February 10, 2026 • 34 mins
This bite-sized treat, made of short-crust pastry filled with pineapple jam, is said to bring good fortune. Anney and Lauren dig into the science and history of Taiwanese pineapple cake.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to favorite production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm Anny Rey and I'm Lorn vogel Baum, and today
we have an episode for you about Taiwanese pineapple cake.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Yes, and I do know the answer to this, but
I will ask anyway. Was there any particular reason this
was on your mind, Lauren?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yes, yes, so we are running up on the lunar
New Year in a number of cultures. Happy cleaning and
cooking to anyone who is in the midst of all
of that, and many wishes for a sweet start to
your new year.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yes. Yes, and Laura and I were discussing this is
one of my favorite times of year. I love so
many Lunar New Year foods. I don't know if I
ever had Taiwanese pineapple cake.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
I strongly believe that I have not. I think by
the time I would have had exposure to them, I
already knew that I shouldn't really eat pineapple because it
makes me really sick. So this was an episode full
of really awful cravings, cravings of the type that I
cannot I cannot fulfill, at least not without risk. I yeah, so.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Yes, I always feel so bad, but you know, I'll
let you know how it is.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Please do, please do. It's so funny. Pineapple is the
one that gets people, like, of my entire list of
things that I can't eat, which is pretty long, like
like I get to pineapple and people.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Go, oh, oh, Darling.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I'm so sorry, and I'm like, ah, bud.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Like, yeah, it's pretty good.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Yeah, yeah it is, Yeah it is. But yes, these
pineapple cakes are a popular food during certainly Taiwani Lunar
New Year festivals and celebrations, and yeah, other times the
year as well.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Yeah, very celebratory, it seems. Oh yeah, yeah, but listeners
right in let us know. As always. You can see
our past episodes on Lunar New Year's foods that we
did dim sum sure. Sure, We've done a lot of
foods related to Lunar New Year's the pineapple reducs definitely
for this one.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Oh yeah, yeah yeah. Also crust related episodes include our
recent shortening Crisco episode and also shortbread.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Yes, we have done quite a bit of topics. We've
tackled quite a bit of things, Lauren.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
We have. It turns out we've been on the air
for eight years now.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
I don't know, I've put I've built the trap and
fell into it immediately.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Oh no, that's later being we'll figure that out for now.
I guess that brings us to our question a.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Number of questions, but yes, I guess it does, okay.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Taiwanese pineapple cake, what is it?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Well? Taiwanese pineapple cake is a type of baked good
that consists of a molded rectangular ish pastry crust, usually
like tender crumbly short crust pastry, surrounding a filling of
a sweet to tart pineapple jam. They're typically small and
kind of stout, single serving sized, you know, a couple
(03:39):
bites apiece, and baked to a nice golden brown. Generally
you're looking to wind up having a filling that's about
twice as thick as the crust surrounding it. And if
you're having a dissonance here over the word cake, it
is more what American English would call like a filled cookie,
or maybe like a mini pie kind of situation. The
pineapple jam can be sticky and jamier or softer and
(04:02):
more jelly like. The latter is often achieved by adding
winter melon to the jam, and this type tends to
be made a little bit sweeter as well. You can
also add extra stuff to the jam, you know, for
extra flavor and or texture, fruit or tea flavors, maybe
pieces of dried fruits or nuts, maybe a whole salted
egg yolk. They're often served room temperature or warm as
(04:25):
a snack alongside hot tea, and you can find them
individually wrapped in nice gift boxes, usually to be given
as like good luck beamed treats, as for the lunar
New Year, or as travel souvenirs. They seem like just
lovely morsels, you know, like like rich crust giving way
(04:46):
to that bright filling with crumble and chew, like biting
through the golden layers of a sunset.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
They sound delightful, They.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Sound really nice. I understand that there's a possibility that
I can eat cooked pineapple better than raw pineapple, but
I just haven't had a day where I've wanted to
try it out.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
A risk, for sure. Yes, you'd have to whole day.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah no, no, literally, that's what I would have to be, like, whelp,
either this is going to be fine or or here
we are.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
It's the roll of the dice.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Ah, Well, while I schedule that, let's do a very
quick unpacking of these main components here. Okay, so pineapple. Yes,
you can see our entire two episodes about pineapple for
more about that. But it's a really interesting fruit that's
made up of dozens and dozens of small individual fruits
(05:46):
that grow all smushed together off of a central stem,
forming this big, oblong multifruit. The outer end of each
fruit comes together to form a waxy rind, and the
central stem forms a tough, spiky leaves at the top
that kind of look like a crown. You can grow
a new pineapple by just cutting off and planting that crown.
(06:08):
Most pineapples that we eat are in fact propagated from
stem shoots, not planted from seeds. There are a lot
of varieties of pineapple. The flesh of the fruit can
be white to yellow to gold with juicy and variably
stringy segments. The flavor can range from very sweet to
sharply tart to kind of a bunch of both, with lovely, round,
(06:31):
tropical sort of flavors in there. When it's cooked down,
it takes on these like rich caramelized flavors as well.
Annie is making a very happy face right.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Now because it's cold outside. Such a wonderful reminder of
warm Oh.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Yeah, right, oh gosh. Winter Melon is a type of
like big, old oblongish squash. It's in the cucumber family.
It has a thin, tough skin and firm, juicy white
flesh and an inner hollow for seeds. It's fairly neutral
in flavor, but cooks to this really nice soft texture
(07:09):
and absorbs other flavors really well. So it's used in
a lot of dishes both sweet and savory, from like
candies to stir fries. For this jam filling, it's purae
and sweetened and probably given a little bit of from
some kind of flavoring. They're harvested in the late summer
through early fall, and we'll keep for a few months
(07:30):
in a cool, dry place, So it really only makes
sense that it would wind up as a textural element
in lunar New Year treats, especially as it can be
a little bit less expensive than really good pineapple. Some
recipes for pineapple cake even replace pineapple entirely with like
just winter melon plus flavoring. This is controversial. More on
that in a second. Short crust pastry is a type
(07:53):
of pastry crust that's a crumbly or flaky and tender,
not stretchy and chewy. And in this particular case, you
are looking for crumbly, something firm enough to hold its
shape but not too dry. And I've seen recipes and
looked at photos that have appeared to be anywhere from
like pretty pretty crisp and crumbly to like very soft
(08:18):
and crumbly, like anywhere from like actual short bread more
like a like a fig Newton kind of crust. If
you're familiar with that type of cookie, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I saw that too. But to figure out exactly what
we are talking about here, let's look into how these
cakes are made so that crust. Yes, recipes I've seen
(08:38):
include solid fats like butter, lard and or shortening, plus
a fine milled flour and powdered sugar for just a
super tender texture, plus egg either whole eggs or just yolks,
and either powdered milk or condensed milk for richness. Textural
ingredients are uncommon, but might be added in maybe a
(08:59):
flax seed, wheat, germs, something like that. And I think
that you do typically wind up with a slightly softer
texture than a short bread cookie, partially because of the
moisture you're going to get in the filling. People have
strong opinions about the texture and flavor of the filling.
