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 half cup). It should be at room temperature (in winter, you can make it a little warmer). 4. Now the critical step: Slowly add a little of the water to the flour. Use your fingers to incorporate. Then add a bit more of the water. Use only as much water as you need to make a ball. By the time you are done adding the water, there should be little or no flour sticking to the side of the mixing bowl. 5. The dough will still be a little hard and dry. That’s fine. As long as the ball sticks together, it’s ready to be kneaded for a few minutes. This should soften the dough and make it shinier. Wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and set aside for 30 minutes. After a half hour, the dough should be squishier. If it’s still pretty hard, let it sit for another 15 minutes. After the dough has rested for 30 minutes 6. Once the dough is ready, start a pot of water, sprinkling in a little salt. Knead the dough on a clean surface for a few minutes. Then cut the dough into halves. While you are working with one half, wrap the other to prevent drying. 7. Take the first half and roll it on a clean surface dusted with flour (or corn starch). I find it easiest to roll it out with the small Chinese rolling pins. They’re available on Amazon for a couple dollars. My husband, however, has had luck with a regular rolling pin. You’ll want to roll out the dough thin. This is probably where experience matters. After a few turns, you'll know how thin you like it. 8. After rolling out the dough, dust the top with starch or more flour. Don’t be stingy! You don’t want the dough to stick at the next stage. Now roll the dough like a loose cigar. Move the rolled dough to a cutting board and slice. I like to make it a little thicker than fettuccine or broad rice noodles. 9. Unroll the strands one by one. You’ll want to keep them on a dusted surface or in a pan lined with parchment paper. Add corn starch to prevent the strands from getting glued to each other. You can also hang them on the back of a chair or a cheap pasta drying rack. Hanging pasta (Sofia's toy is on the floor) 10. Once the water boils, put the noodles into the pot. Cooking time will vary. I usually go about 1-2 minutes depending on the thickness. I don’t eat mine al dente, but it’s good to keep a little firmness in the noodles (you don’t want mush). 11. Drain the noodles. If you are frying them, rinse in cold water. But if you are eating them right away, put them straight into a bowl with soy sauce, spices, and minced scallions. The recipe serves two moderate eaters, or one voracious one. Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. https://thecuriouseater.substack.com/?utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page

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 tasted wrong. They investigated. Much to their horror, they discovered that there were few Japanese cooks in "Japanese restaurants" across the globe. A roll made by Professor Juhn Ahn (J. Ahn) Japanese Sushi (E. Brightwell) Then someone came up with a brilliant proposal: Why not certify “genuine” Japanese restaurants overseas? The benefits were obvious. A certification system would help the consumer, who otherwise would not know better. Authentic Japanese food would then stand out against the rest. More importantly, the system would protect the national brand. In case you're wondering, this was all for naught. The next year, the Japanese government abandoned the policy and disbanded its army of sushi police. But the proposal to certify Japanese restaurants is still worth considering. At the very least, it offers some food for thought (yes, the pun is intended). More importantly, it raises questions about the meaning of authenticity (our last key word of the term). So what is authentic Japanese food, you ask? Is it food that looks and tastes exactly as it does in Japan? Is it purely Japanese food, food devoid of foreign influence? Or perhaps just food made by Japanese chefs, for Japanese mouths? ---------- The odds are good that you already love sushi. Perhaps you have popped into Totoro for a quick lunch, or gone on a date at the Slurping Turtle? When I was a kid, things were different, however. Sushi was special. It was exotic enough that the world was divided between sushi lovers and sushi virgins. I would have to plead with my dad to go out for sushi. People my grandparents' generation refused to eat the stuff. No seaweed and raw fish for them. But that was thirty years ago. Nowadays, sushi is almost as common as the burrito. You can grab a box of it at Kroger or at the convenience store. CVS sells futomaki. We Victors ™ are not alone in our esteem for sushi. In 2017, there were more than 4,000 sushi joints in the US. Sushi, of course, is far more than an American fad. It's also popular in Europe and Latin America. A billion Chinese also have a craving for the stuff. This is the premise of the anxiety-ridden documentary for today (the full-length feature is on Canvas). ---------- Sushi is washoku 和食, traditional, indigenous Japanese eating. It's important enough that UNESCO made it an Intangible Heritage in 2013. Washoku can be tricky to put your finger on -- even though we have little trouble imagining a traditional Japanese meal. Right now, I bet you can see the raw slices of fish laid out on a bed of steamed rice, the bowl of miso, a serving of seaweed or spinach salad. At least one prime minister has tried to capture the essence of traditional Japanese cooking -- on Youtube . He characterized washoku as a serving of rice and soup, plus three sides. Usually, one of those is fish. ---------- Washoku may be most easily grasped through contrasts -- something facilitated by the Japanese language. Japanese distinguishes washoku from those foods with foreign origins . There’s yōshoku ( foods of recent Western origin). We’ve met it already in class. The American-styled hamburger patty (hambaga) is a classic example. But there’s a lot more. Picture cream stew and sweet Japanese curry . The latter, of course, represents a local Japanese adaptation of the British rendition of a South Asian dish. There’s also pasta with sprinklings of nori, fried chicken or karage , omuraisu (Japanese omelet), and the many faces of pizza . Mayo pizza, cheese and honey pizza, butter soy sauce clam pizza, pizza with marshmallows. Yes, marshmallows. Washoku also stands in contrast to chuka 中華, or Chinese-styled foods. Chuka could be ramen , chahan (fried rice), gyoza , tantan men , and mapo tofu . A number of you have asked about the gyoza: that came to Japan from North China during World War II. The tripartite division, of course, gets muddy upon closer inspection. Picture a bowl of miso soup with small cubes of tofu floating in the broth. The soy, of course, came to Japan from China during the Heian era ( 794-1185) . In those days, people called it “Tang curds,” after the Tang dynasty ( 618-907) . Tempura is also washoku . So too is h ambāgu . I don’t need to tell you where these came from. Go back a week or two. Remember me? (E. Brightwell) Tempura now washoku (E. Brightwell) Then, there’s the matter of sushi, the ultimate washoku experience. It’s easy to imagine that sushi is a timeless Japanese tradition. But it’s not very old. The modern raw fish and rice combination appeared sometime in the late seventeenth century – after tempura. What is more, sushi used to be a pungent fermented fish called narezushi. To make it, cooks buried the fish with rice in the ground for up to 3 years. Raw fish galore (E. Brightwell) Sashimi (E. Brightwell) Guess where this practice of food preservation came from? Sushi has a distant cousin in Shunde, southeast China (here's the recipe ). ----------- The sushi police do have a point. Well, sort of. If you have invested your life in making great sushi, it can be disconcerting to find it in CVS. As one Japanese minister, Matsuoka Toshikazu , put it, “What people need to understand is that real Japanese food is a highly developed art. It involves all the senses; it should be beautifully presented, use genuine ingredients and be made by a trained chef.” What’s more, the sushi on this side of the Pacific diverges from what you find in Japan (at least thirty years ago). Just contemplate the California roll. On the face of things, the avocado and cream cheese doesn’t look like traditional Japanese fare. Because it’s not. Its presence reveals the forces of l ocal adaptation . Sushi chefs working in North America tweaked the recipe to fit with the local palate. Since older Americans have trouble eating raw fish, that had to go. Hence, the popularity of faux crab and cooked eel. But this was not the only change. American sushi became spicier, sweeter, and even healthier. In some places, brown rice replaces the sticky rice. The brown rice ain't delicious, but it is better for your glycemic load. The US, in fact, is the home of many sushi inventions. There’s also Spider, Philadelphia, and Caterpillar. As one might expect, these foods work well with the American palate. They not only have loads of cream cheese and avocado, but also smoked salmon. Americans are not alone in enjoying new kinds of sushi. The Dutch take their sushi with salted herring. Singaporeans demand curry. Mexicans add serrano peppers. Some of these creations are the work of ethnic Japanese chefs. Take the man behind the California roll, Mr. Tojo . Don’t believe the name. The California roll did not originate from California. Tojo was a chef in Vancouver. He came up with the avocado, cream cheese, and faux crab combination because some of his customers had trouble stomaching raw fish. He soon noticed that the roll was especially popular with Californians. The Japanese government has recognized Tojo for his efforts to promote Japanese cuisine abroad. In 2016, they made him a “cultural ambassador.” ----------- Non-Japanese cooks, too, are part of the sushi landscape. But the Japanese government has not showered these chefs with praise. Matsuoka, in fact, denounced them in his statement. “What we are seeing now are restaurants that pretend to offer