In Search of “Real Food”: Changing Authenticity

In Search of “Real Food”: Changing Authenticity Connie Chan

MENU ACTO I. Letter from the Editor pp. 2 ACTO II. Mapping Traditions and Nostalgia pp. 4 ACTO III. Cook Book Review: Authenticity and Recipes pp. 8 ACTO IV. Breaking Perfection pp. 10 ACTO V. zimaawu pp. 12 ACTO VI. Chop Suey pp. 17

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Letter

from the

Editor

Well how should I start: (coughs) I am the editor of LE In Search of “Real Food”: Changing Authenticity ZINE! Who am I even? From the top, I am Connie Chan born in Boston, Massachusetts from a Chinese immigrant family who are Buddhist. What does this mean in terms of food? During specific times of the year, there would be specific time intervals where I can only eat vegetarian dishes but no garlic, onions, chives, scallions nor leeks. I still remember the time where I had to eat school lunch avoiding these five vegetables which ended in my face turning slightly green because of disgust.

Here’s a better question for me to answer: why am I talking about food? Well other than my experience with food restrictions and how my stomach is currently on the hungry side of the day, I feel like food needs some more recognition you know? Who doesn’t like food? And an even better question—have people ever spent time to actually think about their food. Of course we think at the moment we are eating “this is some amazing stuff I am eating” (or perhaps it is mainly because I am hungry) BUT also there is a slight idea of where our food comes from. Not the question of “I wonder what is in my food” but “where has my dish originated from?” As I sit on my kitchen table as my mom prepares food for me, this thought literally rarely crosses my mind. Some contextual background on the types of thoughts I have would be “this smells nice,” “I wonder how she is cooking it,” and “I hope she won’t make me wash the dishes since I am not cooking.” Of course the food I have been eating every day is Chinese but not until three years ago that I realized my life was a lie because there was more than one regional Chinese cuisine. Suddenly in the midst of my life crisis, I start to wonder where the food I eat originated from in terms of culture. Then again, a more reasonable question to ask is “mom, dad, what part of China are you from” because other than having school assignments ask me where my parents are from and realizing that the places that my parents are from speak Mandarin while my parents speak Cantonese at home, I continue to be in a void of confusion.

Let’s attempt to (or allow me to) back track and actually find what I am trying to get at. As I continue to be in a state of confusion I entered into (play ♫ Felix Mendelssohn: The Hebrides 2|Page

[Fingal’s Cave] for state of emotions) Bryn Mawr College. Upon doing so I seem to have realized some more things about myself: my identity as Asian-American and my want to actually think more into my culture and the best way to do is to think about food (not on an empty stomach of course).

I started to become more curious to the point of wondering if the food that I actually ate was real. I knew that the food that I was seeing in restaurants like Panda Express was not the food that I would see in China. The food whenever I ate dim sum was probably the closest thing I see, outside from what my parents make, to food that would be served in China (not exactly sure where in China but I felt like I had this gut feeling that I was bound to see dim sum to in China). Upon being exposed to Food in Translation, questions such as “what is authenticity” continue to pop up throughout the course. Such an intriguing question I must say mainly because there are so many components to answering this question. Perhaps it is the people who are making the dish such as chefs on Jeju Island making seafood dishes or people from the Sichuan provinces having spicy food.

It could perhaps be deeper and be the ingredients used, machinery used, area of growth, the type of water used or even the type of people are producing the ingredients. I would like to take you guys on a journey through my thought process on this question.

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Click on the Philadelphia Map (left) and New York Map (right) to view Chinatown LiveTrekker Map!

Mapping Traditions and Nostalgia In Philadelphia Chinatown, we explore the ideas of authenticity in terms of the languages that were displayed and heard throughout Chinatown. Similar to Philadelphia Chinatown, New York Chinatown displayed the intersection of languages.

For Philadelphia Chinatown: Our group’s (Isabell, Grace and I) map focus was on restaurants in Chinatown that were not Chinese or had other languages on their storefronts. We became interested in finding what diasporas of East Asia were represented in these different restaurants, and a part of the overall project was to also see how many bubble tea places there were, or restaurants that sold bubble tea (being that it is Taiwanese). This idea caught our attention because even though it’s called Chinatown and there’s a huge arch that greets you in Mandarin, there are obviously many other East Asian cultures being represented within Chinatown. (Not Just “China” In “Chinatown”: An Exploration of Other Cultures Within Philadelphia’s Chinatown) For New York Chinatown: During our thirty minute walking tour we (Stephanie, Isabell, and I) were able to fully capture the complex structure and geography of this area, and why it is that there is some controversy over the large size and continuing expansion of Chinatown. (NYC Chinatown: Freezing and Filling) 4|Page

When visiting both Chinatowns, I constantly wanted to compare these two Chinatown’s to Boston Chinatown. Boston Chinatown became a place for me to connect with my culture and to be able to experience the cultural aspects that made my family feel more welcomed in the United States.

