Eight-Treasure Shaved Ice

In Taiwan, shaved ice is called tsuah-bing in Taiwanese, meaning ice scraped or shaved fine. Icemaking arrived in the Japanese-rule era, and ice shops spread so widely that by 1938 Taipei alone had 268 of them, behind the old saying that the two surest trades were selling ice and doctoring. The four-fruit ice that lies behind eight-treasure ice came with migrants from Zhangzhou in Fujian, whose farming roots meant the toppings were mostly grains and beans; as the assortment grew, the bowl took the name eight treasures, where eight signals an assorted spread rather than a literal eight, much as in eight-treasure rice.

First a spoon of fluffy, soft shaved ice, faintly sweet at most; then the cold, dense toppings underneath, each a different texture against the ice. The eating is all contrast: airy soft ice against tender slow-cooked red beans and steamed taro, chewy taro balls and tapioca pearls, slippery grass jelly. Sugar syrup and condensed milk pull the whole bowl together; on a hot day the cold itself is half the pleasure.

Eight-treasure ice works the opposite way from milk-frozen snowflake ice. Here the ice is plain water frozen into a block and shaved into airy, flavorless flakes, so all the sweetness comes from the cooked toppings plus the syrup and condensed milk poured over and under. The appeal is contrast of texture and temperature, fluffy soft ice against soft beans and taro, springy taro balls, slippery grass jelly, with cold relief in summer heat. Each topping is pre-cooked to its own texture: red beans and flower beans slow-simmered with sugar until tender, taro steamed soft, taro balls and tapioca pearls boiled until springy.