Japanese cooking, but are really Korean, Chinese, or Filipino.” This led him to conclude, “We must protect our food culture” -- by which he meant, “We must protect our food culture from those people.” Sigh. My cousin, who lives in Boston, is one of those people. Matsuoka’s remarks were insensitive -- at best. But they are still revealing. They tell us that he not only demanded that Japanese food taste the same everywhere, but also imposed a racial requirement. Real Japanese food can only be made by people with Japanese genes. People didn’t care for Matsuoka’s remarks . The media called him out for it. Even I am offended. --------- Hurt feelings aside, the problem remains. What is authentic Japanese sushi? Obviously, you can find chefs who only make their rolls with raw fish, old-fashioned ingredients, and rice. A few years back, I participated in a demo, sponsored by the Japanese consulate. The chef showed us how to make cucumber maki. She explained how she spent several years just perfecting the techniques for producing the sweet, vinegar rice, and getting the texture just right. The woman also showed us how to roll the sushi: which side to spread the rice and how much cucumber to add. Naturally, the demo was eye opening. The subtle flavoring offered a bold contrast to the stuff I could get down the street. Her sushi had no spicy mayo, deep-fried eel, or sweet sauce. Just meticulously prepared rice and a fresh cucumber. Roe Rolls (E. Brightwell) But Japanese consumers eat more than cucumber maki or sashimi these days. California rolls are also popular in Japan. There’s also a market for other examples of “authentic American sushi.” Some restaurants serve Spider, Philadelphia, Caterpillar, Spicy Tuna, and even Sexy. Yes, you heard me right. That’s a thing in Japan. There’s a restaurant called Inside Out Rolls (a reference to the fact that American sushi has rice on the outside and nori on the inside). Then there are the local riffs on the riff. Picture the avocado shrimp, demi-mayo hambagu sushi, sweet and spicy seafood sauce, and corn sushi with Japanese mayo. All of these pay tribute to the global fascination with sushi and Japan’s many culinary influences. As you might expect, corn sushi isn’t much like the stuff you get at CVS. For one thing, it often serves with mayo, and the mayo is different: creamier, eggier, and sweeter than the spread you buy in the states. So what is authentic sushi? It's a bit like the corn sushi: a riddle, a riff on someone else's riff, an endless conveyor belt of sushi interpretations . Warsaw . London. Osaka. See ya on YellowDig! Sources: Rumi Sakamoto & Matthew Allen, " There's something fishy about that sushi: how Japan interprets the global sushi boom." Japan Forum (2011). http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjfo20 Katarzyna Cwiertka and Yasuhara Miho , Branding Japanese Food: From Meibutsu to Washoku (Hawaii, 2020). Ishige Naomichi. The History and Culture of Japanese Food. Taylor and Francis, 2001. Kindle Edition. Chunghao Pio Kuo, "An Untold Story of Raw-Fish Cuisine: Aquatic Environments, Culinary Characteristics, and the Shifting Tastes in Ming–Qing Guangdong." Draft. Rath, Eric. "Some Tasting Notes on Year-Old Sushi: Funazushi , Japan's Most Ancient and Potentially Its Most Up-to-Date Sushi." Gastronomica (2020) 20 (1): 34–41. Podcast Version. https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2020.20.1.34 ---- Oishii: The History of Sushi (Reaktion Books, [Forthcoming, 2021). Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. https://thecuriouseater.substack.com/?utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page

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 grams Water, 200 grams (room temperature) Cornstarch or flour for dusting Filling: Ground meat, 1 lb Scallions, 2 stalks (minced) Onions, 1/2 cup (minced) Garlic, 3 cloves (minced) Soy sauce, 2 T Salt, 1.5-2 teaspoons (or to taste) Sesame oil, 1 teaspoon Ginger, 2 teaspoons (minced) Cornstarch, 3 T Your choice of vegetables: You can use reconstituted wood-ears, sliced thin and minced (1/2 cup) Spinach, stir-fried until wilted (1/2 cup; frozen fine) Spices: Your choice. I like my food with more spices. Not everyone is a fan. I don't put minced ginger these days because my daughter complains about the spiciness. I like a little Sichuan peppercorn; my daughter objects (so no numbing at my house). For lamb, beef, or goat. I use about a tablespoon of cumin and coriander, then add a handful of minced cilantro. Equipment: Pot Rolling pin (thinner is better) Knife 1. Start by making your filling. Be sure to mince everything well. Mix everything together until incorporated. The corn starch will prevent your filling from getting too wet or leaky. It will also tenderize the meat. Marinate in the fridge for an hour. 2. To make the dumpling, you need to follow the same procedure I outlined in the Simple Noodle Recipe . Measure out the dry ingredients and place them into a bowl. Then very gradually add the water, a little at a time. In many cases, you won't need all of the water. You'll know that you are done when you have a stiff ball, and there's no more flour sticking to the side of the mixing bowl. 3. Knead the dough for 2 minutes. Then cover in plastic wrap. Let it sit for 30 minutes. If the dough is still very stiff after a half hour, you can let it sit for another 15 minutes. 4. Unwrap the dough and knead for another 2 minutes. Then make a ball. Flatten the ball into a disc about 7/10 inches thick, poke a hole right in the middle, and then pinch outwards to make a bagel. Keep pinching and squeezing until the "bagel" has a big hole. 5. Cut the "bagel" on one side. Roll it out to make a thin, long log. You can divide the log into three or four parts (just be sure to cover the ones that you are not using with plastic wrap to prevent drying). 6. Cut the log into small parcels between 9-15 grams (9 for smaller dumplings, 15 for big ones). See the picture. 7. Now the tricky part: Roll the parcels in the palm of your hand to make a small ball. Then press the ball with the palm of your hand to make a disc. Use the rolling pin to create a thin disc about 3.5 cm in diameter. Traditional chefs only roll out the edges of the disc and leave the middle of the dumpling skin a little thicker. Experience will tell you have much you need to roll it out, and how thin you can make it before compromising the integrity of the skin. My impression is that you are going for a skin that is thinner than what a pasta cutter at its lowest setting will give you. 8. Most cooks roll out the parcels first and then fill and fold the dumplings. If you do this, it's important to separate the layers of skins with cornstarch, otherwise the skins will stick. Also cover the skins to prevent drying. 9. Next comes the part that I have struggled with the most: the folding. Start by putting a dumpling in the palm of your non-dominant hand. Then put about 1 tablespoon of the fillings (more if you have bigger dumplings) right in the center of your skin. Use your hand to fold the dumpling in half. Again, experience will tell you how much filling you get into these skins! 10. To see how I seal, check out the pictures here. Basically, you want to create a fold.You'll bring in one of the ends to the middle to create "flaps." Press. Then tuck the other flap away from your body. Repeat on the other side. Press the edge of the dumpling to seal. 11. Store the dumplings on a surface dusted with lots of cornstarch (flour is ok, too). Don't let the dumplings touch each other, otherwise they will stick to each other. 12. You can freeze them at this point. Or cook them right away. Steaming takes about 15 minutes (make sure you have enough water in the pot). To boil, you want the water to come to a full boil. If you have a giant pot, you can put 12 in at a time (be careful not to splash the boiling water!). If you have a smaller pot, stick with about 6. Stir the dumplings to make sure they don't stick together. 13. Let the water return to a medium boil, then add about 6 ounces of cold water. Wait for the water to return to a medium boil. Repeat the same process two more times. 14. Serve with dipping sauce. I use chili, soy sauce, and black vinegar. My daughter consumes these simply with sweet soy sauce; my husbands skips the chili. Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. https://thecuriouseater.substack.com/?utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page

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. What caught my attention, however, was her remark about air traffic control. ---------- The arguments should have a familiar ring. Academics have sounded the alarm about McDonald’s and KFC for some time. Some think fast food represents a second wave of Western imperialism. They complain that burgers are destroying the world. Junk food lays waste to native habitats, and eradicates local cultures, languages, religions, and food systems – all the while leaving mediocre American cooking in its wake. Consider the following: “ Just as religious missionaries replace indigenous culture with European culture, now we have Western corporations replacing local culture and regional identity with a homogeneous global identity of Coke and Kit-Kat and pudding. To me, the loss of regional identity is as tragic as the increase in obesity.” ---------- I’m not here to debate about whether “the loss of regional identity” is worse than obesity. Instead, we need to consider a much deeper problem: Should you feel guilty about eating fast food in Asia? Or, to rephrase: Is it OK to order from KFC Beijing after taking ASIAN 258? ---------- I remember the dearth of fast food on my first unsupervised trip to China. In the summer of 1994, Western-styled fast foods were few and far between. KFC opened its first Chinese branch in 198 7. McDonald’s was just celebrating its fourth birthday in the Middle Kingdom. My arrival coincided with the opening of the Hard Rock Café in downtown Beijing. What can I say? Only good things come from getting to know me. Things are different now. The Golden Arches are everywhere, so too