Coming with the background of how there were really just Chinese people—especially Cantonese speakers—whenever going to Chinatown, it was really interesting to see how both Philadelphia and New York Chinatown deviated from the Chinatown that I have always been used to.

In Philadelphia, whenever Chinese was spoken, it tended to be Mandarin or other Southeast and East Asian dialects of Chinese. The languages on the menus that were presented or the restaurant’s cultural background seemed to contradict the notion that the restaurant was in Click to View Ramen Menu Chinatown. One restaurant in particular was marketed as a Japanese ramen noodle shop and yet the menu seemed to target a different type of audience; on the LiveTrekker map, the photographed ramen has the stereotypical appearance of what good ramen is expected to look like and yet the languages that are displayed naming the dish are in English and Chinese. When we visited the bubble tea place, we found the menu to also be really interesting because of how I could clearly see cultures intersection each other base off of the menu: They [Vivi Bubble Tea] sell takoyaki which is Japanese and milk tea itself (bubble tea) is Taiwanese but has come to be closely associated with Chinatowns. Other Taiwanese elements are BBQ sausage they offered as well as red bean. Other items of interest were the tiramisu milk tea and the corn dogs, popcorn chicken, and chicken wings. Only one menu had Chinese on it and the decor was not necessarily Chinese with the exception of one bamboo plant. The lanterns were like IKEA lanterns! (Grace on Philadelphia Chinatown LiveTrekker Map) When looking at the way that certain texts, specifically menus, are delivered to the audience, I gain a better understanding that the audience in Philadelphia is interested in eating Asian food when coming to Chinatown, not just eating Chinese food. The audience is not only interested in engulfing many different types of Asian cultures but also in the idea of having authentic Asian cuisine. In Boston Chinatown, it was rare to find “popcorn chicken” and “corn dogs” because these particular types of food are marketed towards Americans and are not the types of food that consumers should expect to eat in Chinatown. Yet the effects of tourism enable shops in the area to encompass local and “not exotic” food (from the perspectives of the American consumer) or even Americanized Chinese food. Authenticity is also a difficult topic to understand because after pondering about this word for an indefinite amount of time, what makes something “authentic”? While seeing Cantonese speakers in Chinatown and purchasing Chinese labeled foods from the supermarket appeals to me as what I considered to be authentic, there are people who would consider eating Sichuan restaurant that is known for having Sichuan dishes that are served in the Sichuan province to be authentic; we all have our own way of defining what is authentic from our own perspectives. However in the scenario where consumers feel obligated to consume “authentic food” in order to flaunt their experience in many exotic fields is preposterous. Hence when thinking about how the Japanese ramen noodle shop sells ramen under a translated name and how there is no such thing as an authentic bowl of ramen (because no ramen in Japan is alike), it is really ironic how people want to go to this restaurant just because the appearance of the ramen seems to be more exotified and 5|Page

different from the common instant ramen that could be eaten in their very own kitchen. The front of Vivi Bubble Tea shop, compared to the bubble tea shops in Boston, has very Americanized architecture and inside the shop seems to make it a place where it is possible for consumers to get the most out of their experience at this bubble tea place; there is more to than just bubble tea being sold as can be concluded by the different types of cultural dishes served.

In New York, there was the similar situation in terms of hearing and viewing how languages intersect one another and by the population that hung around in Chinatown. The dim sum restaurant was a place of nostalgia and, as a result, a place that spoke to the authenticity that I was used to. Having waiters roll carts full of food around to each table, being able to select as much food as you want, having your card stamped saying that you asked for the specific dish, and communicating in Cantonese were some of the aspects that made me feel more comforted as I continuously consumed so much food. It was funny thinking how I was purposely avoiding fried rice even though Bryn Mawr never has good rice because back home I was so use to not ordering food that I can commonly eat at home compare to going out and eating. The bakery shop also made me really happy because I was unable to find a bakery shop that really spoke to my nostalgia in Philadelphia Chinatown. I was able to converse with the bakery manager when trying to select a steam bun to eat which I had not have the pleasure in doing for a long time. Thinking back on this moment makes me realize the importance of talking in Cantonese instead of English because it enabled me to have a deeper connection between the people and the culture. Rather than seeing a store that purposely displayed English, seeing certain items that were marketed gave a clearer picture of the impact of tourism and how attracting people who were not Chinese was a major aspect of Chinatown. There was one store that we visited that sold chopsticks ranging from twenty dollars to two hundred dollars.

Upon conversing to the store clerk in English, the range of consumers included foreigners and Chinese alike. This seemed really ironic to me especially because I can buy a bundle of chopsticks at a Chinese supermarket in Boston for a really low price.

