What it is
Coffin bread (棺材板) is a thick slab of white toast, fried or toasted until crisp and hollowed into a box. A creamy stew fills it and a slice of bread forms the lid, hence the name. Chicken liver was the original filling; chicken or cuttlefish with peas, carrot and corn is now more usual, and some stalls offer curry.
Where it came from
Coffin bread comes from Kangle Market (康樂市場) in Tainan, known from the Japanese era as Sakariba (沙卡里巴). Sources credit Hsu Liu-yi (許六一), whose stall now trades as Chikan Coffin Bread (赤崁棺材板), but they give different dates.
According to Tainan's city tourism site, Hsu opened a snack stall in 1935 selling Japanese, Western and Taiwanese snacks. After the Second World War he borrowed the Western fried pastry case, filling hollowed fried bread with thickened chicken liver, squid and vegetables. A friend lifting the lid joked that it looked like a coffin board, and in 1959 the shop put the name on its sign. English Wikipedia and the MICHELIN Guide give 1942 as the stall's starting year, and the Taipei Times places the invention in the 1940s, when chicken liver was valued as nourishing food.
The naming story varies too. The Taipei Times and Chinese Wikipedia say a visiting professor made the coffin comparison. Chinese Wikipedia adds that Hsu first called it chicken-liver board (雞肝板), and notes another account in which he named it 機關板 himself.
English Wikipedia alone says the snack caught on among American soldiers based in Taiwan. It became one of Tainan's famous snacks roughly between the 1970s and 1990s.
How it is made
A thick slice of white bread is deep-fried until golden, or toasted, and its centre is dug out to leave a crisp case. The filling is cooked separately: diced chicken or seafood and vegetables are cooked in stock, then brought to a creamy consistency with starch or a splash of milk. This is spooned into the case, and the piece of bread that was cut away goes back on top as the lid.
How to eat it
Coffin bread is sold as a street snack at market stalls and night markets. Fillings vary from stall to stall. At Chikan Coffin Bread the choice includes chicken liver, vegetable or curry. The lid lifts off to reach the filling. Vendors in other cities have created versions designed to be eaten while walking.
Around Taiwan
- Tainan
- Tainan's tourism site calls Chikan Coffin Bread (赤崁棺材板) at Kangle Market the original coffin-bread shop, and the Hsu family still runs it. Coffin bread is now one of the dishes Tainan is best known for, and cooks keep inventing new versions.
- East
- In Hualien City it is sold under the punning name 官財板, which sounds like the original but swaps in characters for office and wealth instead of coffin.