is the General. You can get Taco Bell and even P.F. Chang in Shanghai. Food scholars are not thrilled with the situation, to put it mildly. Some of them argue that China has paid a high price for turning its back on the traditional diet and opting for fast food. Diabetes has become an epidemic. Every other adult I know has high-blood pressure or cardiovascular disease. Cancer has reared its ugly head everywhere. And cooking skills have declined. Blame naturally falls on the Westernization of the diet. Picture kids gobbling down junk food in front of the TV or computer screens, the overabundance of refined carbs and fat, loads of processed meat and sugar. Lots of sugar. ---------- Fast food is big business in China. According to one 2019 report by What's on Weibo , the industry witnessed breakneck growth over the last decade. The first half of last year even saw an almost 10 percent increase compared to the previous year. As you might imagine, Western brands top the chart. KFC is number one, with McDonald’s on its heels. Burger King has captured third place. But Asian franchises are making gains. Take the Japanese chain, Yoshinoya. It now has position 10, having squeezed out Subway, In 2013, the American sandwich brand held that position. Ajisen Ramen scored number 8, reflecting the popularity of “Japanese” food with Chinese consumers. Chinese brands are even more popular than these Japanese franchises. There’s Yonghe King (#9), which focuses on noodles. Country Style Cooking (#7) features stir-fry dishes and Kung Pao Chicken. Real Kungfu (#6) is good for rice bowls. Dico’s (#5) is famous for its (Chinese) fried chicken. Home Original Chicken (#4) won fame not for its chicken, but meatballs, fried gluten , and spicy sour fish. Go figure. What does the report tell us? Should we interpret KFC’s preeminent position as a sign that Western fast food will soon displace the traditional Chinese diet? Will global capitalism bring a wholesale transformation of the Chinese food system? Will “we” Americans dominate China by imposing our foodways? ---------- Before we get carried away with these dire predictions, a little historical perspective is in order: When Western franchises first turned up in China in the late 80s, they faced an uphill battle. A market for their goods simply did not exist. The average Chinese had no experience eating at McDonald’s. Instead, what they were used to were collective dining halls, which dished out unappetizing fare. Restaurants were out of reach for most people, being expensive and reserved for the Communist elite (and the occasional foreign guest). The closest analogy to fast food was the boxed lunch for workers, beginning in the 1970s. Think Communist bento. What is more, fast food was pricey. McDonald’s first opened its doors in a prime real estate location, in the Wangfujing district. The only people who could afford McDonald’s were young professionals, members of China’s emerging middle class. They sought out the Golden Arches not for the food, but the ambiance. Most people found burgers uninspiring. But they liked the air conditioning and the fact that they had a place outside of the house to hang out. Besides, the restaurants were “hygienic” or “clean.” They were also a good place to advertise your cosmopolitan credentials. Going to fast foods once signaled that you were moneyed and modern. But the appeal of Western fast food soon faded. Urban incomes rose sharply after the late 1990s and early 2000s. As China prospered, visa restrictions loosened. My friends traveled the world, making a habit of producing food porn everywhere they stopped: Istanbul, Jerusalem, Paris, Mexico City, LA. In short, McDonald's and KFC could no longer rely on a stiff price tag for their cache. People were not eating there anymore because it was expensive. Nor were they turning to fast foods to save money, either. Price comparisons reveals KFC to be in the middle of the pack. ---------- Western franchises survived in China because they adapted. Beginning in the late 1990s, fast-food franchises took one of two approaches. The first was to focus on consistency. McDonald’s exemplified this trend. To be sure, there are some local touches to their products. In Japan, for example, you get silverware. And in India, paneer takes the place of beef in burgers. In China, you can find soy milk, and in Europe, light beer. The adjustments, though, were modest. McDonald’s in those days wanted to ensure that its brand remained consistent. Regardless of where you are in the world, you can expect to have the fries cut to the same length and cooked in the same oil for the same amount of time. KFC, in contrast, tried something else. It altered the menus to fit with prevailing local tastes -- and sometimes radically. KFC here is all about the fried chicken. Hence the name. In China, KFC sells: Bacon Mushroom Chicken Rice Beef and Shrimp Soup Noodles Curry and Rice Braised Pork Belly Egg Custard Tarts The menus, however, were not the only sign that KFC adapted to local tastes and habits. Aware that Chinese workers had a long history of boxed lunches, they focused their efforts on the delivery business. KFC will “send” (song 送) the meal to you. They also played with giving out “freebies” like drinks to consumers, a tactic common in Chinese restaurants. Their marketing team, furthermore, went to lengths to argue eating KFC fit with Chinese culture. Their commercials featured loving grandparents ordering KFC takeout to nourish their families. They also showed children talking to their parents. In one, a young professional told her mother not to worry about her diet. “Mom, I am eating at KFC.” The implication here, of course, was that KFC was like “mom’s cooking.” Healthy, wholesome. The commercials even identified KFC customers with martial art heroes and traditional warriors. KFC’s efforts paid off. The brand rose to the top of the list, largely because its leadership knew that it needed Chinese consumers more than Chinese consumers needed KFC. To survive, KFC aligned its products and services with the Chinese cultural matrix . Not surprisingly, its competitors have fallen in step. Everyone now has the memo: Locally adapt or perish! ---------- I close this blog with an anecdote. About ten years ago, I was doing research in China. It was lunch time, and one of my oldest friends stopped by my hotel. I was in no mood that day for a big lunch: couldn’t handle a lot of meat and baijiu on a hot July afternoon. But my friend was hungry, so I suggested that we go around the corner for a quick bite. “There’s a bakery there,” I told him. “We can grab a light lunch. Maybe a sandwich?” He made a face. “Sandwich?” he asked. “Why not grab a burger at McDonald’s?” The Bay Area food snob in me protested. “Why the hell would I eat that? It’s unhealthy. Gross.” He looked perplexed. “What’s the difference between a sandwich and a burger? Both of them are a piece of meat between two slices of bread. Only the burger is better. It’s hot, not cold. Cold food is bad for you.” The story reveals a lot -- about why my friends refuse to eat sandwiches. About why Subway has been less successful. About why McDonald's has survived despite local competition. Like my mother, these friends have ideas about food that derive from Chinese medicine. For them, there could be nothing less healthy or appetizing than a tuna fish sandwich or a potato salad -- even at the height of summer. Yes, the cultural matrix will survive a trip to McDonald's. Strong feelings about sandwiches or fast food? Stories about the Golden Arches in other countries? See ya on YellowDig! Sources: David Bell and Mary L. Shelman. "KFC’s Radical Approach to China." Harvard Business Review (November 2011 Issue). https://hbr.org/2011/11/kfcs-radical-approach-to-china Colin Campbell, The China Study: Revised and Expanded Edition: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, and Long-Term Health (BenBella, 2016): “Lessons from China,” 59-100. Manya Koetse, " China’s Best Fast-Food Restaurants: These Are the 11 Most Popular Chains in the PRC These are China’s most popular fast-food chains and the most important trends in the industry." October 24, 2019. https://www.whatsonweibo.com/chinas-best-fast-food-restaurants-these-are-the-11-most-popular-chains-in-the-prc/ Karen von Deneen, Karen; Wei, Qin; Tian, Jie; Liu, Yijun, "Obesity in China: What are the Causes?” Current Pharmaceutical Design 17.12, (April 2011), 1132-1139. Yunxiang Yan, "Of Hamburger and Social Space: Consuming McDonald's in Beijing," in Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik eds., Food and Culture: A Reader (Routledge: 2012), 449-71. Further reading: James L. Watson ed., Golden Arches East: McDonald's in East Asia, Second Edition (Stanford, 2006). Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. https://thecuriouseater.substack.com/?utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page