I've read recipes that insist you can only get the
(09:20):
right texture using canned pineapple, only canned. I've read arguments
about what variety of fresh pineapple is the most appropriate.
Some people think that using winter melon in the filling
is like cheap or old fashioned, or like unclassy. But
(09:41):
some people love that sweeter, bouncier filling. And some people
furthermore really dislike any stringiness from pineapple being a parent,
which is solved by a high winter melon content. On
the other hand, I have read that you will lose
the good luck of the pineapple by adding winter melon. No,
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
I know, right. Some recipes will use some brown sugar
for more like toasty caramel flavor. But yeah, generally the
jam is cooked way down to make sure that you
do get those nice, rich flavors in there. Other flavorings again,
can be incorporated, from like strawberry to red wine to saffron.
(10:22):
People go wherever they want with it. I love it.
I don't think i've ever done like a red wine
and pineapple thing. Again, Oh, I missed out so many
pineapple opportunities.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
You did, well, maybe i'll experiment.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Well, please do report back.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
These are assembled by taking a little bit of the
dough and rolling it out, and then taking a little
ball of the jam and wrapping it in the dough
the way that you would wrap up like a dumpling,
and then gently pressing that sort of dumpling you've just
made into a square or rectangular mold, and repeating for
you know, basically as many molds as you have. Sometimes
(11:01):
you might stamp a little design in the top of
the cake or something like that. The traditional square to
rectangular shape often has rounded corners and is sometimes likened
to a little gold ingot. Yeah, you can find these
at lots of bakeries around Taiwan, which, if you didn't
get the concept from me saying that they're Taiwanese pineapple cakes, yes,
(11:24):
these are from Taiwan, but you can also find them
online and in convenience stores, in grocery stores both local
and international. They can be a little pricey, but generally
they're not as expensive as say, like moon cake boxes.
Get you're looking at like ten to forty bucks ish
in Taiwan. Some of the bakeries offer hands on classes
(11:45):
for both kids and adults to learn how to make
them too, so check that out. But you can make
them at home. There are lots of good sounding recipes online.
You can buy specialty molds, which are often little like
individual rings that you would bake on a sheet and
want to flip over halfway through baking in order to
like brown and flatten both the top and bottom. But
(12:06):
I think like a mini muffin tin or like a
mini tart tin situation would probably work too.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Yeah, I can see that. Yeah. I did love reading
pretty much every article I read, somebody had their favorite
bakery that is where you oh yeah, oh yeah, that
is the one.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Uh huh yeah. And there's newer ones and older ones,
and different levels of sweetness and different types of pineapples
and different types of bakery cafe experiences. And we didn't
put a whole lot of that in here, but if
anyone has personal experience, oh my goodness, right in please?
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Oh okay, well what about the nutrition?
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Treats are nice? Treats are nice, and these are small
you know.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Yes, I also read somewhere that people have opinions about
how you should eat them. Oh really yeah, like do
you take it out of the wrapper or you just
eat two bytes? Oh?
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Oh interesting? Oh I didn't read that, no tea.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Oh yeah, so write in about that. Team listeners absolutely
giving you a lot of homework for this one. We
do have some numbers for you.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
We do so littar. New Year in Taiwan is a
big deal. It's like a I read. I read a
few different concepts of exactly how long it kind of lasts,
but the average was sort of sixteen days. It's like
a sixteen day ish celebration, often including five ish days
off of work, including New Year's Eve through the fourth
(13:42):
day of the New Year, with different kind of activities
sculpted out for each day. There are lots of festive
markets and like street performances, and you visit family, and
there's gifts and lots of feasting, including a lot of
symbolic foods, and one of those is pineapple, and the
fruit in many iterations is a popular New Year's gift.
(14:03):
And beyond, like basically anytime that you're wishing someone incoming
prosperity due to a little bit of a pun that
we're going to cover in the history section. These cakes
are also popular at other celebratory times of the year.
There's been a government sponsored pineapple cake festival every late
summer in Typee since two thousand and six, times to
(14:25):
hit right before the mid autumn festival. As of twenty eleven,
they hosted ninety six bakeries competing for awards for their
pineapple cakes at this festival.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
It sounds like it's a big deal. We'll talk about
it a bit more in the history section. Yeah, oh,
it sounds beautiful. These days, there are automated pineapple cake
production line machines on the market that will portion out
and mold and sometimes bake cakes at a rate of
up to the highest number I saw I was four thousand,
(15:00):
two hundred an hour. WHOA to be fair, I wasn't
like scouring industry literature, but that sounded impressive to me.
It does. It does sound impressive.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
As of twenty thirteen, the bakeries around Taiwan that specialize
in pineapple cake shared a total revenue of one point
two billion dollars a year. Around that time, one popular
newer bakery, Sunny Hills, was making fifty thousand pineapple cakes
every day, or about eight million a year. Uh huh yep.
(15:42):
And this next Okay, so I wanted to say this out.
I don't remember which bakery this was for, but I
swear that I saw that one bakery's all time high
of pineapple cakes sold in a day was one hundred thousand.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Oh by.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yeah, that's a lot. There are some of these places,
there are like lines around the block, like on a
daily basis for so. Yeah, there is a world record
for the largest map of Taiwan made out of pineapple cakes.
