Ai-yu jelly , 愛玉 !

              What the.... food !      This is "ai-yu", Wonderful Taiwanese Food !

ai-yu  愛玉

It may look kinda like jell-o, a semi-solid gelatin form food, but it taste totally different, and the best part is it's all natural!

There are a few interesting facts which made ai-yu the first Taiwanese snack that I would like to introduce to you.

1st, Ai-yu jelly comes from a fig, proven only to be found in Taiwan, 100% originated.

2nd, the making processes of Ai-yu is as interesting as its appearance, you may even help yourself to a handmade ai-yu if you want!

3rd, Fun naming story behind it! Legend has it that Ai-yu was a name of a girl. The daughter of the founder of "Aiyu". Around 18th century , a business man who often travels across villages, came upon a river for some fresh water, then there he sees a yellowish looking jelly-like thing flowing upon the river , weird as it seems , he swallowed this half liquid thing and found it tasty and refreshing ! Then he followed the stream up and saw a fig tree hanging some cracking open fruits which might be processing these yellowish looking jelly. He took some home and discovered that by rubbing the seeds from the fruit, and cooling with floating water, he can reproduce the refreshing half-liquid like beverage. He then shared the beverage with his neighbors and everybody longs for more, soon he didn’t have time to make enough supply. The neighbors then suggested his daughter "Ai-yu" to take over this job of making this beverage, since she had no job and was wondering around all day. As the snack became a hit in town, and had no-name, people started calling it "Ai-yu" because she was the one selling it. The next thing we know is that nowadays "Ai-yu" is seen in morning and night markets all over the place in Taiwan!

As mentioned above, ai-yu is made from 100% natural ingredients, so it takes time and real efforts to produce tradition ai-yu. It's important that we get to taste the original and authentic true food, here's how we tell if it's a natural ai-yu.Real ai-yu is a form of 90% mineral water and 10% fruit pectin, so it can’t be as crystal clear as diamonds, a little foggy-ish look is how a true ai-yu should look like.Ai-yu is often served with lemonade and honey, it is a perfect combination to set off the freshness of ai-yu resulting an exotic tropical taste.

And according to the density of the molecule, true ai-yu should be floating on top of the other serving components. Fake ai-yu are usually made out of agar or gelatin, actually they taste pretty good too, but they have this weird crunchy edge that you somehow knew was wrong.

Street food in Taiwan are now versatile, not only we combines elements of different culinary, we also try crisscrossing our own originality, ai-yu for example is now severing warm with local Taiwan millet wine, or cool lager, which, for me is great fusion.

If you ever make your way to Taiwan, ai-yu should definitely be on the top of the  to-eat list which you wouldn’t want to miss!