What it is
Squid and whelk soup (魷魚螺肉蒜, often shortened to 螺肉蒜) is a clear, savoury broth cooked with dried squid, tinned whelk (螺肉) and green garlic (蒜苗), the long leafy garlic stalks sold in Taiwanese markets. A little of the sweet liquid from the whelk tin goes into the pot. The dish belongs to jiujia cuisine (酒家菜), the food of the old wine houses.
Where it came from
Jiujia cuisine took shape under Japanese rule (1895 to 1945) and was at its height in the 1950s and 1960s. Wealthy businessmen and men of influence met in wine houses, where hostesses poured drinks and sang nakasi (那卡西). The kitchens favoured costly ingredients and imported dried and tinned goods. In the lean years after the war a wine-house dinner was a luxury, and this soup came to stand for those banquets. One China Times writer ranks it first among jiujia dishes and sees in it the hybrid inventiveness of colonial-era chefs. Some cooks still insist on Japanese tinned whelk.
It started out plain: squid, tinned whelk and garlic shoots in stock. Restaurants kept enriching it. Huang Te-hsing (黃德興), chef at Penglai Ge (蓬萊閣), built his version on fried pickled mustard stems, tomato, celery and garlic, then added pork ribs and tripe. Wine-house diners are said to have valued it both as a soup to drink with and as one that sobered them up.
How it is made
Dried squid is soaked, then cut into strips or scored and blanched. Garlic white, shiitake and dried shrimp can be fried first for fragrance. Stock goes in with the whelk and some of its sweet liquid, and the pot simmers gently. Some cooks add pork ribs, pork belly or bamboo shoots. Green garlic, celery, Shaoxing wine and pepper go in near the end. The soup reaches the table in its pot, often a clay pot, with the lid on.
How to eat it
A soup for the whole table, traditionally the closing dish of a banquet. Some families also remember it as a New Year dish. Look for it at restaurants that cook old-style Taiwanese banquet food (老台菜). Some offer more than one size of pot, so say how many are eating.
Around Taiwan
- Tainan
- Michelin's inspectors call it a banquet classic seldom found in Tainan. Eat to Fat (添厚), a home-style Taiwanese restaurant by the Grand Mazu Temple, serves it in a choice of sizes. JOHOJiA (肥灶聚場), a bistro on Yonghua Road, makes it with Japanese whelk, pork belly and bamboo shoots.
- North
- The soup is tied to the wine-house quarters of Beitou and Jiaoxi, two hot-spring towns, and Jiaoxi's version matches Beitou's. Jiaoxi's wine houses crowded the town in the 1950s and faded in the 1980s. Shan Hai Lou (山海樓) in Taipei serves the richer version taught by Huang Te-hsing.