(16:20):
It was two point four meters long or about seven
feet ten inches. It was constructed in twenty ten in Taipei,
apparently for a celebration of International Migrants Day. That's nice.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
You gotta love these specific records, you really do.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Yeah, beautiful, And yes, generally speaking, Taiwan loves some pineapple
and consumes about three hundred thousand metric tons of it
a year.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Wow, Well, pineapple is good. They're not wrong.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
They're not wrong. Oh, they're not wrong.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
And there's quite a history and a reason as to
why this may be.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yes, and we are going to get into that in
a history section, which we are going to get into
as soon as we get back from a quick break
for a word from our sponsors, and we're back.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and again see our
Pineapple Redux episode. But very very briefly, pineapple originated in
South America, and because of the pain and cost of
transporting it elsewhere and its overall appearance in some places,
a lot of them Western places, it really became associated
with luxury and hospitality. However, that's not really what happened here.
(17:47):
The pineapple was introduced to Taiwan in the sixteenth century
by the Portuguese Portuguese traders, perhaps through Malaysia. After the
Portuguese introduced it there, I saw a couple of different accounts.
The climate allowed for pineapple to successfully grow in Taiwan,
and by the eighteen seventies it was widely cultivated.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Pretty soon after cultivation really picked up, canning operations were
started up as well, by like the eighteen nineties, which
is relatively early.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Yes, and because the Taiwanese Hokkien dialect of Chinese ascribed
pineapple with the meaning of prosperity arrives, or fortune comes,
it became associated with good luck.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Yeah, yeah, it's a homophone, possibly a homonym I saw,
I saw both. I really think it's a homophone. We
have plenty of both of these in like Latin and
Germanic based languages, but it's perhaps even more common in
languages that do use characters or logographs in their writing,
like Chinese and related languages.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
And as we know with a lot of these Lunar
New Year episodes, a lot of the foods associated with
this holiday have some wordplay and or level of thing involved,
which I love.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, y'all know that we love that.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Yes, right up our alley. The Japanese colonization of Taiwan
also influenced the Taiwanese pineapple cake. Japan colonized Taiwan from
eighteen ninety five to nineteen forty five with a goal
of transforming Taiwan into a model colony by industrializing it
and making it really profitable despite its small size. As
(19:29):
part of this, they set up several pineapple processing plants,
and the industry really took off despite its size. Taiwan
grew to be the third largest exporter of processed pineapple
by the nineteen thirties. It helped that these factories implemented
modern canning technology in the nineteen twenties.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Yeah, Taiwan was producing some one point six million cases
of canned pineapple a year. By the late nineteen thirties.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
However, they were kind of limited to where they could
export two outside of Japan and some parts of Asia.
The industry took a hit during World War Two as well,
since the metal used for the cans instead went to
the war effort, and pineapple cultivation was largely swapped out
for grains at the time.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Yeah. Also, a number of canning factories were bombed during
the course of the war.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Yeah. Still, soon after the end of the Japanese occupation
of Taiwan in the end of World War II, pineapple
production was in full swing again.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Yeah. The industry wound up, peaking in nineteen seventy one
with production of four million cases of canned pineapple a year.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
There were some challenges though, Beginning in the seventies, a
growing focus on manufacturing led some farmers to leave agricultural
areas for cities. On top of that, in the nineteen eighties,
rising competition from Southeast Asia really hit Taiwan's pineapple industry hard,
and they pivoted to focusing on selling the fresh pineapple
(20:59):
domestically and then exporting their rest, which was the opposite
of what they had been doing. Government agricultural agencies also
pushed for farmers to grow new varieties of pineapple to
sell fresh. They were producing so much pineapple that there
was a surplus even after exporting to a wider range
of countries, and people started trying to find ways to
(21:19):
use up any extra and this led to a bunch
of things like fermented pineapple, pineapple sauces, pineapple and drinks,
and according to the story pineapple cake. These early pineapple
cakes consisted of a pineapple paste inside a cake, but
sometimes the filling was a little too stringy and or
sour for people, so producers started looking to other ingredients,
(21:45):
and one of them that a lot of them landed
on was winter melon, which is native to South Asia.
The fiber of the winter melon is not as stringing
and its water content is around ninety percent, so the
bakers would cook the melon to get rid of the
water and then simmer it with pineapple, sugar and whatever
other ingredients until it reached the desired consistency. This produced
(22:09):
a better texture for the filling that was still yellow
and still tasted like pineapple and yeah, there were a
lot of reasons that pineapple cakes became popular, not just
because of the Luck Association. One was that they're easy
to transport, like they were a big tourist item. Oh yeah,
(22:29):
and they're simple but a lovely gift to give. I
read that they were popular at weddings. They keep well.
I read somewhere fifteen days.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
So yeah, they're nice, they're lovely, nice treats. Yeah, it
makes sense. Oh and then the Type City government launched
the Pineapple Cake Cultural Festival in two thousand and six
to bring more attention to the good and its producers.
The idea came from the TYPEI Bakery Association after its
(22:59):
members realize that a lot of visitors to Taiwan were
purchasing the cakes. From what I understand, there's a theme
every year, which is fun and allows the bakers to
experiment with different flavors and ingredients and even shapes. The
bakers compete for prizes, yes, like the most creative.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Yeah. Past theme ingredients have included tea, flowers and rice.
I think birds was the theme in twenty fourteen, not
as an ingredient but as a concept. Entries included chicken,
shaped pineapple cakes with chestnut in the filling and Angry
(23:37):
Birds shaped pineapple cakes with a sweet and sour filling.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
I love it also, not as an ingredient but a
concept is I got to put that on something that's fantastic.
Another thing addressed at this festival how much pineapple needed
to be used for the filling. Yes. Over time, winter
melon had become the primary ingredient in the filling, but
(24:05):
the bakers still wanted to make sure pineapple was included.
As you mentioned, there are a lot of strong opinions
about this, and it was sort of like framed as
going back to the original pineapple cake, but the baker's
experimented and eventually landed on twenty percent pineapple and twelve
percent or lower water content.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Yeah, it's a pretty jammy jam in any case. If
I didn't make that super clear earlier, Yes, Yes.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Around the twenty tens, there was a growing desire amongst
bakers to go back to using more pineapple. Yes, and
now there were more varieties to experiment with more pineapple varieties.