Chopsticks are utensils that people would typically associate with Chinese cuisine. It made more sense in the past for Chinese people to buy expensive chopsticks; in order for emperors to not be poisoned, a chopstick made out of ivory was inserted into the food and if the color of the chopstick darkened, there was poison present. However today if any Chinese people were willing to purchase an expensive pair of chopsticks, it would probably be a collector’s item.

Even though New York Chinatown has these Chinese aspects, there are still other cultural influences apparent. Chinatown still does not mean that there are only Chinese aspects but rather it is a location that is filled with many of cultures. One of the most prominent cultures was Korean culture. With the hallyu wave rising due to Korean dramas and KPOP (Korean Pop Music) becoming more wide spread, we find Korean culture becoming integrated into Chinatown through the beauty stores and Korean celebrities displayed advertising these products. We ended up going to a store called oo35mm that marketed many Korean skin products including face masks, cleansers, toners, essences, and serums. Despite being in Chinatown, it was still possible to see the effects of 6|Page

other cultures and in this case Korea. It is interesting to think about authenticity in terms of seeing the hallyu wave in Chinatown but also seeing the authenticity of the products. One of the shops that we saw in passing was Tony Moly which is a really popular Korean skin care brand. I was extremely excited seeing this store and seeing EXO’s members advertising the product because I am also so into KPOP and watching Korean dramas. The oo35mm combined several cultures by having Chinese, Japanese and Korean beauty products. KPOP was being played and the cashier spoke Korean. This is wonderful from my perspective mainly because in Boston if I ever wanted these types of products, they were separated and in different stores that would not be all in Chinatown nearby one another and yet here I see products that I am constantly obsessing over because of how I want to be more into the culture more and viewing this perspective of authenticity.

Click here to see Grace’s thoughts on the New York trip!

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Cook Book Review: Authenticity and Recipes It’s interesting that way that authenticity would be interpreted for “Ivan Ramen: Love, Obsession, and Recipes from Tokyo’s Most Unlikely Noodle Joint”

by Ivan Orkin with Chris Ying. The way that the introduction and the recipes were presented was also really intriguing in the sense that Ivan Orkin ends up being a foreigner that successfully opens a ramen store in Japan. With this being the first time where I have been introduced to Ivan Ramen, I was surprised that through his passion in cuisine and in Japan that he was able to shape his own idea of authenticity through the ramen he served.

I have read books that were full of recipes but never have read a cookbook that was focused on a cook’s background story. It gives a lens on how there is a story behind the food we eat including the way that the recipe was constructed and the way that the recipe is representation of the cook’s background experience. Throughout the time I spent reading the introduction, I continued to wonder when the term “authenticity” would be used and in the end it wasn’t really used 8|Page

other than the customer who thought that his ramen would have ketchup inside of it. It brings back the central idea of what exactly is authenticity. Without thinking of Ivan’s Ramen, authenticity would depend on who is making the food and how the food is prepared in the sense of ingredients, technique and mode of production. With this mind, is his ramen considered authentic?

Ramen in the end may have many components that are similar to one another but ramen continues to change and develop; authenticity does not really seem to be a term that can be used to describe ramen and yet there are so many components such as the use of fat, the percentage of water used, and how the soup must stick to the noodles that are considered as a standard in order to make a successful ramen. While initially reading the Introduction, I thought that his definition of having authentic Japanese ramen would encompass something along the lines of having the same techniques, tools, and ingredients that Japanese ramen makers use.

However this was not the case; Ivan shaped his own type of authenticity in which his ramen speaks on his experience and knowledge. While there are so many techniques that are characterized as Japanese, Ivan integrates his knowledge as a cook and cultural background to construct a ramen that is considered as delicious and new. It is interesting how by making a new type of ramen that is unique adds to the idea of what shapes the authenticity aspect of ramen in Japan.

In a cookbook, I would think that recipes are ordered by type of ingredients (such as apples versus chicken) and type of meal (breakfast versus dinner or even sweets versus use of potatoes). However Ivan really goes into depth into the process of making his Shio Ramen by starting from the final result and then every part of the process that makes the final product possible. As a result, rather than having three separate recipes it is important to look at how each component to a dish is a recipe in itself. Usually there is so much focus on just obtaining the ingredients because of how time pressuring families are and yet rather than modifying the recipe to fit the availability of the reader, he decides to stick with the original method of making the dish. He goes so far into not asking the readers to not buy, for example, a convenient brand of chicken stock but rather the process of making the chicken stock; Ivan goes into depth of how to make chicken stock including the importance of the quality of the chicken, ratio of water to the chicken and the temperature. This in depth focus on the preparation of food seems to be lost and not the main focus today in modern American family kitchens; compare to spending a lot of time making food, people are more focused on having food on the go. As a result, we end up eating food that is towards the processed side of food production because of convenience. Ivan also states how the availability of the ingredients presented in the dish may differ to what the readers have 9|Page

