1. The Resistance Against Asian Chicken Salad

One of the funniest stand-up comedy moments I saw was when Margaret Cho, a Korean-American comedian, described how she was offered Asian Chicken Salad on a flight.  During meal time, the flight attendant slowly made her way down the aisle with the food cart offering Asian Chicken Salad to passengers - “Asian Chicken Salad?”...”Asian Chicken Salad?”... “Asian Chicken Salad?”  When the cart finally reached Margaret, the flight attendant paused and perhaps taking note that Margaret is Asian, offered with a slight nervous edge “Asian Chicken Salad?” At that point Margaret inspected the chicken salad and with a wry face and a voice of disapproval said to the flight attendant “THIS is NOT the salad of my PEOPLE!”

This made me laugh because in that one moment of exchange, Margaret confronted America’s perception of what Asian food is, and to a broader extent the appropriation of Asian culture in American society.  

I fully agree with Margaret: Asian Chicken Salad is not the salad of my people because in Asia eating raw vegetables is not uniformly practiced.  Nor do people in Asia regard salad as a meal in the way Americans do. Salad-like dishes often appears as a side dish, do not contain lettuce, and are often pickled or fermented.

It is also not the salad of my people because there are so many different types of people in Asia.  My particular people are Taiwanese and this already is too broad of a category. Ethnic groups such as Hakka (which I belong to), Amis and Atayl also exist within this geography. Trying to pinpoint who “my people” are in Taiwan is a contestable topic of discussion.  And I don’t believe I have ever seen Asian Chicken Salad in Taiwan, which if I did, it would simply be called Chicken Salad.

But here’s the irony:  Although I express this sentiment, another part of me also feels that Asian Chicken Salad is the salad of my people.  This is because I am both Asian and American.  I am an immigrant to this country and grew up as a minority trying to embrace majority culture.  Existing in two cultures allows me to consume Taiwanese food with a Taiwanese aesthetic and consume American food with an American aesthetic.  There is no question that Asian Chicken Salad is an American take on creating a salad with Asian characteristics, and I fully understand how this conceptualization of a salad may have emerged from the cradle of American food culture.  Therefore I embrace this as both the salad of my people and not the salad of my people.  But this is not without personal conflict and feelings of contradiction.

All through my life, questions about identity has nagged me.  Who are my people how will I know when I have found them? There were many times when just as I feel like I belong, I realize that I don’t.  The sense of belonging has always been fleeting and short lived - it comes and goes. Food is a good example of this. A traditional Chinese meal involving seafood, bones, soups, animal organs, fermented flavors and exotic vegetables are not easily embraced by my non-Asian peers.  Similarly, my parents and friends in Taiwan would not consider American fast food, pizza, Chinese takeout, pasta as proper meals. I consider all of these good meals and there are many times when as I’m feeling comfortable eating food with a certain group of people, I also long for meals that would not be enjoyed by the people I’m with. 

At the beginning of my existence I was part of the majority in Taiwan and later on in America, I was part of a minority.  But being a minority in America did not mean that I did not connect with the majority because in order to assimilate I had to study and ingest all cultural manifestations of mainstream culture.  This was beneficial for the most part but also hurtful in other ways. To be an Asian in America is to learn that we are under-represented in the media, hold very few positions of power in politics, have less cultural capital than people of European descent, and similar to other minorities, are treated as “others” with our respective conceived stereotypes.

That’s why I loved it when Margaret Cho exclaimed “THIS is NOT the salad of my PEOPLE!” Because right in that moment all the complex layers of emotions of belonging to the people of America and not belonging to the people of America was being expressed.  It was an act of resistance and the questioning about the construction of the Asian identity in mainstream culture.

I wonder what Margaret Cho has to say about General Tso’s Chicken?

2. Culinary Reflections on Fire and Time

Preface: Suiyuan Shidan (隨園食單) is a cookbook written by the Chinese poet Yan Mei (袁枚). Considered one of China's best gastronomes.  Yuan Mei lived in modern day Hangzhou during the late 18th century and became a very accomplished poet and writer.  This piece of work is not well known in the west but is a rich gastronomic text.  I find Yan Mei's writing very beautiful and think it can offer interesting insights to our modern day food culture in America.

There are two elements of cooking that are critical to great food - the use of fire and time.  The application of heat and its intensity on ingredients over seconds, minutes or perhaps hours is an art that is part skill, part intuition, part learned, and perhaps part play.  Without fire, food and cuisines would not exist as we know it today.  It is perhaps people’s understanding of fire and it’s use in relation to time that has enabled humans to flourish and develop into complex societies.  Fire allows people to unlock nutrients and facilitate access to calories that might not be obtained through human digestion.

According to Yuan Mei, the mastery of fire is of paramount importance.  In his cookbook Siyuan Shidan, he says:
Among cooking methods, the most important thing is to master the fire. Sometimes it must be a high fire, as in stir-frying, deep-frying, and similar things. Insufficient fire makes unpleasing dishes. Sometimes it must be slow, as in simmering, boiling, and the like. If the fire is too hot, these dishes look dry and dull. Some dishes need a military fire and then a civilian fire [a delightful metaphor for a fierce fire and then a gentle one], to keep the stock [from boiling away]. Impatience would make the dishes burnt on the outside but raw inside. For some dishes the longer you cook, the tenderer it will be, such as kidney, eggs, and the like. For some food, even with a short time of cooking, it would lose its tenderness, such as fresh fish, clams and the like. In cooking meat, if we fail to get it out of the pan in time, the color will change from red to black. In cooking fish, it is the same: fish meat will turn dry. ……….. When a chef knows fire and can correctly and carefully manage it, he has the Way of cooking.

What’s interesting about this passage is that fire is used and revered in different manifestations.  Fire is not simply just fire.  It presents itself in different variations, shapes, sizes and intensity.  The color, glow and texture can do different things to different foods.  Fire can be used to soften vegetables, denature proteins,  infuse aromas, transform liquid properties, or kill living creatures.  If there’s one thing Yuan Mei can attest to is that fire cannot and should not be used in an indiscriminate manner in the art of cooking.  

Like all things in life, simplicity is the result of complexity.  Dishes that seems to require no effort at all to cook is the result of trained attention to fire and time, or perhaps to define fire more broadly, temperature and time.  And not only is this necessary but with the myriad properties of ingredients found in the world, the effects of fire on a food substance is of paramount importance.  For example, knowing how the surface of a meat expands and softens, the texture of dried legumes change over time, or the rate of softening leafy greens exhibit - these are all fire knowledge that is needed in the art of cooking.  

This is interesting to me for various reasons as someone who works in the public sector dealing with food policy.  Yuan Mei’s passage about fire touches on a critical element of gastronomy.  Fire, heat and temperature is an integral part of cooking delicious meals.  And part of cooking well is this discussion about the use of fire over time.  To the extent the public policy makers want people to eat well, how can a conversation about cooking and fire factor into policies that aim to address obesity and healthy eating?  I think there is absolutely a connection between the art of cooking and food policy yet in this current environment cooking is not discussed in any capacity.  Or let me rephrase by saying that gastronomy is not part of the policy discussion.  Cooking is discussed but more in the realm of nutrition and science.  Can and should gastronomy be part of the food policy discussions?  I think there are many different ways to answer this question - some of which will lead to yes and others no.  

I will stop this inquiry for now to allow this topic to “marinate.”  To-be-discussed in future reflections….