Different bakeries chose their favorite or favorites or favorite mixtures
of those pineapples, and some of them really became well
(24:55):
known for their specific fillings, the sourness, the sweetness, whatever
it is.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Yeah, some shops work with local farms to support like
really specific varieties and I love that.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Yeah. Meanwhile, there's also been a lot of innovation when
it comes to the ingredients in the fillings, with things
like cranberry getting into the mix. A lot of things,
but that was one that stuck out to me. Yeah,
and different types of crust too, new shapes like coins
or dog bones. Even the packaging, some of the packaging
is really cool. I recommend looking it up more high
(25:28):
end options as well.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Yeah, the automated machinery to make these snacks has become
a pretty big business as well, especially as they have
become more popular in foreign markets and people have been
wanting to make them in other places. And during this
whole time, the Taiwanese government has definitely leaned into the
pineapple cake as like a cultural icon or like kind
(25:52):
of soft power move in promoting relations with and travel
to Taiwan, and it's apparently been pretty successful. Bakeries saw
a growth of something like twelve to fifteen times the
sales of pineapple cakes over the five year period from
twenty six to twenty eleven, and all of this is
(26:13):
probably why we're able to find a bunch of material
for this episode.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Yep, yep, I suspect you are correct. Uh okay. So
this episode was hard not to make into a whole
thing about pineapple specifically in Taiwan, and that's just going
to have to be its own thing. However, I did
want to include this note. It's pretty complicated and not
(26:38):
strictly related to what we're talking about, but in twenty
twenty one, China banned the import of gold and diamond
pineapples from Taiwan, which is pretty devastating because about ninety
seven percent of these cultivars at the time were exported
from Taiwan and into China.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Yeah, it's part of like a larger pressure from China
for Taiwan to unify with them. The whole thing is
real complicated.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Extremely because of this, eating pineapples became something kind of
patriotic in Taiwan and they were called freedom pineapples. There
has also been claims of China stealing proprietary cultivars from
Taiwanese growers and growing them in China. There's a lot
of good articles about this. If you want to read
more about it. But pineapple cake did get kind of
(27:30):
involved in this whole thing as well.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Oh yeah, sure sure, especially as you know, like right,
like like the the new and different cultivars of pineapple
are absolutely a source of pride amongst amongst growers and
and just people who enjoy these products. And this one
like really popular new cultivar that apparently has very little
(27:53):
fiber content and tastes like mango, oh yeah, was one
of the ones that was purportedly stolen, and people are
people are feeling a number of ways about it, which,
as is their.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Right, absolutely absolutely future episode for us to tackle perhaps.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Yeah yeah, and not in the pineapple cake episode, not today,
not today.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
But while that is what we have to say about
the pineapple cake for now, we really would love to
hear from you listeners.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Oh my gosh, yes, especially since this is a thing
that we that neither of us have experience with. Please
do please do let us know.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Yes, and also whatever you're doing for Lunar New Years
if you are, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Too, yeah yeah, yeah, oh goodness. That is what we
have to say about pineapple cake for now, though, But
we do have some listener mail for you already and
we are going to get into that as soon as
we get back from one more quick break for a
word from our sponsors, and we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes,
(29:08):
thank you.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
And we're back with a listener.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Man.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Yeah, celebration. Christine wrote. In Australia we call ketchup tomato sauce,
and there are people who put tomato sauce on everything.
I mean everything. There is even tomato sauce ice cream.
One very common delicacy is the tomato sauce sandwich. This
(29:40):
is white bread, lots of butter, then tomato sauce squirted
on the bread and spread across the butter. If you
like lots of sauce, extra butter is recommended to form
a barrier between the bread and the sauce. I don't
like them, but if there's ever a time machine, that
you should go back in time to feed young anyone. Yes,
(30:02):
young Annie loved that.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Yeah, yeah, the ketchup sandwich is definitely a thing in
the US. I wouldn't necessarily call it a delicacy, and
I'm not sure how often the butter part gets involved,
but for sure I would say that something that a
lot of people who grew up with not a lot
of resources in their family, something that they either fondly
(30:28):
or unfondly remember is a ketchup sandwich kind of situation.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
As I said in the episode, I would do this,
but I didn't know about the butter, and structurally you're
right that way.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Oh yes, yeah, I wish I had.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
I wish I had known about this innovation the butter.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Next time around, get that old time machine going, I'll
blow her mind. Mary wrote, I took the non pun
loving husband to Dublin. He has been exposed to enough
savor that when we were walking through the Guinness Brewery
(31:08):
tour and they talked about yeast, he giggled when I
quietly said yeast pooh. I have attached as many pictures
of food as possible to this email. We had proper
fish and chips with malt vinegar, a batter burger, a
burger patty dipped in the batter for the fish, and
then deep fried and lard veggie sausage, roll and blueberry muffin,
(31:30):
and flat white and espresso cheese tasting zoom in for details.
Fresh oysters that were eaten with red wine vinegar, onion, chutney, cottle,
and the best crimbrulet I've ever had. Part of these
things were tasted on a food tour that was hosted
by the sweetest woman. She gave us history as well
as taking us to hole in the wall of food
places we never would have found otherwise. If you want
(31:52):
that information, let me know and I'll send you her info.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Ooo oh my, the food did look amazed, just dreamy,
just so. So many different cravings are happening right now.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Yeah, yeah, one of each, please, one of each. I'm
not sure how to I'm not sure how to feel
about the batter burger, to be honest, but.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
I'd give it a go.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Oh absolutely, I'm saying I would. I'm not saying I wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Oh yeah, you're just I'm sure what the outcome would be.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Yeah, yeah, that might be like like like chicken, Like
fried chicken in a sandwich is a little bit too
much for me. So I feel like fried burger in
a sandwich would be a little bit too too much.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
But uh well, maybe one day we'll see many experiments throughout.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
I can only hope. I can only hope.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Oh oh yes, yes, But thank you for sending the pictures.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Thank you for for breathing the word east poop into Yes,
distill he the Guinness bury.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Yeah, yes, Savor, we've done it. We've done it, and
it sounds like you had a lovely time. Uh so, Yeah,
you're a good food tour.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Oh right right, the nice, knowledgeable human person who just
really cares about the local places.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
It's the best. Yes, And you can tell the non
pun loving husband it's okay. You're glad that he at
least slaps that you would.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Yes, yeah, yeah. It took me years of working with
first Jonathan Strickland and then Annie for me to come
around to puns.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Yeah, it's all right, Yeah, it's okay. Well, thank you
to both of these listeners for writing, and if you
would like to write to us, you can our emails
hello at saborpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
We're also on social media. You can find us on
Instagram and blue Sky at savor pod and we do
hope to hear from you. Savor is a production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thanks as always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and
Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we hope
(34:15):
that lots more good things are coming your way.