accessible to them. Would having different ingredients than what is presented in the recipe be consider as unauthentic? Before I would not really care so much about what brand and type of ingredients I was using; if a recipe to make chocolate chip cookies ask for all-purpose flour, any type of all-purpose was used because the recipe does not call for a specific brand of flour. It intrigues me the fact that he states “no matter how you approach the recipes in this book, accept that the quality of ingredients and equipment available to you will depend on where you live� (97) as if he is insisting that there is in the end a boundary in achieving the authenticity that Ivan has achieved. I am slightly confused by this statement because he does not decide to include how the experience and knowledge that he has versus the readers are different and to accept this difference.

In the end, I feel that the way that Ivan communicates his journey and love for ramen is in itself a mode of authenticity.

Authenticity itself is such a malleable term depending on the situation. It is almost as if authenticity is socially constructed because there is no such thing as authenticity.

ACTO VIII: Chocolate Bomb: Carrot Cake with micro-b, red fruits and others flavors

Breaking

erfection

“Chefs always seem to want to achieve this sense of perfection and I want to break it. Cooking is not only about perfection.” – Iker Erauzkin The Chocolate Bomb dish was served at Uma, an “espacio gastronomica” that focused on technoemocional. It is interesting to think about this dish in terms of how far can art go in terms of authenticity. If having something that is really artistic be considered as lacking in authenticity, then is it the same for the other way around? It is interesting to think of how art is becoming a factor that people consider as “impeding” authenticity. However in the end what does this really mean?

People are so obsessed over obtaining something that is authentic and perfect but what is the point of doing so since food is constantly changing and one’s definition of authenticity is constantly. If someone perhaps said, “I wonder what the first ramen bowl taste like? I want to have an authentic Japanese ramen bowl,” I must say that they are out of luck mainly because even if there was a first bowl, it probably took some time before that specific dish was called ramen. At Uma, Iker Erauzkin aims at having dishes that evolve around the idea that ingredients that are usually not used can be incorporated into dishes. If these ingredients were never used before, then would this mean 10 | P a g e

that he is creating a new type of Spanish cuisine and evolving it or would people blame him as well as other chefs that they are distorting the principles that Spanish cuisine was founded upon.

Molecular gastronomy also encompasses the idea that food can be deconstructed into having a new form but still having the taste. At alicia, we were able to view a Spanish omelet that did not use eggs and a dish that incorporated many different forms of yogurt. The idea that food can be changed for helping people is amazing because people are then able to consume foods that they were not able to consume before or they were not … The idea that being able to consume food through other means can be considered as an advancement in gastronomy and yet the stigma towards it is the idea how we are starting to lose the idea of the ingredients that are actually behind our food. If someone has allergies to eggs and now it is replaced by something that tastes like eggs, the fear behind this is that Chemicals on the shelf of alicia we do not know what is in the substitution that makes it taste like it is the original. Santamaria’s argument against Andria was how Andria was adding unknown chemicals into our food and is modifying the way that food should be served.

If someone wants to go along this argument, what exactly does an individual mean by chemicals? If the chemicals are edible, it is probably a known compound known among molecular gastronomists but not so much among the consumers. A really amazing statement that comments on the idea of the use of chemicals is the use of dihydrogen monoxide. By stating that this “chemical” can kill many people is accurate and the idea that this chemical is seventy percent of our bodies also may terrify the consumers because of how unknown this name sounds; by not knowing what dihydrogen monoxide is, there is more fear on people are able to die of it rather than of the benefits. When it is revealed that dihydrogen monoxide is water, people come more relieved because everyone has heard of water and even H2O, but mainly people in the scientific field would know what dihydrogen monoxide is. This fear of the foreign and the idea that there is something foreign in our foods that make it less authentic is intriguing because of how in the end the food tastes the same or perhaps enables people to be capable of eating a type of dish from a different perspective. In a manga called Hell’s Kitchen, there is a scene that presents a dish that may make consumers feel disgust. However, it is this particular Hell's Kitchen Ch 29 Pg 23 type of presentation that intrigues the consumers and make it into a type of dish that is more appealing because of how, as consumers, we want to consume things that are foreign to us and gain a new idea of authenticity but do not want to be consume by the foreign—we do not want to experience a loss of identity as a result of eating food that is new yet based on the cuisine that is familiar to us.

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zimaawu @ January 29, 2016 This assignment was surely interesting because I had absolutely no idea what would be a dish that I would have seen my mom cook before and would have a significant meaning for her as well. The dishes that I could possibly think of that fit the criteria would be some type of steam fish, egg rolls, congee, scallion pancakes—the possibilities were endless. Upon discussing a few dishes, I fell upon a child favorite: black sesame soup (黑芝麻糊/ hēi zhīma hú [Mandarin] or zimaawu [Cantonese]).