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 chicken, and bad at preparing it. My daughter used to stick her binky back into her mouth after one bite. The orange chicken challenge is as much an emotional exercise as a culinary or academic one. It requires we abandon familiar prejudices and assumptions, finding new ways of evaluating food and loosening our attachment to the hazy concept that has haunted us all term. By which, I mean authenticity . ----------- The challenge was inspired by something on YouTube. By now, you are probably aware that I spend a fair amount of time on line. As it turns out, I was trying to come up with something inspiring to say about Asian American cuisine when I glimpsed, “Chinese People Try Panda Express for the First Time.” A slogan was born. The premise of the video captivated me: Asian American college students offering their grandparents a taste of Panda. In case you are wondering, orange chicken makes an appearance – at the end. Predictably, some of the older folks thought the food was all wrong. Others were more equivocal. Watch the video. The kids, however, were of a different opinion. Panda is just gross, by which they mean American. ----------- Orange chicken does not enjoy much esteem these days. It may be Panda’s most popular offering, but discerning eaters take a dim view of it – and let’s face it, American Chinese food more generally. Munchies ran an episode only a few years ago that summed up these views. The star was Han Jiang, the founder of Han Dynasty , a wildly-popular franchise in Philly. He’s your typically edgy cook. I won't spoil the fun, though. To hear what he can do with F bombs, click on the link. I'll say this, however. Mr. Han may not have the most elegant way of expressing himself, but he cuts straight to the chase. Chinese food in America, in his view, is an insult, a hoax. It came from the old days, when unskilled Chinese laborers had to find a way to make money. So, and I paraphrase, they cooked a bunch of crap and passed it off on white people. ----------- You’ve no doubt heard a version of this story. It’s so old it predates me. When I was a child, my mother would steer clear of some restaurants in San Francisco. She would shake her head at those establishments with tablecloths serving orange chicken. Those are for white people, she would say. They need fancy decorations, not flavor. College in the Bay Area introduced me to more “sophisticated” variations on the theme. Need to know why Chinese food in America is such a degenerate copy, a "distortion" of Chinese cuisine? Just look at the American consumer. He can’t handle "real" Chinese. He needs his sweets, his grease, his MSG -laced chicken. There ain’t much Chinese in American Chinese. It’s American -- in the worst possible sense of the word. ----------- But is American Chinese really all that different from the other foods we have explored this term? On the face of things, it should be. After all, we are in the United States, and we eat it. Besides, 2019 was the year of Chinese Food Controversies . (Yes, that was so 2019.) The season kicked off with the opening of Lucky Lee’s on the Upper East Side, which advertised its selection of “clean Chinese.” Yelp soon had to shut down the comments section on the restaurant’s website. Reviewers attacked the tasteless cooking, the racially-insensitive marketing, and the lack of Chinese people in the kitchen. The Lee in Lucky Lee referred to the first name of one of the owners, a Mr. Lee Haspel. The restaurant has since closed its doors. Undoubtedly, the controversy speaks -- or spoke -- to the times. Asian Americans have become assertive about who should represent them -- and their culinary traditions. For some, the uproar raised philosophical questions about who has the right to make and sell Chinese food. For others, the implications were practical and pressing. When can I eat my orange chicken in peace? ----------- The politics are new, but the controversy is not. Americans have long been anxious consumers of Chinese food. Chinese men began coming to the coastal United States in the mid-nineteenth century. Our history textbooks like to focus on the Gold Rush. But we in ASIAN 258 know better. The men who migrated from Taishan, or Toishan, in Southeast China, were part of a far larger exodus. This was an exodus that brought the world pad Thai and lumpia , chifas or Chinese-styled restaurants in Lima, and cream cheese jalapeno spring rolls in Mexico . It was also the same historical movement that inspired my ancestors to try their luck in British Malaya. My mother’s love of chilis and curry, so atypical of continental Cantonese, testified to that journey. While the first migrants from Asia were not in the restaurant business, it wasn't long before stereotypes about Chinese cooking took hold. American ads played off stereotypes of Chinese workers as rat eaters and bakers of puppy pies (more on this Wednesday). Despite these inauspicious beginnings, Chinese emerged as America’s cooks. But this reversal owed less to the discovery of a venerable culinary tradition than to the Exclusion Act. After its passing in 1882, Chinese immigrants basically had only two choices of profession. They could be laundromat owners or operate restaurants. Many of them chose the latter. Chinese restaurants soon multiplied in twentieth-century US cities. Americans did not like Chinese people and would have objected to intermarrying with them (my great grandmother expressed her disappointment when she learned of my parents’ upcoming nuptials). But Americans could not live without their Chinese cooking. San Franciscans liked the way Chinese cooks prepared steaks and mixed cocktails, two staples of Chinese-run eateries. They also adored chop suey. Really adored. Post-war Americans also appreciated the convenience and low cost of Chinese food. They found the thick brown sauces that went with the egg foo young and stir-fry to their liking. What can I say? It fit with the American cultural matrix. From Tai Ping Koon (an old restaurant in HK specializing in Chinese styled Western food) But questions dogged these mainstays of the American diet. A lawsuit in the early twentieth century confirmed the suspicions of many Americans -- and stereotypes about Chinese people. Americans were also upset to learn that a visiting Chinese dignitary had not heard of chop suey. To them, Chinese cooks had turned out to be disingenuous agents when they had passed off an American invention as a Chinese delicacy. The 70s and 80s brought renewed interest -- and scrutiny -- to Chinese food. By the mid-1960s, the Exclusion Act was retired. Chinese immigrants settled in coastal cities, moving not just from coastal Southeast China but also Taiwan. Like their predecessors, the new immigrants worked and operated restaurants. But this time, those restaurants were for the immigrants, as well as hungry Americans. Americans of my father’s generation soon noticed the difference. The cooking of the newcomers was more varied than the stuff in classic American Chinese diners. Chinese food in America soon got a much-needed face lift. Chop suey gave way to dim sum and pot stickers. But the real lesson came later. Millions of American heartlanders watched with fascination as Nixon took his first bite of Peking duck (and even used chop sticks!) during a state visit to China in 1972. They, too, soon clamored for “Mandarin,” then Szechuan, and Hunan. A generation of Americans like me grew up without a taste of egg foo young and chop suey. The end of the Cold War ushered in the rule of General Tso. ----------- But what to do about the orange chicken? Should we follow Han Jiang’s advice and stick with the “real” stuff? Here, I would have to disagree with Mr. Han. But I would grant him at least one point. Classic American Chinese ain’t much like the stuff in Asia -- at this point in time, at least. You can still find fried and breaded chicken or fish, served with some kind of sweet sauce and fruit. And yes, sweet and sour pork is still a hit with Hong Kongers. But I’m betting that if you need orange chicken, you'll be out of luck-- that is, unless you visit P.F. Chang at the Shanghai airport or one of those American Chinese nostalgia joints. Check out Ho Lee Fook if you are curious. Sweet and sour pork in Hong Kong (Nov 2017) ----------- But why would we expect differently? After all, Chinese food has been a staple of American life for more than a century. If there is one takeaway from this class, it would be Brownie’s Law of Local Adaptation . Any dish will mutate as it moves through space and time. Some people like to talk about inventions, distortions, and things lost in translation. I think about food through the metaphor of my mixed genes. The encounter with new ingredients and consumers will inevitably leave its mark on a dish. There’s a reason why there are marshmallows on Japanese pizzas -- and miso paste in the ramen. If we stop to think about it, orange chicken isn’t dissimilar from ramen. I mean logically, not gastronomically. To be sure, there’s certainly a price differential. I’m waiting for the day when someone sets up a shop in Hell’s Kitchen selling orange chicken. That day may not be too far off, however. Michelin chef Brandon Jew has set up a high-end version of classic American Chinese in San Francisco. But like other foods with legs, orange chicken resulted from a series of encounters. All sorts of encounters: commercial, intimate, and fraught encounters (here, I am thinking about inter-generational strife). It’s easy to imagine that American Chinese was defined, or doomed, by the confrontation with the white American customer. But that is only one part of the story. The consumers -- and makers -- of Chinese food in the Americas have long been all colors. White, red, brown, black. They have existed also outside of restaurants -- in homes, for example. Just as banana lumpia r esulted from the negotiations between native Filipino women and their Chinese husbands, American Chinese cooking also sprung out of more intimate contexts. Immigrant women and their daughters have married out to American husbands at a breakneck pace in the last few generations. This has resulted in modifications. My mother knew better than to pull out the fermented tofu "cheese" at the table. She also prepared a lot of beef at home and ditched the chilis (my dad's stomach could not handle the Singaporean layer of her Cantonese cooking). The modifications have also reflected the struggle between immigrant parents and their American-raised children. Like grocery supplies, offspring have a way of shaping diets. A kid will not only introduce the older generations to new ingredients and recipes, but also demand certain dishes and flavorings over others. The palates of children reflect more than what their parents like. School lunch programs, peers, and general market conditions have left their stamp on Chinese American cooking. You could have asked my mother. I would not eat chicken feet if my life depended on it -- or, for that matter, white rice. Blame vanity and the California cultural matrix. But there’s karma. I now find myself remaking her recipes for a picky third-generation eater. The scallions have since vanished from the pancakes. ----------- At the end of the day, we need to get over it. Han Jiang needs to get over it. I need to get over it. Orange chicken may never satisfy the food snob in you or me, but it isn’t an insult to Chinese cooking. If someone asks you, just tell 'em it's local adaptation. Thoughts about Chinese American food? See ya all on YellowDig! Sources: Andrew Coe, Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States (Oxford, 2009) Yong Chen, Chop Suey, USA: The Story of Chinese Food in America. (Columbia, 2015). John Jung, Sweet and Sour: Life in Chinese Family Restaurants (Yin and Yang, 2010). Haiming Liu, From Canton Restaurant to Panda Express: A history of Chinese food in the United States (Rutgers, 2015). Anne Mendelson. Chow Chop Suey: Food and the Chinese American Journey (Columbia, 2016). Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. https://thecuriouseater.substack.com/?utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page

