I had 肉圓 [pronounced ‘rou yuan’] for the first time during my recent trip to Taiwan. I must say I’m very partial to meatballs. To me, they are comfort food and there’s just something very satisfying when tucking in to meatballs of any sort.
This Taiwanese version has a sticky sweet potato starch outer layer and it’s one of Taiwan’s famous street foods. According to Chinese Wiki, legend has it 肉圓 was invented in 1898 by a man called Fan Wanju (范萬居) and he lived in Beidou (北斗), a district in the southwest of Taiwan. At that time, there was major flooding taking place in Beidou and Fan Wanju dried sweet potatoes and grounded them into flour. After doing so, he used it to make flour balls for the flood victims but his version wasn’t filled with meat.
As time went by, people modified it and filled it with ingredients like pork and bamboo shoot. Eventually it evolved to look like what people know as 肉圓 today. Its popularity spread throughout Taiwan and different places began to localise the 肉圓 by filling it with local ingredients and cooking it in their own unique style.