What it is
A tomato plate (番茄切盤) is a fruit-shop snack from southern Taiwan. The tomato is cut into wedges and comes with a dark, sticky dip that is sweet, salty and sharp with ginger. The tomato is treated as fruit, not as a salad vegetable. The dish is also called ginger-sugar tomato (薑糖番茄).
Where it came from
Tomatoes reached Taiwan early. The writer Wang Hao-yi (王浩一) says the Dutch had brought them by 1622; other accounts say 1624. Those first tomatoes were small, round and red, and in time they ran wild in the hills. During Japanese rule (1895 to 1945) larger, more profitable varieties arrived, among them the black persimmon tomato (黑柿番茄). It is dark green with deeper green streaks and turns red only when fully ripe. Unripe, it has a sharp, grassy smell. Northerners nicknamed it "stinky persimmon" (臭柿仔), while southerners took to it and called it 柑仔蜜.
The dipping habit has no recorded starting point. Ginger-sugar tomato is sometimes called Tainan's oldest snack, but nobody has put a date on it. By the 1970s and 1980s, ice parlours all over old Tainan sold slices of half-ripe tomato with this dip.
How it is made
The dip starts with soy paste (醬油膏), a thick, slightly sweet soy sauce. Grated old ginger, white or powdered sugar and licorice powder (甘草粉) are stirred in until the sauce is thick and sticky. Some makers use a soy paste made with glutinous rice. Each shop has its own balance, and one Tainan couple adds double the usual sugar. The tomato is cut into wedges, often while still partly green, and the dip is served alongside.
How to eat it
Order it at a fruit shop or ice parlour (冰果室), where it sits on the menu next to shaved ice and fruit plates. Ask for a tomato plate (番茄切盤) and dip each wedge. Many fans say only black persimmon tomatoes give the old-fashioned taste.
Around Taiwan
- Tainan
- Fruit shops and ice parlours in Tainan's old city still sell tomato with this dip, Lily Fruit Shop (莉莉水果店) among them. Locals also call the sauce haishan sauce (海山醬). The name now covers a wider family of sweet sauces on the same base, with ketchup, miso or chilli powder added.
- South
- Across southern Taiwan, people commonly eat tomato with soy paste mixed with grated ginger, licorice and sugar. The same habit of dipping fruit in soy paste extends to green mango, which is eaten with garlic soy paste.
