The "Funshya" Jinshan Sweet Potato Festival’s Thousand-Person Earth Oven Event Kicks Off This Weekend

▲Two Russian students experience “earth oven” cooking by stacking soil blocks themselves. (Photo/Courtesy of Intern Reporter Qiu Yunrong)

Intern Reporter Qiu Yunrong / Reported and photographed in New Taipei City

This year, New Taipei City has combined three major agricultural promotion events—the Sweet Potato Festival, the Green Bamboo Shoot Festival, and the Shuangxi Yam Festival—under the “New Taipei Health Treasures” brand to promote them to the public. This weekend (August 17–18), the “New Taipei Health Treasures – Funshya: Thousand-Person Earth Oven, Tasty Sweet Potatoes” event will be held in the Jinshan area, inviting the public to join in earth oven cooking.

August is the perfect season to enjoy sweet potatoes. The main sweet potato-producing area in New Taipei City, Jinshan, features semi-clay and semi-sandy soil, along with pure water from the Zhushan Mountain Range, making it highly suitable for sweet potato growth. Various red-fleshed sweet potatoes are sweet, fragrant, and soft. This year, the Sweet Potato Festival coincides with the harvest seasons in Jinshan, Wanli, and Shipi. The city government has selected August 17–18 to host the 2013 “New Taipei Health Treasures – Sweet Potato Festival Main Event” in Jinshan District, featuring large-scale special activities alongside hands-on experiences of digging for sweet potatoes and building earth ovens. The event site offers opportunities for participants to engage in earth oven construction and sweet potato harvesting, providing a taste of the joy of harvest.

In the past, building an earth oven involved using hoes or shovels to dig up large chunks of soil, which were then broken into appropriately sized pieces and stacked to form the “earth oven.” To make it easier for visitors, the Jinshan District Office and the Jinshan District Farmers’ Association have pre-mixed and moistened the soil one or two weeks before the event, shaped it into blocks, sun-dried them, boxed them, and stored them. During the event, these prepared blocks are provided to participants for quick and easy stacking.Image above)