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 by Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas). Under the circumstances, I felt compelled to respond to current events. Unfortunately, these comments remain as relevant as they did last April. Hate crimes against Asian Americans and Asians have continued to rise in the United States and the rest of the Western world. When I composed this blog, I struggled with finding the right format. I ultimately decided against simply lecturing Cornyn. Instead, I went the biting satirical route. My husband, though, thinks it sounds angry, which is fine. I will be angry about this until the U.S. makes progress on these issues. Dear Senator Cornyn, I am *so* sorry that the nasty liberal media has pounced on you. You were just giving an opinion when you blamed the COVID-19 pandemic on Chinese cultural practices. It's not every day one reads: “People eat bats and snakes and dogs and things like that. These viruses are transmitted from the animal to the people, and that’s why China has been the source of a lot of these viruses.” I am sure you're wondering why people are so "touchy" these days. You're probably thinkin' to yourself, "Who really cares if hate crimes against Asians and Asian Americans have surged recently"? Or: "Why do folks insist on sticking with the facts? Yes, swine flu did come from North America. But facts are annoying." It’s clear that this virus has ruined your day. It must be hard watching your government get heat for its handling of the pandemic. Most of all, I'm truly sorry that Chinese eating habits have made you lose sleep. I have learned from Instagram that you are a real dog lover. It must be difficult staying up at night knowing that those Asians next door (like me!) may have designs on Fido. But you'll take heart in knowing that I am a fan. I'd like to second your call to get tough on zoonotic diseases. You're right. People eat all sorts of unclean things. Yuppies in Michigan hunt and grill deer. Those idiots talk about it being organic and free range. Meanwhile, the limousine liberals of New York and San Francisco order civet coffee from Amazon. There are even people who make sausages out of alligators in Louisiana. If you don't believe me, have your staffers check out exoticmeats.com. They even sell the stuff to liberal bastions like Ann Arbor . And I’ve heard that in Nolan County, Texas there are rattlesnake roundups . Some folks down there even eat the slimy crawlers. I'm sure those people didn't vote for you, however. Since human-animal contact is dangerous, I’m looking forward to reading your proposal to ban all hunting and industrial meat production. You can join forces with Bridget Bardot and other racists who love pets . Your pals at the NRA and in big business will just have to get over it. With regards to your sleep, let me reiterate that I am very, very sorry. Those nineteenth-century stereotypes have no right disrupting your REM cycles. What's more, you have my personal assurance. Your pooch is safe with me and my kind. Besides, my friends and relatives in Greater China have never devoured a pet. There’s now a ban in Shenzhen and Taiwan . The Chinese Communist government wants to curtail personal freedom by paving the way for a blanket ban on dogmeat . The closest thing I have seen to dog meat in Asia is this puppy mousse . By the way, the sharpei mold’s available on Amazon . Americans rave about it. Mousse "Dog" (Nov 2018) I do apologize if these details make your head spin. Things would be simpler if we Asians all thought and ate the same things. Details tend to muddy black and white argumentation, and such fuzzy thinking is best left to universities! But just in case you ever need to defend your comments again, may I offer you, sir, a few tips? Call it insider wisdom. Next time someone attacks you as a racist, just cite a few ancient Chinese texts. Out of context. It will help you establish our "mentality." If you want, I can dig up a recipe for mashed dog à la winter melon. That will supply evidence that all Asians have eaten dog every day since time immemorial. You can ignore the fact that the recipe was from the fifteenth century, or for rich people. No American needs to know that it was supposed to revive tired people on hot summer days before air-conditioning and Starbucks. Your team should also overlook all evidence of opposition in China to dog slaughter. Apparently, some 14th century doctor thought that eating canine meat would make you sick. He also concurred that dogs were man’s best friend. But never mind. After you have de-funded all foreign language study, no one will know the better. Americans don't need to think too hard -- for example, about the bad karma that Chinese Buddhists thought came from devouring dog meat and beef . Our meat industry is looking forward to the Chinese market. But maybe not. After all, you and I are in agreement about the importance of adopting veganism. I would, however, urge you to suppress information. The New York Times did a bad thing recently. Its editors undercut stereotypes about Chinese eating by publishing a video about the Yulin Festival, or the notorious dog and lychee feast in Guizhou. I n late June, out-of-town agitators fly in from Shanghai and Beijing. They are louder than A.O.C., and they don’t even practice social distancing. Some people think these activists learned their tactics from South Korea , where there are memorial services for murdered dogs. I'm happy to refer you to a few websites that the U.S. should close down. This is war, and it’s time to dehumanize! Since we’re friends, you might like a tip about how to undermine NATO. Did you know that people in Alpine nations once ate dog? If you want the details, check out Robert Ji-Song Ku : The Swiss, for example, dry the [dog] meat in varying temperatures for several months to prepare a dish called Gedörrtes Hunderfleisch. 'In fact,' Calvin Schawbe tells us, 'the only two cases of human trichinosis diagnosed in Switzerland in recent years resulted from the patients eating their dogmeat too rarely cooked! 'It has been a traditional European belief,' he reveals in Unmentionable Cuisine , 'that dogmeat is a preventive of tuberculosis.' And less than a century ago widespread dog eating was reported in the German cities of Cassel and Chemnitz, as well as in the streets of Paris. That should help shut up Angela Merkel. Maybe, the French shouldn’t be called frogs. In periods of privation, Parisians stuffed their faces with dog meat and wrote cookbooks for that purpose. No wonder the French have become socialists. They eat dogs and all sorts of things. Frog . Foie gras . Horse. Baguette. You’ll forgive me if I have gone on too long. That woman from Michigan has put us all under house arrest. I haven’t been free to cough on a stranger for almost a month. Sincerely, Miranda Brown Resources on COVID-19 and stereotypes about Chinese eating With Michelle King and Fu-Jia Wendy Chen. "Rumor, Chinese Diets, and COVID-19: Questions and Answers about Chinese Food and Eating Habits." Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies 21.1 (2021): 77-82. 'Chinese food is so entrenched in our lives; COVID-19 can't change that ' The Daily Hunt, April 17, 2020. Michelle King. "Say No to Bat Fried Rice: Changing the Narrative of Coronavirus and Chinese Food," in Food and Foodways 28.3 (Fall 2020), 237-49 Sources: Robert Ji-Song Ku, Dubious Gastronomy: The Cultural Politics of Eating Asian in the USA (University of Hawai’i Press, 2014), “Dog Meat,” 120-155. Vincent Goossaert, "The Beef Taboo and the Sacrificial Structure of Late Imperial Chinese Society." In Of Tripod and Palate: Food, Politics, and Religion in Traditional China . Edited by Roel Sterckx (Palgrave MacMillan, 2005), Chapter 11, 237-48. Jia Ming 賈銘 (Fourteenth Century). N.p. Yinshi xuzhi 飲食須知 (Essential Knowledge About Diet). In Yinzhuan pulu 飮饌譜錄. Edited by Yang Jialuo 楊家駱. Shijie, 1962. Zhu Quan 朱權(1378–1448). Shenyin 神隱. In Siku quanshu cunmu congshu, zibu, daojialei 四庫全書存目叢書, 子部, 道家類, vol. 260. Zhuangyan wenhua, 1995. Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. https://thecuriouseater.substack.com/?utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page

