Field Academy

In Taiwan, I set out to study the intersection of culture through cuisine, moving across kitchens, night markets, old streets, and modern city spaces to understand how food carries history while adapting to innovation. Through the Field Academy at Ross School, I learned to prepare traditional dishes from a range of regions, including beef stew, chicken stew, xiaolongbao, and bao buns, experiencing firsthand how technique, environment, and story are folded together in each recipe. Cooking became a form of cultural translation, where inherited methods met contemporary approaches and where every meal reflected both preservation and change.

Traveling across the island, from historic old towns and traditional market streets to the dense, fast-moving landscape of Taipei, revealed Taiwan as a living convergence of influences. There, cuisine functions as a map of migration, resilience, and exchange. I also studied introductory Mandarin and, unexpectedly, became the primary communicator for my group, an experience that reinforced my ability to navigate unfamiliar environments and connect across language barriers.

This immersion reshaped the way I understand food, not simply as sustenance or craft, but as a system of relationships between people, place, and time, and it continues to inform the global and sustainable perspective behind my work.

Taiwan's culinary landscape itself tells the story of intersecting cultures. Indigenous Austronesian foodways established a foundation rooted in seasonality, foraging, and a deep respect for the land. Later migration from Fujian and Guangdong brought rice cultivation, soy-braised meats, noodle traditions, and the delicate techniques behind dumpling making. Hakka communities contributed preserved vegetables and slow, economical cooking methods shaped by histories of displacement. During the period of Japanese rule, new agricultural systems, seafood preparation, pickling practices, and an attention to presentation and order entered daily life and continue to inform the structure of Taiwanese meals and food spaces.