My mother is from Canton, China and came to San Francisco, California in 1980 as a foreign student. She was really compelled to come to America because of the First Amendment; she “loved freedom” and also met my dad. This was to my surprise because I thought she immigrated to Boston, MA to go to school since she received her Associates Degree and Bachelor’s Degree at schools in the Boston area. I never quite asked her what her life was like when she came to America and seemed to have assumed that maybe she lived in an apartment with her friends. However, she lived with her aunt. This moment made me more shocked because I thought I understood her past but there was actually a time gap between her arrival and the stories that she my sister and I about our childhood.

In the middle of the interview, I remembered how she mentioned the difference in American food compare to Chinese food previously. While the America is known as being the fast food nation by trying to make their foods have the right amount of allure to attract consumers, my mom’s initial reaction was that the food in America had no taste. Most of all, many of the foods had added MSG and therefore was unhealthy. Perhaps it is due to this focus of in the fast food industry that causes a lack in priorities to have fresh foods—my mom’s favorite. All of Chinese produce, meat, fish and fruits were organic and fresh but American food appeared to her to be old, frozen, and lifeless.

This seemed to contrast America’s and China’s health focus. Even though there may be awareness that fast food is unhealthy in both of these areas, the population majority continue to consumer fast food due to its convenience and pricing. A remark that “echoes this theme [of cheap being weighed more than nutritional value: ‘The most nutritional, but the cheapest. McDonald’s and all of that’” (127) which sounds slightly ironic; McDonalds is being characterized as being cheap, which is understandable, but nutritional? McDonalds does seem to be a lot more improving in the way they serve their food compare to other fast food chains de to how they would list the amount of calories in each food and had small serving proportions for a meal compare to Burger King or Wendy’s.

So, perhaps she tried some Chinese food in America then. “Of course I have.” But she did not consider the Chinese food that was served in America to be authentic Chinese food; it was 12 | P a g e

American Chinese. I would always say how the Chinese food in America is not real Chinese food, but I never quite understood what this phrase meant except perhaps it was due to the way the food tasted. My mom also never differentiated the Chinese food served to her in America versus China before so I was kind of surprised how no matter how many times I changed the question to defend American Chinese food as Chinese, she would say in the end it is just American Chinese food. What exactly was the criterion for this authenticity? “The weather, water and soil are completely different.”

I continue to stretch her definition of authenticity. “What happens if you were able to bring China’s soil and water to America?” “The weather would be different.” “What happened if you are in a climate that is similar to China but not in China?” “It still will not be the same,” she said after a few seconds of thinking.

Even the food that her aunt cooked for her would not technically be considered as Chinese food because the conditions of the ingredients were different from China even though the process of making the Chinese dish was the same. What I had considered to be authentic Chinese food was not really authentic according to my mom. In the end, even the dishes she made at home would still to a certain extent be consider as Chinese American food because of how the ingredients were processed even though the process of making a dish is Chinese. She had to get use to eating American food even when she tried making dishes with more fresh ingredients but my food palate was catered to American and Chinese American food. For parents who had to incorporate this food gap, “they negotiate with their children, stating that, ‘I try to combine it [vegetables] with a little bit of what they like, a little bit what I like. And if they do not like it, I try to give them a reward so they can eat it and be more healthy’ (FG2:1)” (129). My mom seems to be able to achieve a portion of authenticity in showing my sister and I what Chinese food looks and tastes like whenever she buys fresh vegetables, fruit, fish, meat and other food items from the Chinese supermarket because the ingredients were either imported from China or it was fresh, but I never notices how the ingredients are somewhat substituted; Chinese peaches are different from American peaches or Chinese eggplants are different from American eggplants or Chinese rice is different from American rice.

Wouldn’t this mean that the black sesame soup would be consider as inauthentic to a certain extent then? My mom made zimaawu when I was younger and also apparently when she was pregnant because of the health benefits for the digestive system and making children have more beautiful skin and be more intelligent. Her recipe for making it consisted of: Materials:      

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60% white rice 40% black sesame seeds Water Cheese cloth Sieve Blender

Directions: 1. Stir fry the black sesame seeds on medium fire until the seeds get hot. Turn off the stove and pour the seeds into a bowl. Cover the seeds with water overnight 2. Wash the rice and then put into a bowl cover with water overnight 3. Then sleep* 4. Wash the black sesame seeds lightly and continuously wash it with a sieve 5. Keep the sesame seeds and use a blender to blend the white rice and black sesame seeds.

Pour the blended mixture with water through the cheese cloth on top of a sieve to a bowl.