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 tapioca, or tapioca and potato starch (some versions use sweet potato starch). There are other possibilities. One thing to note: I have had bad luck with food labeling at Asian markets. Sometimes the package says tapioca, but the bag is full of cornstarch ( tai baifen 太白粉). The Chinese word for tapioca is mushu fen 木薯粉. If you don’t read Chinese, you can just order potato starch and tapioca from Amazon.They’re inexpensive and always in stock. As some of you may have noticed, wheat flour can be hard to find these days. So why not try a different source of carbohydrates? If you need gluten-free foods, this can be a good option for you. I’ve played around with a few recipes with varying success, and adapted the recipes below from the woksoflife and cook52. Since I don’t have access to shrimp, I just improvised and used whatever was in the kitchen. You can season ground turkey with spinach that has been wilted in a wok, scallions, garlic, and ginger. For one pound of meat, I add a little cooking wine (about ½ teaspoon), a tablespoon of soy sauce, ½ teaspoon of salt, and 4 T of cornstarch. I’ve also had good luck with wood ears (re-hydrated and minced). Wrapper skin variants: From WoksofLife 1 cup of wheat starch ½ cup of tapioca 1 ¼ cup of boiling water (make sure the water is at a full boil) 1-3 T of cooking oil 1/2 teaspoon salt (my improvisation) From Food52 (this is by weight, but you can translate the values here ). Potato starch, 160 g Tapioca starch 20 g Sugar, 2 t Salt, ½ t Boiling water (100 g/ml) Oil, 1 T Cold Water (30 g or ml) (Note: I didn’t need all of this water.) Mix the starches together evenly in a heat-proof bowl, along with the other dry ingredients. Slowly incorporate the boiling water. As with regular dumplings , you’ll want to add the water little by little while stirring. The goal is to add as little water to produce a ball. Then add the oil. If you are making the potato starch-tapioca version, you can add the cold water here (but be careful, I didn’t need it all, and found myself adding a little starch to offset the sticky dampness). Knead the ball on a dusted surface. If the water isn’t boiling or evenly incorporated, you’ll see lumps or white cracks. The ball should be snow white and glisten. 5. Let the dough rest for 20 minutes, covered in plastic. 6. After the dough has rested, knead it. 7. Cut the dough into three pieces and roll them into logs (just like you do when making wheat dumplings ). Cover the portions that you are not using. 8. Cut the dough into slices (they will look almost like marshmallows). Ideally, they should weigh about 12-14 grams (a little more than the wheat dumplings). The wheat starch recipe suggests making the parcels bigger (dividing the dough into about 18 pieces, or 22 grams a piece). I find these too big. 9. Roll them out gently to a disc about 3.5 inches in diameters. Do not make these too thin. The dough is fragile and not stretchy. 10. Put a dollop of filling right in the middle. If you have a small dumpling, you should add no more than a teaspoon. For a bigger dumpling, you can try 1/2 -3/4 T of filling. You want to go easy here. The dumpling skin is fragile, so be conservative! 11. To fold, bring the two ends gently together to make a half moon. Then make a crease at one end (just as you would when making wheat dumplings ). Carefully tuck and press the ends of the crease. Then fold the side furthest away from you in back. This is exactly the same fold that I use for wheat dumplings. You can find my step-by-step instructions, with arrows here. 12. Dust the bottom of the dumplings with some corn starch. 13. To prevent sticking, I would recommend placing the dumplings on silicon cake pans (these are very cheap), nested in the steaming compartments. You can lightly brush a little oil on the pans. If you don’t have the silicon pans, you can use parchment paper brushed with oil. Some cooks suggest using lettuce. I haven’t done this, and I haven’t had much luck preventing sticking until I started using the silicon pans. Be sure to space your dumplings, otherwise they will glue to each other. 14. Steam the dumplings for about 8 minutes. I would *not* recommend using Instant Pot for this job. The dumplings will lose their shape. 15. For a dipping sauce, I mix a little fish sauce together with the juice of one lime, a teaspoon of soy sauce, and 2 teaspoons of minced scallions. This isn't a traditional Hong Kong relish, but who cares these days? Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. https://thecuriouseater.substack.com/?utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page

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? What about the latest craze: brown sugar ? And how would you like to enjoy your treat? A wide colorful straw -- well, hold on. This was 2019. Taiwan had banned single-use plastic straws at most venues the month before. Sofi's first boba (paranoid mommy editing) But the fuss wasn’t about the straws. The lawsuit raged over something much more lucrative. Two of Taiwan’s most successful franchises had wrangled already for a dozen years. Both parties had traded legal fire for rights to this invention, each claiming to have invented the iconic drink. It's not hard to imagine what was at stake. Boba sales generated billions of dollars last year. But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s become acquainted with the contestants. Meet Mr. Tu, the proprietor of Hanlin Teahouse, located in the southern city of Tainan. He says he came up with the idea in 1986, after a trip to the wet market. While there, he spotted some white-colored tapioca pearls. A flash of insight followed: Why not add the chewy snack to iced milk tea? Ms. Lin, however, insists she was the one. In 1987, she was then a young lady, working in Pure Water Hall in Taizhong. One day, she experimented with blending milk tea and black-colored tapioca pearls, a favorite sweet in her youth. “Pearl" Milk Tea was born. The court’s verdict, however, left no one the richer – or, for that matter, the wiser. The judges refused to settle on the competing claims of priority. “Anyone, any shop has the right to make the drink. It’s not subject to patent.” There was thus no point in deciding who came up with boba first. ---------- The court’s decision sounds like a cop out, but my feeling is the judges were right. Bubble tea was a group lift and did not arise from any one moment of inspiration. It took shape over many centuries. The drink has many layers and parents. Layer 1: Dairy Meets Caffeine Let’s start with the tea: Where on earth did Taiwanese tea baristas get the idea of adding dairy or sugar to caffeine? Popular wisdom presumes that this was a British invention . Yet nothing could be farther from the truth. Milk -- or better still, creamy -- teas had a long history in Asia. Central Asian Turks have long enjoyed it. My friend Gene Anderson and his collaborator, Paul Buell, suspect they passed on their love of the drink to the Mongols. The Tibetans swore and still swear by it. And yes, so did the Chinese . Once upon a time they craved it, as they do now. The earliest definitive reference to creamy tea dates to thirteenth-century China. It does not appear in a cookbook, but rather in a poem. A rather wild man named Lu You 陸游 (1125–1209) wrote some verse about his daily routine. He was then living in Southern China, in Shaoxing. When he wasn’t drunk, pining for his cousin, or raging against the Song dynasty’s nomadic enemies or the pacifists at court, or writing gory poetry, he was doing a lot of eating and drinking. Apparently, he also took his tea with churned butter. Beautiful Shaoxing (Thanksgiving 2018) Lu You, of course, was an early adopter, but he was not alone. Later cookbooks in Chinese disclose a world of creamy and milky teas. Strong black brews, whisked with butter until fluffy. There was also straight milk and fermented tea, served initially with salt, then sugar. Then something called leicha 擂茶 , or pestle tea, came into fashion. The pestle tea is worth lingering over. I admit that when I first read the recipe, I imagined it would be disgusting. Then I made a Ming-dynasty Chinese rendition and understood the power of beating the fats: Brew a strong brick of tea. Think of something really dense -- pu er, for example. Then blend in liberal amounts of butter or cream, mixed in turn with sesame paste. Let it foam. You have a choice of savory or sweet flavoring. If you are an American, I recommend a liberal hand with the sugar. These milky drinks made a splash in the seventeenth century. The first European traders, who turned up in Fujian and Guangdong, could not get over them. They had drunken matcha in Japan and grasped its commercial value -- as medicine. But the fermented tea and sweet dairy combination was a game changer. Within a century of this revelation, tea became a staple at the English table. Not surprisingly, the French, Dutch, and ultimately the British adopted this way of consuming tea. Over Christmas, I found a Frenchman who even said that Europeans ripped off the formula from China. Who would think? English tea ain’t even English, or French. It’s Chinese. French guy explaining the origins of milk tea Frisian Cream Tea (Dr. Lydia Garver) Layer 2: Tea Meets Thick (Processed) Dairy But how did these creamy drinks make their way to Taiwan? As some of you may know, the original boba combined powdered creamer with tea. This lends the drink a richer flavor. Nowadays, shops advertise their use of fresh milk and some places use condensed milk. Think Hong Kong-styled bubble tea. Here, the historical record is patchy -- at least for the time being. This much can be said, however. Pestle tea came over with some of the immigrants from Southern Fujian. In the eighteenth century, they began settling the island in large numbers. Today, some versions of pestle tea use soy milk , one of the world’s earliest dairy substitutes. At least one rendition, from the 90s, employed cow’s milk. In the old days, I suspect the dairy in pestle tea would have been buffalo milk butter. That's the same buffalo milk used in coastal China to produce brined cheeses. Yes, there were -- and still are -- cheeses in Southern Chin ese cities like Zhangzhou . Apparently, some of the immigrants took the techniques with them when they crossed the straits. Xiamen buffalo cheese (once a thing in Taiwan) But this was probably not the sole inspiration for milk tea. Official reports from the late nineteenth century indicate that the island’s wealthy liked to drink their tea with condensed milk (most likely sweet). Was this a holdover from earlier times? Evidence of European influence, or what food historians call a “return trip”? I don’t know yet. That’s a question for another research trip! The picture gets muddier from the turn of the twentieth century. As you know, colonialism has a way of adding culinary layers to a place. Following the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, Taiwan became a colony of the Japanese empire. (Remember my story about instant ramen ? ). This is why you can buy sushi at Taiwanese night markets, or