originated from Japan during the late Kamakura period whenever cooked and dried rice called hoshi-ii, truly “dried feast”) was produced. Hoshi-ii can be eaten as is or overflowed with water to make cooked rice, and is put away in a little sack. It spread to Taiwan near first half of 20th century (Williams, 2005). In Taiwan, the custom of utilizing bento including Ekiben (box lunch sold on trains or at stations) flourished there when the country was administered by Japan. Hence, there are presently numerous bento stores in urban territory and on National Routes which are prosperous. It is felt that the spread of Bento in Taiwan is somewhat on the grounds that the rice assortment, for example, Chi Shang rice, like Japanese rice, was presented. The bento box of Japan is quite different from the bento box of Taiwan in a number of aspects as shown below
Soda cracker is not authentic: The packaging consists of languages other than Mandarin Chinese including Japanese and English hence eroding its nature or pure form. An illustration of the same is the name of the soda cracker itself which is non-Mandarin. There seems to be some form of conflict between the colors used on the picture and the traditional Taiwan design color. The picture on the packaging features green and crop field (not a traditional Taiwanese design (Williams, 2005). Traditional Taiwanese design usually features printed simple-colored flowers or in general, the red color). While the use of green color and crop field in the picture would be an attempt to illustrate that soda cracker is a derivative from the natural environment, it out rightly fails to incorporate the various traditional Taiwanese designs with regard to color which is in most cases the red color (Settles, 2013).
Red, which corresponds to fire in the traditional Taiwanese culture is taken as a symbol of good fortune and joy and thus mostly adopted during holiday celebrations and family gatherings. Soda cracker being one of those foods that is often heavily consumed during various celebrations in the country as well as family gatherings, it would not afford to incorporate red color in the picture in case it was authentic (Settles, 2013). The use of green color and crop field is nothing beyond a transfer of the color of the environment to the packages of the meal and hence speaks very little of the Taiwan culture. The packaging itself is very misleading to outsiders, because the Japanese hiragana is inserted as part of the name for this cracker as well as descriptions written in Japanese, instead of Chinese.
Sun cake is authentic: With red being symbolized as a national Taiwanese color, it is the most visible color on the packaging of not only the box, but the plastic wrapper. Red, which corresponds to fire in the traditional Taiwanese culture is taken as a symbol of good fortune and joy and thus mostly adopted during holiday celebrations and family gatherings hence perfectly blends with the color notation of the cake. There is no other language than mandarin is written. Another aspect of the justification is the stress on “Taichung staple snack”. Taichung is a city in Taiwan. Referring to the sun cake as “Taichung staple snack” sheds some sense of identity that makes the sun cake be identified with the city. In such a case, any modifications that are likely to be done on the design of the cake would always be in line with the Taiwan culture and priority attached to the beliefs and expectations of the local community.
Behind the “Sun cake” in the middle, a sketch of Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is featured. (Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is a landmark in memory of the former president of Taiwan). Taiwanese flag consists of blue and red, with a white sun on the top left corner. The name of the Sun cake itself can be considered Taiwanese, and the shape of the Sun cake is also in a rounded shape, which is the symbol of the sun.
Pineapple cake is authentic: The pineapple utilized to make the fillings of the pineapple cake is a Taiwanese cultivar. This means the plant species originated from the climate and geographical location of Taiwan giving it a direct link with the Taiwanese design and hence Taiwan-ness. The packaging of the pineapple cake is designed in the shape of Taiwan. Packaging features image of Taiwanese cultivar pineapple (Wicks, 2010).
Conclusion
An establishment of the authenticity of Taiwan-ness through design is a factor of a number of parameters that include the shape, typography as well as the color that is adopted in a given design. Taiwan culture has specific shapes and colors that are representative of certain symbols just as is the case with numerous other cultures. Pineapple cake and sun cake as per the discussion and analysis have been verified to be authentic owing to the associated reasons which can directly be linked with the Taiwan culture and origin. On the other hand, there seems to be minimal connection between Taiwan-ness and soda cracker as well as bento box. Bento box does not trace its origin from Taiwan and instead came up from Japan while soda cracker ignores the dominant and general Taiwan colors in the packaging and picturing and instead adopting what can be termed as foreign colors.
References
Brown, M. J., Rubinstein, M. A., Clark, C., Wang, F. C., Wachman, A. M., Li, K., … & Cheek, T. (2004). Book Review Roundtable. Issues & Studies, 40(3/4), 453-509
Chow, R., Harootunian, H., & Miyoshi, M. (2007). Writing Taiwan: A new literary history. Duke University Press
Cohen, S. (2006). History out of joint: Essays on the use and abuse of history. JHU Press
Liu, Y. Y. T. (2012). Falun Gong, the diaspora and Chinese identity: fieldwork among the practicioners in Ottawa (Doctoral dissertation, Carleton University)
Settles, P. C. (2013). Singing God’s truth in the 1.5 generation Chinese American way. Fuller Theological Seminary, School of Intercultural Studies
Wicks, J. A. (2010). The antecedents of Taiwan new cinema: the state of Taiwan film in the 1960s and 1970s (Doctoral dissertation, UC San Diego)
Williams, M. J. (2005). Politics and ethnicity: a study of the role of state security interests in the maintenance of aboriginal difference in Taiwan (Doctoral dissertation)
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