Continue this process until all the white rice and black sesame seeds have been blended and are really small to be part of the solution 6. Cook it and add the sugar when it is almost done cooking This sounded simple enough. The ingredients were apparently authentic in this case because they were imported from China, but what about the process? Apparently there were some substitutions in materials used for this recipe. Rather than using a blender, my mom used an object called 石礳 (shí mò [Mandarin]) which is capable of crushing the rice and sesame seeds to be more powdery like and according to mom, added a distinct taste to the zimaawu. The cheese cloth in China was also more efficient compare to America’s which had so many large holes.

This 石礳 looks a lot more complex compare to the blender.

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The 石礳 reminded me of two things. The mechanism seemed similar to the ways that traditional Chinese dramas would have people killed. Upon asking my mom if this was the machine, she said “yeah” which gave me quite the stomach butterflies since we originally were talking about food. But at the same time, it seemed strange how this mechanism can be used for killing people in the ancient times but also capable of being able to be used for food; the attitudes towards this machine may change depending on the context it is in. The second connection was actually food related which is stone ground chocolate. My mom described to me how the stone had cuttings in order to give the chocolate a certain type of taste and was really effective in grounding the black sesame seeds and white rice. This is similar to the way that stone ground chocolate is made a the Taza Chocolate Factory where they construct these stone disks, molinos, for creating chocolate that has a “bold, rustic, and satisfying grit” according to their process.

“What exactly was the history behind zimaawu? Many dishes had a story behind it like zongzi (粽子) or yazagwai (油炸鬼/ yóu zhá guǐ [Mandarin] which literally translates to oil fried ghost).”

The left picture is the zongzi and the right picture is yazagwai.

Zongzi are made of glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo leaves and is known in America as Chinese tamales. People would throw zongzi into the river during the Dragon Boat Festival (端午節 /duānwǔ jié [Mandarin]) in order to have the fish in the river eat the zongzi instead of eating Qu Yuan, a poet and minister during the ancient state of Chu who committed suicide by downing due to grief. Yazagwai is known in America as Chinese fried though and is usually eaten with congee.

This food item also has a story behind it in which this Chinese ambassador tried to feed lies to the King how Yue Fei, a Han Chinese military general during the Southern Song dynasty, was trying to kill the king in order for the Chinese ambassador to have a better chance of stealing the throne. As a result, the King believed the Chinese ambassador and banished Yue Fei. The people of China were really angered by this and as a result, yazagwai would have two pieces together where a longer one represented the Chinese ambassador and the shorter one represented his wife and they would be fried.

When I asked this, I was intrigued by how she believed that there was no story behind this dish. Perhaps it is due to the medicinal benefits behind zimaawu.

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@ April 27, 2016 – a reflection on my Recipe Interview It is interesting to see how impacting language is when attempting to translate a dish. In a sense, one’s name adds to the authenticity to the dish because communicating about the dish in the language that it originated from is more understood. Saying black sesame paste is as a result from saying zimaawu; my mother would understand why I am trying to say when I say zimaawu but not when I say black sesame soup. If I had to communicate about this dish over email, it would be difficult for me because I know how to say the word but I do not know how to write in Chinese. By saying black sesame soup instead, my mother may understand me and tell me how to write the word or would be confused because “black sesame soup” is not really a direct translation of what zimaawu is. I recalled how in one of my trips to Chinatown, I ended up purchasing the wrong product because I did not know the characters for zimaawu; I bought zimaafen (black sesame powder) instead and upon just mixing it with hot water just the way I would usually do with instant zimaawu resulted in a terrible snack rather than a nostalgic delicious snack. Note to self is to not to buy a Chinese product base on the packaging but rather learning the characters that are displayed on the bag because the English translation did not help at all in realizing I had bought the wrong product until after consumption; I assumed that black sesame powder was a way of translating zimaawu.

The left turned out to be zimaafen and the right was actually the instant zimaawu that I was intending on purchasing.

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Chop Suey

“What is Chop Suey? I never ate it before” – multiple people

----- Original Message ----From: Connie Chan <cchan1@brynmawr.edu> To: Shiamin Kwa <skwa@brynmawr.edu> Sent: Wed, 27 Apr 2016 14:50:12 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Chop Suey Hello Professor Kwa, I was wondering if I can interview you for the chop suey project.

My questions were: 1. When did you first eat chop suey? Did you make it or did you buy it?

I have never had chop Suey in a restaurant (!). As a child I did eat a dish pretty frequently called "chap chai" in the Fujian dialect, which I believe to be the same dish as chop Suey.

2. If you made it, what recipe did you use and why? Did you make any substitutions?

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I didn't make it. My grandmother did. I don't know if she followed a recipe' if she did at any point, she didn't by the time she made it for me. It was made with leftover roast duck, shredded, pickled mustard greens, and fresh mustard greens. It was really, REALLY good.