local versions of oden and tempura . In those days, the Japanese pushed far more than meat on their citizens; they also sought to get their population hooked on milk. Grow tall and strong, and go forth to dominate! Towards this end, the Japanese colonial authorities established a milk industry throughout the empire, including Taiwan, importing modern dairy breeds from the West. The fresh stuff was pricey and geared mostly for Japanese (military) consumption. Now, my own interpretation. The watery milk -- a hallmark of the modern dairy industry - suited the Taiwanese palate even less than the wallet. Taiwanese ideas about milk borrowed from a long tradition of Chinese medicine. In that tradition, doctors classified milk as sweet and rich. It was good for fattening up a kid and making an older person stronger. If we step back for a second, this fits buffalo milk to a T. Chen Yu-jen tells us that while the Japanese used Western dairy breeds, Taiwanese dairy farmers worked mostly with water buffaloes and Chinese yellow cattle. Economics probably played a role in this decision. But I suspect culinary preference were also important. A properly-fed buffalo may not be a prolific lactator, but she squirts out nice milkshakes , at a whopping 8-12 percent fat. The same applied to the native Chinese cattle breed. Her milk averaged between 5 and 8 percent. Puts a new spin on whole milk or 3 percent, eh? For people who could not buy -- let alone refrigerate -- fresh milk, sweet condensed milk was a good option. Better, in fact, than milk powder. The dense stuff was expensive, but a lot cheaper than fresh milk. Plus, it really was the closest thing to buffalo milk or the native varieties of cattle, and you could do a lot with it. You could send it as a gift for sick people. Say you were suffering from a bad case of food aversion or dysentery, a can of the stuff would help. At least theoretically. Yes, that was definitely a thing in early twentieth-century Taiwan. This treatment plan goes back to China, about a thousand years. By the way, that’s one reason why I suspect popular understandings of lactose intolerance are crap (pun intended). On a more appetizing note, condensed milk went easily into desserts. For example, it paired well with shaved ice. Mash taro root and marry it to condensed milk, and you have a hit. The Taiwanese love of condensed dairy made the Japanese scratch their heads. The latter preferred the watery fresh milk Europeans drank by the pint. But Taiwan, I suspect, had a different cultural matrix and preference for richer dairy. Hence, the creamer. ---------- Layer 3: Cream Tea Meets Tapioca All this leaves the bubbles. For many people, the bubbles are the main star. You can skip the cow dairy or even the caffeine. But the bubbles are non-negotiable. The bubbles, of course, are none other than tapioca or cassava pearls. (Please remember the Columbian Exchange !) Tapioca came to Taiwan well before the twentieth century. Early reports reveal that it was a poor man’s food. Farmers planted cassava on thin rocky soil on hills, or places where rice refused to grow. The Taiwanese soon devised a host of culinary applications for the root. Some of them made their new year’s dumpling soup with tapioca starch rather than sticky rice. Others added it to their rice noodles. Chewy fish balls from Xiamen (which has many of the same recipes) In the first half of the twentieth century, Taiwanese also started incorporating their tapioca pearls into sweets. Think of tapioca shaved ice -- with sweet condensed milk, plus red bean and the like. Picture taro or yam tapioca balls. You get my drift: Tapioca was and remains big. It lends sweet and savory foods a nice, squishy but bouncy bite. That’s the Q factor . Homemade sweet potato balls The passion for bubbles can go too far (Jan 2019) ---------- At the end of the day, I think it was inevitable that milk tea met the pearls. After all, Taiwanese were used to taking both their tea and tapioca with dairy. Rich, sweet dairy. What is more, their c ultural matrix did not insist upon rigid distinctions about what makes something either a drink or a food. Thank goodness: caffeine has never been the same. ---------- Brown Sugar Bubble Tea à la Brownie Recently, there have been reports about food adulteration in the bubble tea industry. Much of the anxiety has focused on the tapioca pearls: the preservatives, food coloring, and undeclared substances (!). Rather than waste your money, I suggest you make your own pearls. Serves 2 For the tapioca pearls: Tapioca starch, 6 T Boiling water, 2 T For the brown sugar glaze: Brown sugar, ¾ cup Water, 1 ½ cup Black-strap molasses, 2 T For the milk tea: Black tea, 4 bags Whole milk, 1 cup Half and half, 1/4 cup Note: you can also substitute one 14 oz-can of whole evaporated milk for the fresh dairy Measure out the tapioca starch and put it into a heat-proof mixing boil. Pour 2 T of the boiling water into the starch while stirring to incorporate evenly. Once cool enough to handle, knead the dough with your hands. If necessary add a little extra starch. 3. Shape the dough into a ball and cut into halves. Roll the halves into thin logs. Cover the portions you are not currently using with plastic wrap. 4. Cut the log into small pebbles and roll them into balls. You can make these as big as you would like -- or as small. I prefer to keep them medium large, to reduce work. 5. Boil a small pot of water. Once the water boils, add tapioca pearls and cook for 15 minutes. 6. After 15 minutes, immerse pearls in an ice bath or a bowl of cold water. Stir to prevent clumping. As the pearls cool, they become translucent. 7. Prepare the tea by steeping the tea bags in boiling water for 10 minutes. You will want no more than 8-10 oz of liquid for the whole beverage. 8. Start another pot of water, adding brown sugar. Once the water reaches a boil, stir in the molasses (molasses are a good source not only of coloring, but also rich flavor and minerals like iron). 9. Add the cooled tapioca pearls to the pot and let them simmer for 10 minutes until the liquid has turned into a dark syrup. This will be your brown sugar base. 10. Combine your tea with dairy. 11. Add the tapioca pearls to the tall glasses. Toss in a few ice cubes, then pour in half your dairy tea to each of the glasses. 12. Enjoy! Main Sources: Buell, Paul D. and Eugene N. Anderson, A Soup for the Qan: Chinese Dietary Medicine of the Mongol Era As Seen in Hu Sihui's Yinshan Zhengyao (Sir Henry Wellcome Asian), Revised, Expanded Edition (Brill, 2010). Chen Yuzhen 陳玉箴 [Chen Yu-jen] , "Yinyang lunshu yu zhimin tongzhi: Rizhi shiqi Taiwan de rupin shengchan yu xiaofei 營養論述與殖民統治：日治時期臺灣的乳品生產與消費 ." Taiwan shida lishi xuebao 臺灣師大歷史學報 54 (Dec 2015), 95-148. Crook, Steven and Katy Hui-wen Hung, A Culinary History of Taipei: Beyond Pork and Ponlai (Rowan and Littlefield, 2018). Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. https://thecuriouseater.substack.com/?utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page

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 up a disproportionate number of the unemployed, and the crisis has exposed their vulnerability. Many of our favorite eateries moreover have closed. Especially Chinese . Experts estimate one half of them are gone because of the crisis -- and resurgent xenophobia. But let’s imagine we are now on the other side. Pretend the U.S. economy is in recovery, consumer confidence is high, and people have money for niceties. All big if’s, but still... The scenario was inspired by an actual assignment (Fall 2017). A few years ago, a group of Ross students decided to apply what they learned in class and cook up a business plan. Their stated mission: Set up a high-end dim sum parlor in downtown Ann Arbor. Charge top dollar and figure out what to do about the clientele and their ideas about authenticity . Locate niche. Exploit and become a celebrity. ---------- These questions go straight to the heart of this week's reading. The author, Professor Krishnendu Ray at NYU, captures two challenges facing anyone seeking to break into Asian haute cuisine . The first is no shortage of competition. To quote Jennifer 8. Lee (2008), “There are some forty thousand Chinese restaurants in the United States—more than the number of McDonald’s, Burger Kings, and KFCs c ombined.” The second is market expectations. Chinese food is cheap. Really cheap. In one of the chapters you did not read, Ray analyzed the average price of a Chinese meal in New York City based on Zagat guides. He found that Chinese restaurants sat near the bottom, trailing Vietnamese, Mexican, and Indian. Those businesses did manage to squeak ahead of Thai (though not by much). Meanwhile, Japanese restaurants soared to the top of the pack, followed by French and American. The implications are clear. Americans associate Chinese food with cheap eats. Popularity does not translate into prestige. Now do your own soul searching. When was the last time you were willing to shell out thirty bucks for a plate of chow mein? Can you justify spending a few hundred dollars on a meal of General Tso or Kung Pao chicken? What about sweet-and-sour pork? ---------- Still, there must be a way of making my dream a reality. At this point, there are successful high-end “ethnic restaurants.” In the San Francisco of my dad’s youth, Cecilia Chiang (P.F. Chang’s mommy) started a revolution. Nowadays, food critics rave about Brandon Jew , of Mister Jiu’s with one Michelin star. You have already heard me wax poetic about Charles Phan of the Slanted Door . The East Coast also has its picks. There is Momofuku’s David Chang and Eddie Huang of Baohaus fame (yes, this is the same foul-mouthed guy from Fresh off the Boat ). There are also South Asian superstar chefs, too, including one from Junoon . Things are also changing. Prior to COVID-19, classic Chinese American diners were already closing . Why? The next generation rarely stays in the restaurant business. They become doctors, engineers, business people, lawyers, and professors -- in other words, professionals. New Chinese immigrants moreover don’t need to operate