Hello, and welcome to favorite production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm Anny Rey and I'm Lorn vogel Baum, and today
we have an episode for you about Taiwanese pineapple cake.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Yes, and I do know the answer to this, but
I will ask anyway. Was there any particular reason this
was on your mind, Lauren?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yes, yes, so we are running up on the lunar
New Year in a number of cultures. Happy cleaning and
cooking to anyone who is in the midst of all
of that, and many wishes for a sweet start to
your new year.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yes. Yes, and Laura and I were discussing this is
one of my favorite times of year. I love so
many Lunar New Year foods. I don't know if I
ever had Taiwanese pineapple cake.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
I strongly believe that I have not. I think by
the time I would have had exposure to them, I
already knew that I shouldn't really eat pineapple because it
makes me really sick. So this was an episode full
of really awful cravings, cravings of the type that I
cannot I cannot fulfill, at least not without risk. I yeah, so.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Yes, I always feel so bad, but you know, I'll
let you know how it is.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Please do, please do. It's so funny. Pineapple is the
one that gets people, like, of my entire list of
things that I can't eat, which is pretty long, like
like I get to pineapple and people.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Go, oh, oh, Darling.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I'm so sorry, and I'm like, ah, bud.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Like, yeah, it's pretty good.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Yeah, yeah it is, Yeah it is. But yes, these
pineapple cakes are a popular food during certainly Taiwani Lunar
New Year festivals and celebrations, and yeah, other times the
year as well.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Yeah, very celebratory, it seems. Oh yeah, yeah, but listeners
right in let us know. As always. You can see
our past episodes on Lunar New Year's foods that we
did dim sum sure. Sure, We've done a lot of
foods related to Lunar New Year's the pineapple reducs definitely
for this one.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Oh yeah, yeah yeah. Also crust related episodes include our
recent shortening Crisco episode and also shortbread.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Yes, we have done quite a bit of topics. We've
tackled quite a bit of things, Lauren.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
We have. It turns out we've been on the air
for eight years now.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
I don't know, I've put I've built the trap and
fell into it immediately.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Oh no, that's later being we'll figure that out for now.
I guess that brings us to our question a.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Number of questions, but yes, I guess it does, okay.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Taiwanese pineapple cake, what is it?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Well? Taiwanese pineapple cake is a type of baked good
that consists of a molded rectangular ish pastry crust, usually
like tender crumbly short crust pastry, surrounding a filling of
a sweet to tart pineapple jam. They're typically small and
kind of stout, single serving sized, you know, a couple
(03:39):
bites apiece, and baked to a nice golden brown. Generally
you're looking to wind up having a filling that's about
twice as thick as the crust surrounding it. And if
you're having a dissonance here over the word cake, it
is more what American English would call like a filled cookie,
or maybe like a mini pie kind of situation. The
pineapple jam can be sticky and jamier or softer and
(04:02):
more jelly like. The latter is often achieved by adding
winter melon to the jam, and this type tends to
be made a little bit sweeter as well. You can
also add extra stuff to the jam, you know, for
extra flavor and or texture, fruit or tea flavors, maybe
pieces of dried fruits or nuts, maybe a whole salted
egg yolk. They're often served room temperature or warm as
(04:25):
a snack alongside hot tea, and you can find them
individually wrapped in nice gift boxes, usually to be given
as like good luck beamed treats, as for the lunar
New Year, or as travel souvenirs. They seem like just
lovely morsels, you know, like like rich crust giving way
(04:46):
to that bright filling with crumble and chew, like biting
through the golden layers of a sunset.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
They sound delightful, They.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Sound really nice. I understand that there's a possibility that
I can eat cooked pineapple better than raw pineapple, but
I just haven't had a day where I've wanted to
try it out.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
A risk, for sure. Yes, you'd have to whole day.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah no, no, literally, that's what I would have to be, like, whelp,
either this is going to be fine or or here
we are.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
It's the roll of the dice.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Ah, Well, while I schedule that, let's do a very
quick unpacking of these main components here. Okay, so pineapple. Yes,
you can see our entire two episodes about pineapple for
more about that. But it's a really interesting fruit that's
made up of dozens and dozens of small individual fruits
(05:46):
that grow all smushed together off of a central stem,
forming this big, oblong multifruit. The outer end of each
fruit comes together to form a waxy rind, and the
central stem forms a tough, spiky leaves at the top
that kind of look like a crown. You can grow
a new pineapple by just cutting off and planting that crown.
(06:08):
Most pineapples that we eat are in fact propagated from
stem shoots, not planted from seeds. There are a lot
of varieties of pineapple. The flesh of the fruit can
be white to yellow to gold with juicy and variably
stringy segments. The flavor can range from very sweet to
sharply tart to kind of a bunch of both, with lovely, round,
(06:31):
tropical sort of flavors in there. When it's cooked down,
it takes on these like rich caramelized flavors as well.
Annie is making a very happy face right.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Now because it's cold outside. Such a wonderful reminder of
warm Oh.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Yeah, right, oh gosh. Winter Melon is a type of
like big, old oblongish squash. It's in the cucumber family.
It has a thin, tough skin and firm, juicy white
flesh and an inner hollow for seeds. It's fairly neutral
in flavor, but cooks to this really nice soft texture
(07:09):
and absorbs other flavors really well. So it's used in
a lot of dishes both sweet and savory, from like
candies to stir fries. For this jam filling, it's purae
and sweetened and probably given a little bit of from
some kind of flavoring. They're harvested in the late summer
through early fall, and we'll keep for a few months
(07:30):
in a cool, dry place, So it really only makes
sense that it would wind up as a textural element
in lunar New Year treats, especially as it can be
a little bit less expensive than really good pineapple. Some
recipes for pineapple cake even replace pineapple entirely with like
just winter melon plus flavoring. This is controversial. More on
that in a second. Short crust pastry is a type
(07:53):
of pastry crust that's a crumbly or flaky and tender,
not stretchy and chewy. And in this particular case, you
are looking for crumbly, something firm enough to hold its
shape but not too dry. And I've seen recipes and
looked at photos that have appeared to be anywhere from
like pretty pretty crisp and crumbly to like very soft
(08:18):
and crumbly, like anywhere from like actual short bread more
like a like a fig Newton kind of crust. If
you're familiar with that type of cookie, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I saw that too. But to figure out exactly what
we are talking about here, let's look into how these
cakes are made so that crust. Yes, recipes I've seen
(08:38):
include solid fats like butter, lard and or shortening, plus
a fine milled flour and powdered sugar for just a
super tender texture, plus egg either whole eggs or just yolks,
and either powdered milk or condensed milk for richness. Textural
ingredients are uncommon, but might be added in maybe a
(08:59):
flax seed, wheat, germs, something like that. And I think
that you do typically wind up with a slightly softer
texture than a short bread cookie, partially because of the
moisture you're going to get in the filling. People have
strong opinions about the texture and flavor of the filling.
