The Taiwan Nougut Museum

Yes, you read the title of this post correctly. Taiwan does, in fact, have a museum devoted to nougat (or "nougut" as the museum calls it), and I visited it this weekend with Sarah (one of my fellow students from Youngstown).

I was excited to see the museum devoted to one of my favorite candies mostly to buy said candies, but also to find out how the heck it is made. From some of my preliminary readings via wikipedia, it turns out that there are two types of nougat; white which is made with egg whites and is soft, and brown which is made of caramelized sugar and is hard. Nougat can contain all manner of fruits, candies or nuts depending on the preference.

The trip to the museum was fairly long. It is in the southern portion of Taipei county, so we had a bus ride from school to Ximen station. From there it was another long-ish MRT trip out to Yongning station at the end of the blue line.

By the time we reached Yongning it was 2:00pm, and we had to wait still another half hour or so for the #43 bus to the museum.

I was excited at this point to (a. get some candy, and (b. make my own (as I read on the museum website tours are given and guests can make their own candies!)

The bus stop for the museum left us in an industrial type area with lots of warehouses and very little signage.

As is customary and traditional for tourists, we wandered for about 15 minutes in different directions looking for the museum.

I began to think we were close, though, because I kept seeing these vaguely creepy cow statues at some of the street corners.

After a few dead ends we finally found a sign pointing us to the museum. Down another alley and past more buildings was the small, but not unpleasant Taiwan Nougut Museum. Outside the building was a large bull majestically posed on top of a rock proclaiming that we had in fact found the Nirvana of Taiwanese Nougat.

As we walked up to the door, Sarah and I noticed that there were lots of people streaming out and that the gift shop doors were only partially opened.




"Is the museum closed" Sarah asked.
"I sure hope not," I said "otherwise we came here for nothing."

We walked up the the doors and walked in. The gift shop fairly large with tables upon tables of nougat. We both looked at the candy and wandered through the displays until we came to one of the nougat chefs dressed in a white smocks and tall white hats. One gentleman, seeing that we were westerners, confused, and that it was close to closing time, shoved three bags of nougut into our hands and gestured to a sign.

"Thanks," I said "this is good candy?"
"It is very good," he said emphatically pointing to a sign mostly in Chinese, "it is, uh, one with three."
"Oh! Great! Thank you," and we were herded to the checkout. As it turns out the museum worker did not mean buy one get three free, but in fact the opposite; buy three get one free. Either way, we shuffled bills around and came out confused, but with armloads of candy.

Back at the bus stop I turned to Sarah and commented that the bus trip to Ximen, MRT trip to Yongning, and bus trip to the museum was about 2 hours total, and that we were only in the museum for about ten minutes. "Yeah, but at least we have nougut!"

And, really, that's what I assume was the main attraction of the museum. Fairly cheap, but tasty nougat and a bull to greet you. What more did one need?