A few weeks ago, a ghost from lockdown resurfaced as I was scrolling through Instagram. No, it wasn’t empty grocery shelves. Or the sight of people carrying away the last rolls of toilet paper, or even unhappy children logged onto school-issued iPads. Rather, it was an old story, and a persistent one at that: Churros come from China. Some well-intentioned vlogger had repeated this piece of mythology for the umpteenth time. The Portuguese in the sixteenth century had visited C

This last week, my students from Food Crisis class did a final food preparation lab. This lab explored vegetarian and vegan alternatives to the meat-centered diet that we have been discussing all term, and we made two Chinese recipes: a Shanghainese vegan recipe made with braised gluten and a simple battered tofu recipe . Late Thursday night, however, I discovered that the Chinese market was out of dried gluten. Rather than admit defeat, I hopped onto the Chinese internet a

A few weeks ago, we had a crisis at home. Sofi was demanding Dino-nuggets, but we were out of ketchup. This took us by surprise. Like most households with preschoolers, we buy tons of ketchup. That day, I decided to capitalize on the crisis. What an opportunity to teach Sofi some food history! So I put the question to her, “Do you know where ketchup is from?” Sofi grinned and without missing a beat, she proclaimed, “From tomatoes!” Well, yes and no. ----- Nowadays, ketchup

A few months ago, I awoke to find it there. On my Facebook feed. “Hey Conejita! Thought of you when I saw this.” I groaned. It was the same darn story, “ The Secret History of Churros ” from 2011, but by another writer and with a slightly different name, “ How Spanish Chefs Stole Chinese Dough and Turned Churros into a Classic Dessert .” In a nutshell, the claim: Churros are from China. Or, to quote one of the earliest versions, “ The history of the churro is ancient and rev

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet -- Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet Mr. Shakespeare was admittedly not thinking about food when he wrote those lines about young love. But he should have. Roses taste great in Yunnan rose pastry. Such quibbles aside, these three lines capture our shared conundrum. For the last few weeks, we have debated whether ‘mint bibimbap’ is ‘bibimbap’ and whether Chinese wheat noodles or sopa de fideos can

In 1996, I found myself eating often at vegetarian buffets in southern Taiwan. On most days, I ordered plates of braised gluten. The gluten not only looked like meat, but also mimicked the flavor and texture of the real thing. It was also surprisingly tasty. Served in thick sauce and flanked by hearty mushrooms, gluten was the meat lover’s solution to meatless living. Vegetarian pork (Beijing 2019) I frequented vegetarian restaurants, because in those days, I didn’t eat meat

The idea for this blog goes back a ways. Five summers ago, I was sitting at a table with Yang Yong, a visiting student from China. We were doing what scholars usually do: acting like gluttons for punishment. So we decided to translate a group of medical manuscripts, discovered in a tomb from ancient Northwest China (first century AD). Each day, we sat at my desk on the fifth floor of Thayer and put our endurance to the test. Character by character, we transcribed the Chinese

A picture of noodles on a plate in Canton My first encounter with food history was in the sixth grade. One evening, my father came home to tell us over dinner that he had served as a judge in a cooking case. A local group had invited him, San Francisco’s Public Defender, to adjudicate a longstanding controversy: Who invented pasta, the Chinese or Italians? At the time, I did not grasp the import of the question. I was also unfamiliar with the story of Marco Polo bringing past

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

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

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

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

We continue our ruminations on the impact of Chinese migration on Asian eating. But instead of merely calling attention to this phenomenon, I would like to bring the discussion back to a larger problem that we touched upon earlier in the term. Can we talk about a cuisine having an "essence"? Are there drawbacks to thinking about cuisines as being "owned" by particular cultures? How do we demarcate the boundaries of a culture in a world where people move and recipes are shared

Over the last couple of weeks, we have tackled the role of colonialism in Asian food history. Since the sun is finally out and the weather has warmed up, it's time to change our tune and leave behind this sad history. As Linh Trinh pointed out on Thursday, it would be a mistake to chalk up everything in Asian food to European imperialism! I wholeheartedly agree! This week and next, we'll look at how human migration has done its part to make Asian food a lot yummier. This is a

Do you like halva or flaky Chinese New Year candy? Then read up on the history of this cosmopolitan treat.

Ever wonder what the rulers of China ate? Read all about the history of a sweet milk curd made with.... none other than rice beer.

Spicy, fragrant, and mint, this pastry reportedly came out of the emperor's own kitchen. Read all about it.

Nowadays, we associate Tibetans and Mongols with milk tea. But the Chinese once could not get enough of the stuff.

Who came up with the idea of mixing milk with black tea? If you think Europeans were the first to do this, think again.