What's Cooking: Wedding Banquet

Regardless of culture, a wedding reception plays an essential part in the entire wedding process. In Taiwanese culture, wedding banquet is far more important than the marriage ceremony itself. It’s often elaborate and extravagant with ten courses and deserts. The timing and characteristic of the banquet varies from locale to locale, Hakka to Hokkien to aboriginal. Every dish of food prepared carefully has a special meaning to bless the new couple.

In order to introduce different customs of Taiwanese wedding banquets, there will be documentaries of real wedding banquets during TAIWANfest, including traditional street party and hotel banquets. Banquet chefs from Taiwan will also have live demonstrations on preparing a few dishes of typical Taiwanese wedding banquets and limited quantities of samples will be made available for audience.

Sample menus include “Steamed Crab on Sticky Rice” which is a classic dish that often appears on the menu of the wedding banquet in Taiwan. The Taiwanese pronunciation of the crab rhymes with passion and thus this auspicious dish wishes the never ending love between the married couple. There will also be “Stewed Pork Knuckle with Sea Cucumber” as delicacy of the banquet. Another must have is an appetizer with lobster served which is a homonym to “deaf and blind” in Mandarin and as a side joke is the attitude required from time to time for couples to enter a marriage.