These colorful, eye-catching flat rice noodles are the product of laborious research and development. The Chungs, a husband and wife, produce these artisanal noodles by hand, dying them with natural pigments from fruits and vegetables. During the development process, they experimented with all sorts of ingredients including sweet potato leaves, dragon fruit and beetroot.
Chung Fu-yuan, Flat rice noodle vendor: Initially we were adding more of them, because we wanted that deep color. But we discovered that if you add too much of these fruits and vegetables, their contents prevent the rice slurry from setting. So we experimented with each fruit, adding it in little by little.
It all began when Mrs. Chung added some of her garden’s surplus produce to rice slurry. After some trial and error, colorful noodles were born, affording new business opportunities.
Chung Ching-ting, Flat rice noodle vendor: I had been eating flat rice noodles for 20 years, but I realized I didn’t actually know how to make them. I didn’t even know what rice is used to make them, let alone how to make them. So I thought, let me devote some time to this. I thought, how about I do some research and see how I can bring in our homegrown produce, like sweet potato leaves. At the time, we also had cherry tomatoes.
While the Chungs are putting a fresh twist on an old favorite, other vendors are staying true to tradition. This is Lin Hsin-ta , a fourth-generation noodle maker. Lin says it took him a great deal of effort to achieve a noodle texture comparable to his predecessors’.
Lin Hsin-ta, Fourth generation noodle vendor: In the beginning, I didn’t quite have a grip on variables like temperature, thickness, thinness. It was failure after failure after failure. Then finally I found that sweet spot, and they started coming out better and better. I had to strike that perfect balance.
The fourth-generation noodle maker is serving up bowl after bowl of flat rice noodles, keeping Meinong’s tasty tradition alive and well.
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