Pickling exhibition at Museum207 encourages visitors to cut food waste

Museum207 has opened an exhibition called “Pickling/Marinating,” which explores Taiwan’s relationship with the culinary technique. The exhibition space showcases a wide variety of pickled delicacies from around the nation, as well as utensils used for pickling over the past century. Our reporter Stephany Yang takes us in for a look.

According to the United Nations, about one third of all the food produced in the world every year is wasted. One way to reduce food waste is to use pickling techniques to preserve seasonal ingredients. Pickling extends the life cycle of fruits and veggies so that they can be enjoyed all year round. Radishes are a good candidate for pickling.

Hsu Hsiu-chiao
Homemakers United Foundation
It’s best to use seasonal ingredients because they are delicious and cheap. For example, in today’s DIY workshop, we used radishes, which are in season now. Usually, radishes are peeled, but the peel makes pickled radish very delicious. It’s best to keep the peel on, because it lends crispness to the pickle. It’s actually very simple process, using salt and sugar. You can adjust the sweetness and acidity to taste.

Stephany Yang
FTV reporter
There are many kinds of pickles and marinades. What’s your favorite one? According to a survey conducted by Museum207, the top five are: Taiwanese kimchi, fermented bean curd, salted pork, dried bamboo shoots, and peeled chili.

A collection of 15 pickled products commonly found in supermarkets, and 18 specialties from towns and villages in Taiwan are on display at the exhibition. In addition, there is an interactive area to educate visitors on the importance of pickled products in Taiwanese history.

Chen Kuo-tzu
Museum207 founder
On the second floor, we did a very interesting research on the famous pickled products on all parts of Taiwan. So it’s like a travelling through pickling. I love that floor because you can actually smell the pickles. It’s an exhibition that has a smell to it. And then the final section is an introduction of all the different food that you can use to pickle. It’s sort of an interaction. Our visitors can take a plaque out from these shopping bags and read from the bag how to pickle that particular food. It’s an exhibition for the young and the old.

Also on display are utensils used in pickling over the past century. Each pottery container has its own unique features.

Chen Kuo-tzu
Museum207 founder
The exhibition is both historic and informational. We have different sections. A very important part of pickling is the process. The most important part of the process is the container that you use to pickle. Nowadays, everybody just use a glass. But in fact, glass is not the most ideal. In fact, ceramic is because it preserves the taste and is also a bit more porous than glass. We introduce all the different stages of containers for pickling.

The museum founder says the exhibition was motivated by the world’s food crisis. According to a July report by the World Wide Fund for Nature and supermarket chain Tesco, about 2.5 billion tons of food are wasted and discarded each year.

Chen Kuo-tzu
Museum207 founder
The exhibition was originally inspired by the art of preserving food. Especially in Taiwan, the variety is so wide and history so long. We have now sort of taken it for granted. So we wanted to introduce how it all happened. But as we moved into the preparation of the exhibition, we also came into the COVID days. We found that there has just been so much waste of food internationally for so many years. Food just gets taken, wasted, and thrown away. Suddenly we are now looking at a food crisis.

The exhibition will be on at the Museum207 in Taipei until April 5. The museum hopes the exhibition will not only present Taiwanese pickling traditions to visitors, but also inspire them to cherish what we eat and not let any food go to waste.

 

Here is a quote from https://englishnews.ftv.com.tw/read.aspx?sno=FD2143E0C079E7F91B2761EC5A9E0F84

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