I've read recipes that insist you can only get the
(09:20):
right texture using canned pineapple, only canned. I've read arguments
about what variety of fresh pineapple is the most appropriate.
Some people think that using winter melon in the filling
is like cheap or old fashioned, or like unclassy. But
(09:41):
some people love that sweeter, bouncier filling. And some people
furthermore really dislike any stringiness from pineapple being a parent,
which is solved by a high winter melon content. On
the other hand, I have read that you will lose
the good luck of the pineapple by adding winter melon. No,
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
I know, right. Some recipes will use some brown sugar
for more like toasty caramel flavor. But yeah, generally the
jam is cooked way down to make sure that you
do get those nice, rich flavors in there. Other flavorings again,
can be incorporated, from like strawberry to red wine to saffron.
(10:22):
People go wherever they want with it. I love it.
I don't think i've ever done like a red wine
and pineapple thing. Again, Oh, I missed out so many
pineapple opportunities.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
You did, well, maybe i'll experiment.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Well, please do report back.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
These are assembled by taking a little bit of the
dough and rolling it out, and then taking a little
ball of the jam and wrapping it in the dough
the way that you would wrap up like a dumpling,
and then gently pressing that sort of dumpling you've just
made into a square or rectangular mold, and repeating for
you know, basically as many molds as you have. Sometimes
(11:01):
you might stamp a little design in the top of
the cake or something like that. The traditional square to
rectangular shape often has rounded corners and is sometimes likened
to a little gold ingot. Yeah, you can find these
at lots of bakeries around Taiwan, which, if you didn't
get the concept from me saying that they're Taiwanese pineapple cakes, yes,
(11:24):
these are from Taiwan, but you can also find them
online and in convenience stores, in grocery stores both local
and international. They can be a little pricey, but generally
they're not as expensive as say, like moon cake boxes.
Get you're looking at like ten to forty bucks ish
in Taiwan. Some of the bakeries offer hands on classes
(11:45):
for both kids and adults to learn how to make
them too, so check that out. But you can make
them at home. There are lots of good sounding recipes online.
You can buy specialty molds, which are often little like
individual rings that you would bake on a sheet and
want to flip over halfway through baking in order to
like brown and flatten both the top and bottom. But
(12:06):
I think like a mini muffin tin or like a
mini tart tin situation would probably work too.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Yeah, I can see that. Yeah. I did love reading
pretty much every article I read, somebody had their favorite
bakery that is where you oh yeah, oh yeah, that
is the one.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Uh huh yeah. And there's newer ones and older ones,
and different levels of sweetness and different types of pineapples
and different types of bakery cafe experiences. And we didn't
put a whole lot of that in here, but if
anyone has personal experience, oh my goodness, right in please?
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Oh okay, well what about the nutrition?
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Treats are nice? Treats are nice, and these are small
you know.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Yes, I also read somewhere that people have opinions about
how you should eat them. Oh really yeah, like do
you take it out of the wrapper or you just
eat two bytes? Oh?
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Oh interesting? Oh I didn't read that, no tea.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Oh yeah, so write in about that. Team listeners absolutely
giving you a lot of homework for this one. We
do have some numbers for you.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
We do so littar. New Year in Taiwan is a
big deal. It's like a I read. I read a
few different concepts of exactly how long it kind of lasts,
but the average was sort of sixteen days. It's like
a sixteen day ish celebration, often including five ish days
off of work, including New Year's Eve through the fourth
(13:42):
day of the New Year, with different kind of activities
sculpted out for each day. There are lots of festive
markets and like street performances, and you visit family, and
there's gifts and lots of feasting, including a lot of
symbolic foods, and one of those is pineapple, and the
fruit in many iterations is a popular New Year's gift.
(14:03):
And beyond, like basically anytime that you're wishing someone incoming
prosperity due to a little bit of a pun that
we're going to cover in the history section. These cakes
are also popular at other celebratory times of the year.
There's been a government sponsored pineapple cake festival every late
summer in Typee since two thousand and six, times to
(14:25):
hit right before the mid autumn festival. As of twenty eleven,
they hosted ninety six bakeries competing for awards for their
pineapple cakes at this festival.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
It sounds like it's a big deal. We'll talk about
it a bit more in the history section. Yeah, oh,
it sounds beautiful. These days, there are automated pineapple cake
production line machines on the market that will portion out
and mold and sometimes bake cakes at a rate of
up to the highest number I saw I was four thousand,
(15:00):
two hundred an hour. WHOA to be fair, I wasn't
like scouring industry literature, but that sounded impressive to me.
It does. It does sound impressive.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
As of twenty thirteen, the bakeries around Taiwan that specialize
in pineapple cake shared a total revenue of one point
two billion dollars a year. Around that time, one popular
newer bakery, Sunny Hills, was making fifty thousand pineapple cakes
every day, or about eight million a year. Uh huh yep.
(15:42):
And this next Okay, so I wanted to say this out.
I don't remember which bakery this was for, but I
swear that I saw that one bakery's all time high
of pineapple cakes sold in a day was one hundred thousand.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Oh by.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yeah, that's a lot. There are some of these places,
there are like lines around the block, like on a
daily basis for so. Yeah, there is a world record
for the largest map of Taiwan made out of pineapple cakes.
