Milkfish

What it is

A mild, fairly fatty fish with tender yet firm flesh and many fine bones. Tainan shops use almost every part: pan-fried belly with crisp skin, the head in soup, skin, intestines, fish balls and congee. Experienced shops debone it for you.

Where it comes from

Roads & Kingdoms writes that Tainan has eaten milkfish since its founding nearly 400 years ago, and that the Dutch East India Company may have brought it from Jakarta. The Chinese name comes with legends. In one, Koxinga, fighting the Dutch at Fort Zeelandia, dreamed that the sea goddess Matsu told him there were fish nearby and named the fish after her words. In another, fishermen mistook his question, asking what fish it was, for the fish's name.

How it is made

Belly is pan-fried until the skin crisps. Heads and bones simmer slowly into a naturally sweet broth, and the flesh becomes springy fish balls. At Chang Ying in Beimen, fillets of farmed milkfish are aged, then seared in their own fat.

How to eat it

According to Roads & Kingdoms, Tainan is the only Taiwanese city that eats milkfish in the morning, and locals say it once fuelled field workers. Order belly with garlic-and-lard rice or braised pork rice, plus a fish head or fish soup.

In Tainan

Tainan produces about half of Taiwan's milkfish, and Anping has a milkfish museum.