When it comes to military villages, the first thing that comes to mind is Taoyuan military village, an internet celebrity restaurant. The literary dining environment, with a long queue at the door, emphasizing the ancient flavor of soy milk, sesame cakes, and fried dough sticks, is its signature. In Taiwan, the military village usually refers to the National Government that failed the civil war between the Kuomintang and its relatives who were forced to migrate from various provinces in mainland China to Taiwan. Among them, the most settled in Taoyuan County. Nowadays, the food styles from all over the world have been gathered and circulated in the military villages, forming a special military village cuisine flavor. As a unique existence in Taiwan in the 20th century, the military village is a product of a special historical background. In addition, the closed living environment of the military village, so there is a strong sense of "self-identity" in the military village culture: they come from the mainland, dream of returning to their hometown, thinking that they are just temporarily living in Taiwan, but they can't go back; they live in Taiwan, but are isolated in the military village, and are incompatible with the Taiwanese. In the 1970s and 1980s, with the complete shattering of the counterattack dream and the democratic movements of the people of Taiwan's provinces one after another, Taiwan's provincial conflicts became increasingly fierce. After the lifting of the strict rules, the Kuomintang's ability to control society became weaker and weaker, and people from other provinces gradually became marginalized from their past centrality. After the Democratic Progressive Party proposed the "Four Major Ethnic Groups in Taiwan" (Indigenous people, Minnan people, Hakka people, and other provinces), it even expanded the provincial conflicts into political differences. The second generation of military villages who grew up in this environment have neither a memory of the mainland nor are recognized by Taiwanese society. Therefore, people who grew up in military villages always call themselves "rootless generation", and they can only find recognition from military villages.
Most of the military villages are soldiers and family members, so most of them are built around military bases with complete internal facilities. There is a big gap between them and Taiwanese society outside the military villages, both in terms of lifestyle, architectural form and social relations, forming a relatively independent and closed social and cultural environment. The people in the military village come from various provinces in the mainland, with different languages and cultural beliefs and different living habits, but the same thing is isolated from this closed space and a poor life. In the era of shortage of materials, food is the most concerned issue for everyone. The mothers in the military village cook for their children in different ways, imparting experiences to each other, and learning from each other, which actually integrates the food cultures of various places in the military villages. Food has become a link between communicating with people from different cultural backgrounds in the military village. In the novel of the writer Zhu Tianxin, who was born and raised in military villages, the military villages in memory are all the taste of food:
"The burp taste of Jiangxi people is actually much spicy than that of Sichuan people. The Wang children from Zhejiang are always smelly white fish and steamed tofu. The Yaya and her brothers from Guangdong are always the sour taste of porridge. It is strange that they are not sarcastic. Speaking of 'porridge' and porridge, if you like to eat 'Guangyan', it is Liu Ding. Not to mention the smell of stinky garlic, stinky green onions and various stinky dipping sauces from the Mo family of Zhang family. The mother of the Peking family in the Sun family can make all kinds of pasta snacks. Their children wander outside always have a food. The fragrance of the noodles is really crazy..." After the 1990s, driven by literature and dietary works, military village dishes suddenly became popular in Taiwan, and military village cultural festivals are held almost every year. The 61-year-old " Zhongnan Restaurant" has witnessed the rise and fall of military villages and is a well-known military village restaurant in Taipei. In the past 61 years, the decoration in the store has almost never changed. The signature dish "Five Gate Chanwang" was originally a hodgepod made of leftovers in the army, plus large intestines, garlic sprouts and spicy oil. fried cakes is a big pot made of a mother in the military village who had leftover scallion oil pancakes, cabbage, carrots , etc., which looked simple, but this is the "favorite home-cooked dish" of the military village people!
In the eyes of military villagers, military villagers’ dishes are “improvised dishes” and they make whatever ingredients they have at home, not any cuisine. "For people in the military village, the military village cuisine is the hometown cuisine, with a strong mother's taste; for people outside the military village, the military village cuisine is the province's vegetables."Through the military village dishes, it evokes the collective memory of the military village people, and it is the unforgettable rural feelings!
