Shellfish in Xiamen (SE China, Nov 2019) Ever wonder why Asians put tapioca pearls in milk tea? The origins of sushi, tempura, or ramen? Or whether it’s disrespectful to Chinese people to order Orange Chicken? If so, you’re in the right place. Welcome to ASIAN 258. If this were a regular semester, I would be congratulating you on making it into the class. After all, most of you are seniors; some of you have even been waiting years to take this introductory course. But to

Twenty years ago, I found myself in China during the Mid-Autumn Festival, living a stone's throw from the Forbidden Palace. The holiday was particularly memorable. Someone had gifted me a big box of assorted mooncakes, made in Taiwan. These pastries were different from the standard lotus root and bean paste varieties I grew up eating in my Cantonese family. The Taiwanese fillings were full of fruity, creamy flavors: matcha, taro, pineapple, candied melon. A veritable mooncake

By Benjamin Guan, Alison Li, and Andrea Lin April 26th, 2020

*Written by Ying-Ying Tiffany Liu One sunny day, I had lunch with two South African-born Chinese (SABC) friends at a northern-style...

Hello to all my peers in ASIAN 258! I hope you are all safe and healthy during this pandemic. During this pandemic, I like most of you,...

Whenever I look for recipes online, I try to find at least two to compare and end up going with kind of an average between the two...

Like you, I wonder about the summer. I think about the first thing I will do when I can leave my house. I also imagine various futures. Like most people in middle age, I dream about alternative careers. Should I have been a lawyer, a campaign manager, or a restaurateur? Say I woke up one morning and decided to sell high-end Asian? This is admittedly a weird thought. Anyone who has read the news knows better. It's a terrible time to be in food services. Restaurant workers make

As the parties awaited the verdict , temperatures soared outside. Not that this would have surprised anyone. It was late July in Taipei. By noon, the thermometer hit ninety-seven degrees, with fifty-four percent humidity -- a perfect time for a tall serving of energizing boba, or bubble tea. Picture the boba. Sweet milky tea poured over cubes of ice, with a generous scoop of black tapioca pearls. Maybe you have a preference for the flavoring -- taro, lychee, even matcha? Wh

I’ve always been a fan of crystal skin dumplings. They are quite popular in Guangzhou and Hong Kong -- if you have eaten dim sum, you’re already familiar with har gow ( xiajiao 蝦餃 ) and chive dumplings. Variants are also found in other parts of Southeast China -- and in Southeast Asia. I'm looking forward to trying a recipe for a Vietnamese tapioca starch dumpling soon. Start by selecting your starches. You can make the dumplings with a combination of wheat starch and tapio

I wrote the original version of this blogpost about a year ago, right as the COVID-19 crisis sent us all into lockdown. At the time, anti-Chinese sentiment had already spun out of control. America saw its worst spike in anti-Asian hate crimes in decades. And pictures of bat soup began to circulate on the internet. Then elected officials further stoked the flames of hatred and intolerance. There was first talk of "the Chinese virus" (Donald Trump), followed by racist comments

The name of this blog might as well be the title of the class. If there's a time to be upfront, that would be now. The end of the term draws close, and we must square the circle. So what is the orange chicken challenge? You might be imagining two guys sitting at a table eating as much of the stuff as they can keep down in an hour. Or battling chefs, vying to make the most appetizing plate for TV. If that were the challenge, I'd flunk. I am too much of a snob to eat orange chi

The Chinese are present in many ways in Buenos Aires (Argentina). But there’s a special type of restaurant that marries elements from the...

About twenty years ago, I found myself eavesdropping on a conversation about imperialism. The woman sitting next to me had taken issue with airline regulations. She thought it was outrageous that English was the lingua franca of air traffic control. “American imperialism,” she scoffed. “You Americans impose your culture, your language, your junk food on the rest of the world. You conquer with McDonald’s and KFC.” At the time, I was inclined to agree about the fast food. Wha

Full disclosure: I did *not* grow up making these. My mother was a southerner: born in Singapore, raised in Canton, schooled in Hong Kong. She would never have made her wheat noodles from scratch. We were a rice family. Learning to make dumplings has been a life goal. I recently succeeded after messing around some more with Sachika's tricks (Sachika taught our dumpling lab). My technique is basic, but it's dummy proofed. Ingredients Dumpling wrappers: Flour, 400 grams Salt, 4

The question is a real one. It was something that the Japanese government actually considered only a few years ago. In 2006, the Japanese government decided it had to act. The number of Japanese restaurants overseas had swelled, reaching in the tens of thousands. Some officials were thrilled (what a great opportunity, they thought, to exercise "soft" power). Others were alarmed. On their travels abroad, Japanese officials discovered that the "Japanese" food often looked and t

If you’re like me, you're probably not going out much these days. So let’s fantasize about the places we might travel if we were suddenly free to move about. Imagine that money’s no object. Say we are flying out business class, to a densely-populated Japanese city for a meal. What would you have? Many of you would go for sushi (that’s a different blog, and we can return to Tokyo next week). Others would scarf down a nice piece of steak. Some kobe beef 神戸ビーフ? Or perhaps yakin

Today, my mom taught me to make jinsi bing (金丝饼) – Chinese fried spiral pancake. Remember that Miranda told us that bing (饼) has long...

You don’t need to see it, because you can guess the plot. Ramen Girl (2008) is a cross between Karate Kid (1984), Tampopo (1985), Lost in Translation (2003), and your standard rom com. The story goes as follows. American girl (the late Brittany Murphy ) meets boy and trails him to Japan. Boy dumps girl. Girl drowns her sorrows in a bowl of ramen. Then she finds herself. She apprentices with a tough Japanese ramen chef, discovers the beauty of traditional Japanese culture,

This is a no-frills recipe. You need just three ingredients: flour, salt, and water. Special equipment is also superfluous. A knife, cutting board, rolling pin (or can), and pot are all that’s required. 1. Start with the flour. Measure out 200 grams (a cup of all-purpose is 125 grams. Gold Medal brand is slightly heavier, about 130 grams per cup). 2. Add 2 grams of salt and mix in a bowl (you’re safe with 1/8 teaspoon). 3. Measure out 100 ml of tap water (this is just under a

Best to make & enjoy while listening to Banana Pancakes by Jack Johnson. Today I'm sharing with all of you one of my favorite breakfast...