Authentic Tofu, Cosmopolitan Taiwan
摘要
Following a group of translocal urbanites to a small town known for its tofu cuisine and old streets, this paper explores how the consumption of local places and manufactured authenticity constructs a new middle-class taste and cultivates a cosmopolitan identity for urban Taiwanese. The turn to the local in Taiwan is both a reflection of changing political terrain that has prompted an inward search for local cultures and a response to market pressure. While local places are fertile ground for the formulation of a Taiwan-centered consciousness, once commodified, localities are consumed for something beyond nation-building. The visitors used Shenkeng as a stage on which to partake in a game of social positioning by displaying their local and translocal knowledge, by asserting definitions of good taste, and by performing the role of the well-informed consumers. In the deliberate search for a past-in-the-present, the culinary map, environmental consciousness, and understanding of Taiwan's geography they demonstrated in the course of the trip, the visitors affirmed themselves as a different kind of Taiwanese, one who can traverse localities and cultivate a cosmopolitan awareness of the exotic, the authentic, and the irony of an impossible authenticity.