What it is
Tianbula (甜不辣) is fried fish paste cut into slices or sticks. The characters read 'sweet, not spicy', but they were chosen for sound, to echo the Japanese word tempura. In much of Taiwan a bowl of tianbula comes with radish, pork blood cake (豬血糕) and other pieces under a thick sweet sauce. In Keelung the name usually means the fried pieces alone.
Where it came from
The snack arrived during Japanese rule (1895 to 1945). In western Japan (Kansai), fried fish-paste cakes are called tempura, while eastern Japan (Kanto) calls them satsuma-age (薩摩揚げ). Taiwanese wrote the word with characters that sound alike, 甜不辣, which keeps it apart from tempura in the wider sense of battered seafood and vegetables. The form 天婦羅 is also used, notably in Keelung. The word tempura itself is usually traced to the Portuguese tempero, and to missionaries who ate fried fish instead of meat during Lent.
The poet and food writer Chiao Tung (焦桐) counts tianbula, tempura and oden (黑輪) among the hybrid foods left by the colonial period. He suggests the temple-front stalls of Miaokou (廟口) in Keelung as a possible starting point.
How it is made
Minced fish is beaten with flour or starch, salt, sugar and seasoning into a smooth, springy paste, shaped into flat slices or sticks, and deep-fried. Writing in 2007, Chiao Tung complained that most paste came from wholesale factories using stale mixed fish. He praised a Keelung stall that grinds small shark and sea eel with potato starch, sugar, miso and MSG, then fries to order. For the mixed bowl, the fried pieces are then simmered until soft.
How to eat it
At Keelung's Miaokou, fried tempura is dipped in sweet chilli sauce (甜辣醬) and eaten with slices of pickled cucumber. Elsewhere, a bowl of tianbula is a mixed serving of fish paste, radish and pork blood cake, often with fried tofu or meatballs, and the sauce poured over. Some diners call that mixed bowl 關東煮 (Japanese-style oden), so say which style you mean when ordering.
Around Taiwan
- North
- In Keelung, tianbula or tempura (天婦羅) usually means fried fish paste on its own, which can surprise visitors expecting radish and pork blood cake. The Wang (王記) stall, number 16 at Miaokou, opened in 1956.
- South
- The south mostly uses 黑輪, from Japanese oden, for its fish-paste sticks. Chiao Tung puts northern pieces at about a quarter of the southern size. Southern stalls also grill large sticks over charcoal until they puff up, and one stall in Chaozhou (潮州), Pingtung, uses fresh swordfish (旗魚).