(16:20):
It was two point four meters long or about seven
feet ten inches. It was constructed in twenty ten in Taipei,
apparently for a celebration of International Migrants Day. That's nice.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
You gotta love these specific records, you really do.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Yeah, beautiful, And yes, generally speaking, Taiwan loves some pineapple
and consumes about three hundred thousand metric tons of it
a year.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Wow, Well, pineapple is good. They're not wrong.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
They're not wrong. Oh, they're not wrong.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
And there's quite a history and a reason as to
why this may be.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yes, and we are going to get into that in
a history section, which we are going to get into
as soon as we get back from a quick break
for a word from our sponsors, and we're back.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and again see our
Pineapple Redux episode. But very very briefly, pineapple originated in
South America, and because of the pain and cost of
transporting it elsewhere and its overall appearance in some places,
a lot of them Western places, it really became associated
with luxury and hospitality. However, that's not really what happened here.
(17:47):
The pineapple was introduced to Taiwan in the sixteenth century
by the Portuguese Portuguese traders, perhaps through Malaysia. After the
Portuguese introduced it there, I saw a couple of different accounts.
The climate allowed for pineapple to successfully grow in Taiwan,
and by the eighteen seventies it was widely cultivated.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Pretty soon after cultivation really picked up, canning operations were
started up as well, by like the eighteen nineties, which
is relatively early.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Yes, and because the Taiwanese Hokkien dialect of Chinese ascribed
pineapple with the meaning of prosperity arrives, or fortune comes,
it became associated with good luck.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Yeah, yeah, it's a homophone, possibly a homonym I saw,
I saw both. I really think it's a homophone. We
have plenty of both of these in like Latin and
Germanic based languages, but it's perhaps even more common in
languages that do use characters or logographs in their writing,
like Chinese and related languages.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
And as we know with a lot of these Lunar
New Year episodes, a lot of the foods associated with
this holiday have some wordplay and or level of thing involved,
which I love.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, y'all know that we love that.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Yes, right up our alley. The Japanese colonization of Taiwan
also influenced the Taiwanese pineapple cake. Japan colonized Taiwan from
eighteen ninety five to nineteen forty five with a goal
of transforming Taiwan into a model colony by industrializing it
and making it really profitable despite its small size. As
(19:29):
part of this, they set up several pineapple processing plants,
and the industry really took off despite its size. Taiwan
grew to be the third largest exporter of processed pineapple
by the nineteen thirties. It helped that these factories implemented
modern canning technology in the nineteen twenties.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Yeah, Taiwan was producing some one point six million cases
of canned pineapple a year. By the late nineteen thirties.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
However, they were kind of limited to where they could
export two outside of Japan and some parts of Asia.
The industry took a hit during World War Two as well,
since the metal used for the cans instead went to
the war effort, and pineapple cultivation was largely swapped out
for grains at the time.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Yeah. Also, a number of canning factories were bombed during
the course of the war.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Yeah. Still, soon after the end of the Japanese occupation
of Taiwan in the end of World War II, pineapple
production was in full swing again.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Yeah. The industry wound up, peaking in nineteen seventy one
with production of four million cases of canned pineapple a year.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
There were some challenges though, Beginning in the seventies, a
growing focus on manufacturing led some farmers to leave agricultural
areas for cities. On top of that, in the nineteen eighties,
rising competition from Southeast Asia really hit Taiwan's pineapple industry hard,
and they pivoted to focusing on selling the fresh pineapple
(20:59):
domestically and then exporting their rest, which was the opposite
of what they had been doing. Government agricultural agencies also
pushed for farmers to grow new varieties of pineapple to
sell fresh. They were producing so much pineapple that there
was a surplus even after exporting to a wider range
of countries, and people started trying to find ways to
(21:19):
use up any extra and this led to a bunch
of things like fermented pineapple, pineapple sauces, pineapple and drinks,
and according to the story pineapple cake. These early pineapple
cakes consisted of a pineapple paste inside a cake, but
sometimes the filling was a little too stringy and or
sour for people, so producers started looking to other ingredients,
(21:45):
and one of them that a lot of them landed
on was winter melon, which is native to South Asia.
The fiber of the winter melon is not as stringing
and its water content is around ninety percent, so the
bakers would cook the melon to get rid of the
water and then simmer it with pineapple, sugar and whatever
other ingredients until it reached the desired consistency. This produced
(22:09):
a better texture for the filling that was still yellow
and still tasted like pineapple and yeah, there were a
lot of reasons that pineapple cakes became popular, not just
because of the Luck Association. One was that they're easy
to transport, like they were a big tourist item. Oh yeah,
(22:29):
and they're simple but a lovely gift to give. I
read that they were popular at weddings. They keep well.
I read somewhere fifteen days.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
So yeah, they're nice, they're lovely, nice treats. Yeah, it
makes sense. Oh and then the Type City government launched
the Pineapple Cake Cultural Festival in two thousand and six
to bring more attention to the good and its producers.
The idea came from the TYPEI Bakery Association after its
(22:59):
members realize that a lot of visitors to Taiwan were
purchasing the cakes. From what I understand, there's a theme
every year, which is fun and allows the bakers to
experiment with different flavors and ingredients and even shapes. The
bakers compete for prizes, yes, like the most creative.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Yeah. Past theme ingredients have included tea, flowers and rice.
I think birds was the theme in twenty fourteen, not
as an ingredient but as a concept. Entries included chicken,
shaped pineapple cakes with chestnut in the filling and Angry
(23:37):
Birds shaped pineapple cakes with a sweet and sour filling.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
I love it also, not as an ingredient but a
concept is I got to put that on something that's fantastic.
Another thing addressed at this festival how much pineapple needed
to be used for the filling. Yes. Over time, winter
melon had become the primary ingredient in the filling, but
(24:05):
the bakers still wanted to make sure pineapple was included.
As you mentioned, there are a lot of strong opinions
about this, and it was sort of like framed as
going back to the original pineapple cake, but the baker's
experimented and eventually landed on twenty percent pineapple and twelve
percent or lower water content.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Yeah, it's a pretty jammy jam in any case. If
I didn't make that super clear earlier, Yes, Yes.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Around the twenty tens, there was a growing desire amongst
bakers to go back to using more pineapple. Yes, and
now there were more varieties to experiment with more pineapple varieties.