3. If you bought it, what was your reaction to it and what was in it? Where did you eat it?

We never bought it. That is not the kind of dish that we would have seen on restaurant menus, street markets, coffee shops, etc. in Malaysia. I suspect it was the case in China for these immigrants as well, i.e. that this originally represented home cooking and never would have represented the kind of food that people would eat in restaurants.

4. How did you first learn of chop suey?

I first learned of 'chap chai' as a child, and learned of 'chop Suey' from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "Chop Suey." It must have been on menus in Chinese restaurants in America, too, but I must say I never noticed it. It belonged, to my mind, in the same category as pu pu platters, crab Rangoon, and shrimp toast, which were things that my family would never order in a Chinese restaurant. Indeed, if we went out for Chinese food, my parents never ordered from a menu but from talking to the restaurant owner.

5. Why do you think that chop suey is an Americanized Chinese dish rather than a dish that is made in China?

While I think of chop Suey as a dish that has its origins in China, I think of it as something like fried rice, that people would make with whatever was available, leftovers, etc., or perhaps a genre/style of cooking, much like a sandwich or a dumpling (I.e. There are many possibilities for what any individual's interpretation would be, yet there is a fixed notion of what constitutes something in that category to some degree). The dish that I think of as an "Americanized Chinese dish" is the chop Suey that comes to represent a unique "brand" on Chinese restaurant menus from the beginning of the 20th century, and which continued to have a life of its own as it spread across the United States in quite remarkable ways, from becoming chop Su ey sandwiches to becoming a generic term for anything that was mixed (I.e. Chop Suey salad, which did not have any stir-fry in it at all, but was a term used to represent a salad that had many different ingredients in it). My interest is in the way "chop Suey" became a linguistic shorthand for things that are mixed up (just as in the song in the musical). I also think that some of the chop sues produced in American restaurants were probably in fact quite close, if not identical, to what would have been eaten at home in China by the immigrants who made it. What I think is interesting is that it became a restaurant food, and quite quickly came to represent Chinese food and was embraced, to the extent that it became the subject of numerous cookbooks for people to make chop Suey in their own homes. I think that is a very interesting trajectory and represents how food, and culture, becomes imbricated in cultures in a short time. Do you think that the dish is the same? And do you think it is ahistorical--I.e., does the dish change, or does the meaning of its name change?

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Hope this helps.

Best wishes, Sk

Thanks,

~Connie Chan

My response to her question: In attempting to interview people about what their thoughts on Chop Suey are, I end up at a dead end by hearing several versions of statements that they have never consumed Chop Suey.

It is interesting to think of how even though this is an Americanized Chinese food, people have not really seen this dish and even for me in particular, before discussing it in class, I also had not been exposed to chop suey. Especially since chops suey was supposedly sold in Boston Chinatown, I find myself to be pretty shocked; I found myself in a midst of small crisis because it seemed that I had missed something for all my life. I feel that the closest I have gotten to ever eating chop suey was whenever I attempted to make ingredients a method of making a dish just to consume for convenience. The Chinese words for Chop Suey literally mean a mix of food and as a result, since this dish does not sound to specialize a particular regional cuisine, it is not seen on the menus in Chinatown.

Since chop suey does not incorporate several aspects of Chinese cuisine, does it make the dish as an inauthentic type of Chinese food? I find it hard to label chop suey as Chinese food because of how this dish is not seen in China. However at the same time, this dish was made to geared towards the tastes of an American population that was interested in consuming exotic foods by a Chinese population. As a result, perhaps it would be better to think of this dish being called American Chinese food or perhaps Chinese fusion cuisine. When thinking about a certain manga called Shokugeki no Soma, there was a scene where the protagonist makes a dish that incorporates French techniques. If a dish was to incorporate French techniques but has the own chefâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s flare to it (as in this character constructs a new type of French cuisine), does it make the dish less authentic and not French cuisine? When thinking even about Ivanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Ramen, I explored the idea that he ends up making his own kind of ramen in Japan and creates his own sense of authenticity. As a result, perhaps rather than constantly feeling the need to compare dishes and trying to fit all dishes into certain categories, it seems like a better idea to accept that there is many types of origination points and different types of authenticity; it is not all about food being classified as Chinese food or Japanese food or even French cuisine.

