Shaping Bread as “Modern Food”: The Changing Baking Industry in Postwar Taiwan

Abstract

This article examines the development of the baking industry and bread consumption in postwar Taiwan, particularly during the period of U.S. aid (1951-1965), which was a key period of technological and institutional change in baking. Focusing on the establishment of the wheat flour industry and new baking technologies, this article explores how these technologies were introduced and how their progress shaped bread as a “modern food”, and how the linkage with modernity affected the consumption of bread in Taiwan. Since the 1950s, American aid and migrants from mainland China have both contributed to the establishment of a flour industry and modern bakeries. The flour industry in Taiwan faced drastic changes along with other countries in East Asia because of the new international political order in the postwar period. With the establishment of the Executive Committee on the Promotion of Flour and Wheat Food in Taiwan in 1962, the government adopted various methods to cultivate the demand for bread and Western pastry products. The Baking Training Institute established in 1967 was the most prominent institution in the development of baking skills and technology in Taiwan, also bringing intensive competition of between bakeries. In addition, the emergence of large-scale production of machine-made bread in the late 1970s further shaped the “fresh, hygienic, and inexpensive” image of bread, fostering its consumption in Taiwanese society.