Lucky Chow returned this week with season seven, where host Danielle Chang immerses herself in the rich food culture of her homeland, Taiwan. The series explores a wide range of stories from indigenous boar hunters to cutting-edge bubble-tea makers. Chang explores late-night seaport dives and visits Buddhist temples where vegetarian cooking is turned into high art.

“I was born in Taiwan but learned so much that I never knew before on the month-long trip, like the indigenous populations,” Chang told  LA Weekly as she swooned over the signature steamed soup with bone-in chicken at the new Din Tai Fung restaurant in Santa Monica, and demonstrated the proper way to eat  Xiao Long Bao.

Lucky Chow

Danielle Chang at Din Tai Fung Santa Monica (Michele Stueven)

“There are 16 recognized indigenous groups in Taiwan, and I got to spend time with several of them, which was a very special treat,” she said. “They are a living tradition advocating for themselves.  They have certain rights that other Taiwanese people don’t have, like hunting, which has been a livelihood for generations. I actually got to go wild boar hunting with them in the mountains of southern Taiwan.  It’s such a beautiful place.”

Other adventures in the current season, which was meticulously researched by field producer Clarissa Wei, who wrote the James Beard award-winning book Made in Taiwan, include foraging for sea cucumbers and clams with the Amis matrilineal tribe perched high above the Pacific Ocean.  “It was quite a trip rumbling along these craggy rocks,” she said. 

Lucky Chow

Episode two featuring the Ruka Tribe airs on Thursday, May 8 (Courtesy PBS)

“Taiwan is a hodgepodge of different influences since it’s been colonized so many times over the years,” says Chang, who organized the Lucky Rice culinary festivals across Los Angeles pre-pandemic and hopes to revive the event. “ Everybody wants Taiwan, and Taiwan just wants to be itself. That’s why indigenous groups are highlighted, to give them a sense of place.  A lot of mainland Chinese came to Taiwan in 1949 and influenced its cuisine.  I wanted to go back and see what Chinese identity was all about, and I still don’t know the answer to that.  I think it means different things to different people.”

Lucky Chow airs on Thursdays on PBS 

Lucky Chow

Making mud volcano tofu (Courtesy PBS)