See pages 20-26 for reference to Shokugeki no Soma

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Hi Connie, I don't think that it has to be one or the other. I think it might help to think of it historically; it may well be the case that you would not have encountered it at all in restaurants, because it has been over a hundred years since this dish was introduced. The interesting thing is not so much its obsolescence now which, as you noted, has to do with heightened awareness of China and its regional cuisines. The interesting thing is what a phenomenon it was. One can see parallels with dishes from other ethnic cuisines coming to represent "THE" dish of a culture/country/region, such as pho and Vietnam, or sushi and Japan. "Curry" might be an interesting parallel to consider with chop suey. I think there are interesting things that can be said about fashion, or about the different factors that are required to make a dish stand out from national cuisines. From the US perspective, there have been historians who look at it from the point of view of economics, or else changes in the work force that resulted in a desire for more restaurants with hot lunches, or from the point of view of changing immigration laws that considered restaurateurs to apply for citizenship (thus leading to a jump in the number of Chinese immigrants who opened restaurants), etc. You don't have to pick all of those answers, and some of them may be more compelling than others. I don't think it would be accurate to say that chop suey never existed at all, but there are indeed nuances about the dish that are fascinating. For example, my family in Beijing eats a stir fry of eggs and tomatoes at 2-3 out of 7 meals, but it's a dish that we would never order at a restaurant. Restaurants represent special occasions, and they would order dishes that would have rare ingredients or techniques that would be hard to accomplish in a home kitchen. On the other hand, when I would go out to eat with my friends in China who were students like me and living on a tight budget (and without access to a kitchen), we would sometimes order stir-fried eggs and tomatoes as a dish at the cafeteria because it was cheap and reminded my friends of home.

Perhaps chop suey fit into that category, except in an international framework; then it evolved in successive decades. But since the second wave of Chinese immigration, which represented a very different class of immigrants, in the 60s, that dish has meant something different--and no longer appealed to the same demographics. It would be interesting to look at menus like Panda Express, Pei Wei, etc., to see if a new chop suey can be discerned (General Tso's chicken?).

Best wishes, sk

Upon further thinking, perhaps chop suey appealed to me as being a staple food that is interchangeable in terms of the ingredients that can be put in it. If I had to think about curry, it originated in India and was Europeanized; in order for people in England to consume the foreign but not be consumed by the foreign, they ended up taking the curry and giving back to people in India and saying that their version was â&#x20AC;&#x153;authentic.â&#x20AC;? Curry is definitely thought of as being the dish that represents India for people who are not cultured in Indian food. People think of dumplings or even fried rice when hearing Chinese food. Chop suey may have been a dish that was just made as something of convenience; similar to how I try to avoid buying fried rice in a dim sum restaurant, chop suey may not be served in restaurants because the version of this dish made back then no longer appeals to current consumers. Perhaps the reason why people would consider chop suey to be classified as Chinese food is because of the people who made it and the new wave of immigration introduced this new type of cuisine to the American population. The 27 | P a g e

meaning behind what chop suey means back then and now is different and the people then and now have also changed. If I had to end up comparing a current dish to chop suey, I automatically think of a category of staple dishes that may be served and have ingredients that are easily interchangeable—fried rice or lo mein. Whenever I end up cooking fried rice I would add whatever vegetables and meat I like and were available into the dish and cook it. For noodles, I have an option of doing the same thing but also being able to incorporate a type of soup with it.

The idea that chop suey is just a mixed ingredients seems really similar to just having fried rice or lo mein because of any ingredients can be used and there really isn’t a set way of cooking the dish to have a particular taste or appearance. If there were menus back then that did have lo mein and fried rice on it, I would think that chop suey is a way to further exoticize it to consumers in order for consumers to feel that they are consuming something authentic; authentic in the sense that the food is accurately representing food from China compare to the chef’s sense of authenticity.

Chop Suey

Lo Mein

Fried Rice

Phở

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Curry

Sushi

Works Cited Orkin, Ivan, and Chris Ying. Ivan Ramen: Love, Obsession, and Recipes from Tokyo's Most Unlikely Noodle Joint. New York: Ten Speed, 2013. Print.

All digital images that have been noted as labeled for reuse usage rights. The photographs were taken by Ashvika Dhir, Kate McCann, and me.

Manga has not been published into volumes yet: 



Shokugeki no Soma Chapter 164: Master and Disciple.

Writer: Tsukuda Yuuto Artist: Saeki Shun Assistant: Morisaki Yuki Hell’s Kitchen Chapter 29: The Truest of the Real Writer: Nishimura, Mitsuru; Amashi, Gumi

pg. 5, digital image of ramen pg. 7, I do not own photographs of SHINee, Ace of Angels (AOA), Big Bang or Girl’s Generation (SNSD) pg. 8, image of the cover of Ivan Ramen: Love, Obsession, and Recipes from Tokyo’s Most Unlikely Noodle Joint pg. 12, image of black sesame soup pg. 13, digital image of black sesame seeds, white rice, cheese cloth, and sieve pg. 14, digital image of a stone grinder (shi mo) pg. 15 digital image of zongzi and yazagwai pg. 16, digital image of black sesame powder and Nanyang black sesame paste pg. 28 digital image of chop suey, fried rice, lo mein, pho, curry and sushi

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