Penghu's flavors are set by sea and wind. Wang Dayuan's Daoyi Zhilue, completed around 1349, says the land was barren and unsuited to rice and that residents gathered fish, shrimp, snails and clams to supplement their food. The county still counts 69 fishing ports, and seafood still leads the table: oysters grilled in the shell, the grouper called dàimào shíbān, and baby squid and tiny anchovies dried under strong sun and sea breeze. The official tourism guide credits the salty soil for unusually sweet produce, and lists slender, crisp Penghu luffa, golden-pumpkin rice noodles and sea greens among the island's classics.
The sweets and snacks taste of the islands too. Black sugar cake is marked 'classic must-buy No. 1' on the official gift page, steamed so that it smells of brown sugar and chews pleasantly, and it keeps only a short while; cactus ice is flavored with the pressed juice of the cactus's red fruit, sweet-sour and cooling, and ranks first on the official food page's visitors' top-ten list; the salty biscuit is crisp and made for tea; and peanuts turn up as peanut candy and brittle. Magong, the county seat, is the largest city in the outlying islands.
