Taitung has the fewest people of any county or city on Taiwan proper but the third-largest area among them, and its food is scattered between the rift valley and the coast. In Chishang, in the East Rift Valley, rice paddies roll out to the horizon; the Chishang rice box is said to have first been sold on the station platform, white rice and a few side dishes in a wooden box, and although the platform no longer sells it, several rice-box shops remain in the township. The plains grow sugar apples: by the 2020 figures, more than nine-tenths of Taiwan's sugar-apple acreage (the 'big-eye' cultivar of Annona squamosa) is in Taitung, and the ripe fruit has soft, milky-white flesh that you can break open by hand.
Between mountains and sea live the Amis, Paiwan, Puyuma, Rukai, Bunun, Tao and other peoples, and the six groups together make up more than 30 percent of the county's residents. Amis cooking is known for wild vegetables, from rattan heart and prickly ash to bird's-nest fern; some coastal villagers dive for fish and shrimp, and women gather intertidal seaweed. The Paiwan, Rukai and Puyuma make cinavu, a dumpling of taro flour, millet or glutinous rice around a meat filling, wrapped in jiǎsuānjiāng (假酸漿) leaves and then shell-ginger leaves and cooked. On the coast, Chenggong is a fishing port, and the county's festival calendar lists its Billfish and Navel Orange Festival in November.