Different bakeries chose their favorite or favorites or favorite mixtures
of those pineapples, and some of them really became well
(24:55):
known for their specific fillings, the sourness, the sweetness, whatever
it is.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Yeah, some shops work with local farms to support like
really specific varieties and I love that.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Yeah. Meanwhile, there's also been a lot of innovation when
it comes to the ingredients in the fillings, with things
like cranberry getting into the mix. A lot of things,
but that was one that stuck out to me. Yeah,
and different types of crust too, new shapes like coins
or dog bones. Even the packaging, some of the packaging
is really cool. I recommend looking it up more high
(25:28):
end options as well.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Yeah, the automated machinery to make these snacks has become
a pretty big business as well, especially as they have
become more popular in foreign markets and people have been
wanting to make them in other places. And during this
whole time, the Taiwanese government has definitely leaned into the
pineapple cake as like a cultural icon or like kind
(25:52):
of soft power move in promoting relations with and travel
to Taiwan, and it's apparently been pretty successful. Bakeries saw
a growth of something like twelve to fifteen times the
sales of pineapple cakes over the five year period from
twenty six to twenty eleven, and all of this is
(26:13):
probably why we're able to find a bunch of material
for this episode.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Yep, yep, I suspect you are correct. Uh okay. So
this episode was hard not to make into a whole
thing about pineapple specifically in Taiwan, and that's just going
to have to be its own thing. However, I did
want to include this note. It's pretty complicated and not
(26:38):
strictly related to what we're talking about, but in twenty
twenty one, China banned the import of gold and diamond
pineapples from Taiwan, which is pretty devastating because about ninety
seven percent of these cultivars at the time were exported
from Taiwan and into China.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Yeah, it's part of like a larger pressure from China
for Taiwan to unify with them. The whole thing is
real complicated.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Extremely because of this, eating pineapples became something kind of
patriotic in Taiwan and they were called freedom pineapples. There
has also been claims of China stealing proprietary cultivars from
Taiwanese growers and growing them in China. There's a lot
of good articles about this. If you want to read
more about it. But pineapple cake did get kind of
(27:30):
involved in this whole thing as well.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Oh yeah, sure sure, especially as you know, like right,
like like the the new and different cultivars of pineapple
are absolutely a source of pride amongst amongst growers and
and just people who enjoy these products. And this one
like really popular new cultivar that apparently has very little
(27:53):
fiber content and tastes like mango, oh yeah, was one
of the ones that was purportedly stolen, and people are
people are feeling a number of ways about it, which,
as is their.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Right, absolutely absolutely future episode for us to tackle perhaps.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Yeah yeah, and not in the pineapple cake episode, not today,
not today.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
But while that is what we have to say about
the pineapple cake for now, we really would love to
hear from you listeners.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Oh my gosh, yes, especially since this is a thing
that we that neither of us have experience with. Please
do please do let us know.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Yes, and also whatever you're doing for Lunar New Years
if you are, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Too, yeah yeah, yeah, oh goodness. That is what we
have to say about pineapple cake for now, though, But
we do have some listener mail for you already and
we are going to get into that as soon as
we get back from one more quick break for a
word from our sponsors, and we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes,
(29:08):
thank you.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
And we're back with a listener.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Man.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Yeah, celebration. Christine wrote. In Australia we call ketchup tomato sauce,
and there are people who put tomato sauce on everything.
I mean everything. There is even tomato sauce ice cream.
One very common delicacy is the tomato sauce sandwich. This
(29:40):
is white bread, lots of butter, then tomato sauce squirted
on the bread and spread across the butter. If you
like lots of sauce, extra butter is recommended to form
a barrier between the bread and the sauce. I don't
like them, but if there's ever a time machine, that
you should go back in time to feed young anyone. Yes,
(30:02):
young Annie loved that.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Yeah, yeah, the ketchup sandwich is definitely a thing in
the US. I wouldn't necessarily call it a delicacy, and
I'm not sure how often the butter part gets involved,
but for sure I would say that something that a
lot of people who grew up with not a lot
of resources in their family, something that they either fondly
(30:28):
or unfondly remember is a ketchup sandwich kind of situation.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
As I said in the episode, I would do this,
but I didn't know about the butter, and structurally you're
right that way.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Oh yes, yeah, I wish I had.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
I wish I had known about this innovation the butter.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Next time around, get that old time machine going, I'll
blow her mind. Mary wrote, I took the non pun
loving husband to Dublin. He has been exposed to enough
savor that when we were walking through the Guinness Brewery
(31:08):
tour and they talked about yeast, he giggled when I
quietly said yeast pooh. I have attached as many pictures
of food as possible to this email. We had proper
fish and chips with malt vinegar, a batter burger, a
burger patty dipped in the batter for the fish, and
then deep fried and lard veggie sausage, roll and blueberry muffin,
(31:30):
and flat white and espresso cheese tasting zoom in for details.
Fresh oysters that were eaten with red wine vinegar, onion, chutney, cottle,
and the best crimbrulet I've ever had. Part of these
things were tasted on a food tour that was hosted
by the sweetest woman. She gave us history as well
as taking us to hole in the wall of food
places we never would have found otherwise. If you want
(31:52):
that information, let me know and I'll send you her info.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Ooo oh my, the food did look amazed, just dreamy,
just so. So many different cravings are happening right now.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Yeah, yeah, one of each, please, one of each. I'm
not sure how to I'm not sure how to feel
about the batter burger, to be honest, but.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
I'd give it a go.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Oh absolutely, I'm saying I would. I'm not saying I wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Oh yeah, you're just I'm sure what the outcome would be.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Yeah, yeah, that might be like like like chicken, Like
fried chicken in a sandwich is a little bit too
much for me. So I feel like fried burger in
a sandwich would be a little bit too too much.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
But uh well, maybe one day we'll see many experiments throughout.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
I can only hope. I can only hope.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Oh oh yes, yes, But thank you for sending the pictures.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Thank you for for breathing the word east poop into Yes,
distill he the Guinness bury.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Yeah, yes, Savor, we've done it. We've done it, and
it sounds like you had a lovely time. Uh so, Yeah,
you're a good food tour.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Oh right right, the nice, knowledgeable human person who just
really cares about the local places.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
It's the best. Yes, And you can tell the non
pun loving husband it's okay. You're glad that he at
least slaps that you would.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Yes, yeah, yeah. It took me years of working with
first Jonathan Strickland and then Annie for me to come
around to puns.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Yeah, it's all right, Yeah, it's okay. Well, thank you
to both of these listeners for writing, and if you
would like to write to us, you can our emails
hello at saborpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
We're also on social media. You can find us on
Instagram and blue Sky at savor pod and we do
hope to hear from you. Savor is a production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thanks as always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and
Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we hope
(34:15):
that lots more good things are coming your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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