restaurants. They already have money, education, and status. But this is not the only reason why I am optimistic. Ray points out American perceptions of Chinese people are shifting. Over time, "Chinese" will no longer signal poor immigrants in the USA. When Americans hear Chinese, they'll imagine people with power, money, and class. Chinese food will one day be like Japanese. High-class cuisine for professionals . Picture it: thirty bucks for a plate of orange chicken. Not so much. More likely, fine Yunnan goat cheese sauteed in truffle or cured ham. ---------- So what, then, is the secret path to celebrity? A lot depends on your profile. If you are an immigrant, you must fit in with the white establishment and distance yourself from poor newcomers. Look to Cecilia Chiang , who recently celebrated her hundredth birthday. Sixty years ago, she pulled off a miracle. In a time when Chinese was synonymous with poor Cantonese folks, she opened a high-end Chinese restaurant in a nice neighborhood. She wasn’t even a chef. But that didn’t stop her from winning over key food critics or celebrities. It also didn't hurt that she knew how to pair fine French wines with Chinese food. Alice Waters, of Chez Panisse, became a devoted friend. Chiang also knew the power of messaging. Some key takeaways: Take a hard look at the Chinatown menus, and rule out anything on them. In Chiang’s day, this meant excluding the chop suey. These days, the sweet and sour pork would have to go. (Never mind that you can get it at Michelin-starred restaurants in Hong Kong .) Presentation. Your restaurant decor must be clean and elegant, not kitschy. While I would not recommend appearing in your restaurant decked out in furs and diamonds, appearances do matter. All the better, of course, if you are tall, well spoken, and good looking (Chiang was all of these things). Low-end Chinese bakery in SF (April 2011) You’ll also need to convey a sense of glamorous China. Not the China of my Cantonese grandfather (peasant, coolie, Maoist). Get over your woke scruples and invoke rarefied privilege! In Chiang’s day, that was the China of the Nationalist Party. The same corrupt party that was sent packing to Taiwan after the Civil War (1927-1949). Fortunately, your point of reference today is different: Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore. Just make sure it's the China of rich and elegant people. Not the nouveau riche. People who speak in soft tones and eat only refined, light fare. People whose diets almost fit with Gwyneth Paltrow's philosophy of what is right. The name of your restaurant should remind people of that China. Incidentally, Chiang baptized her restaurant "The Mandarin." High-end restaurant (Shaoxing, Nov 2018) ---------- So far, we have pondered the choices for immigrants. Admittedly slim pickings. But what about us American-born or raised types? How do we become great? Our path is different. The fluency in English is an asset. But what's more important is ease with bougie talk and people. Especially if you are like me: the beneficiary of a prestigious liberal arts education. You have also taken ASIAN 258. You can discourse authoritatively about the finer points of not only Asian, but global food history. I have plied you not only with the secrets of making gluten-free dumplings , but many, many hours of cocktail talk. You know how to eat your sushi and offer a Chinese toast. You now have an arsenal of safe topics of disputation: the history of tempura . It’s connection to fish and chips, and the Inquisition. Roman prejudices against oatmeal and beer. The origins of ketchup and bubble tea . You'll connect with clients over dinner and find common ground with strangers. You’ll eventually forget my name, but my face will haunt you as you look into your soup bowl. Boo! ---------- Fitting in is one thing. Making it big is another. Asian American chefs face a double-edged challenge. On the one hand, they are pigeon-holed, “representatives of their culture.” On the other hand, suspicion dogs them. People wonder if they are disingenuous agents. Like non-Asian cooks, charges will fly of inauthenticity (though not appropriation ). Chiang even chided one well-known chef for being “so ABC.” Take Eddie Huang's beef with David Chang. Huang attacks the older man for not being “Asian enough.” This is Chang, the child of Korean immigrants, the same man who has ascended into the culinary pantheon. People call him an outsider because of his race -- even though he went to a culinary academy and mastered French cuisine. School wasn’t optional. Chang badly needed the cultural capital to be a chef rather than a poor immigrant cook. He then ate his way through Japan, “refining” his palate. This set him up for getting the right (powerful white) backers at all of the right times. Note to self: you must seek permission from the culinary establishment to make excellent Asian food. Who cares if they only know French? Huang's not impressed, though. Can you believe that Chang roasts his pork belly? Asians have no use for ovens. Or that he doesn’t know when to use the bun or the pancake. Thank god there is Eddie. He crushed Chang with his steamed buns and proved to the world that the best bao in New York was going to be made by a “Taiwanese kid.” “The way it was supposed to be.” His words, not mine. My attempt to make vindaloo guabao (April 2020) In case you are wondering, Huang’s hitting below the belt. Chang's parents were Korean. The insinuation is that Chang doesn’t have the right genes to pull off the dish. You should be getting flashbacks of the sushi police. Don’t be fooled by Huang's in-your-face tone. It actually hides defensiveness, the need to seek permission. Unlike Chang, Huang’s not a chef-- and what is more, he’s like me. He acts and sounds American. A host of put-downs awaits. If he isn't careful, his food will be dismissed as "bastardized" Asian . So Huang gets ahead of the story. He calls everyone else out, pounds his chests and shouts. “I’m more Asian than you!” ---------- My path to greatness must be different. Unlike Huang, my face is a liability. Besides, I can't stomach calling anyone “fake” Chinese, or fake anything. "Mongrel" is a not just a slur; it's also analytically unhelpful (remember: it's local adaptation , dummy ). For inspiration, I’d look instead to Belinda Leong . A West Coaster who has no time for stunts. Of course, Leong doesn’t pretend to offer the best bao in San Francisco, or even sell Chinese food. She’s a pastry chef and has the credentials, having lived and worked in the right places. This chef also exhibits no shortage of talent and ingenuity. I love her art voraciously (take that, Tartine !). Leong's also independent. She’s largely resisted the pressure to be a ethnic chef. But then I find myself doing what Ray describes -- I want her pastries to reflect her Cantonese background. I feel bad, but I still get excited when she pays homage to our shared roots. She prepares Asian-accented pastries during the Lunar New Year . She also bakes birthday cakes for Cecilia Chiang and tops them off with monkeys, and teams up with Yang Sing, a well-regarded San Francisco dim sum spot, to do celebrations. I was ready to fly home when I read, “ Yank Sing will offer Leong's black sesame kouign amann, white sesame opera cake and a coconut and taro verrine; stop by her shop for a larger selection of treats like a mango coconut gateau, milk tea macarons and more.” Of course, Leong's not promoting the (underappreciated) world of Asian sweets. She’s injecting Cantonese touches into a canonical tradition of French pastry making. The Chinese accents distinguish her from others. But they do not threaten conventional understandings of taste. ---------- But I would go farther than Leong. After all, I have to live with myself (even in fantasy land). We would start off, of course, with European pastries with Asian twists . Durian and ketchup macaron. Ube mousses. Five spiced cookies . Egg custard tarts. Yes, I would use condensed milk! The Portuguese inspiration for danta 蛋塔 As I fattened up my customers, I would initiate them into a new world of desserts. Unfamiliar flavors and textures, novel ways of coordinating tooth and tongue. Mango pudding, molten custard bun with salted duck egg yolk, sticky rice dumpling, shaved ice with taro and tapioca. Then crumbly sesame and peanut halva , pineapple cake, flaky rose pastry , deep-fried durian puff. Durian Fritters (Xiamen, Nov 2019) Before long, customers would crave my curry beef triangles, pork floss buns filled with pastry cream, snow skin mooncakes, gelatinous frog ovums, white fungus soups, and then mooncakes. Yes, the mooncakes Americans sometimes call “an acquired taste.” This is also the mythical pastry that helped eject the Mongols from China . Supposedly. A symbol of Han nationalism, but also an artifact of the Silk Road. In case you're wondering, mooncakes bear more than a family resemblance to ma’amoul . Beijing Pastry Shop (Nov 2019) My goal would not be to force a reckoning with the “real” thing. The story lies in the pastries themselves. Each of them are like me: unapologetic mutts. They're distinctive, of course. But they also testify to the capacity of people to share, copy, and riff off each other. With each bite, your grasp of Asian and authentic becomes shakier. Over time, you'll wonder what ethnic means. You'll also become convinced that food shouldn't lead to stereotypes. There are, in fact, ovens in Asia. And adversaries shape each other's world of taste . But absolutely no, no culinary essences . By then, I would have achieved my objective. We should never have been eating "ethnic" in the first place. Sources: Freedman, Paul. Ten Restaurants that Changed America ( Liveright, 2016). Lee, Jennifer 8. The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food. (Grand Central Publishing, 2008). Ray, Krishnendu. The Ethnic Restaurateur ( Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015). ____"Cultural Politics of Taste." Powerpoint Presentation. (February 2020) Wang, Wayne. Soul of a Banquet (2004). https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3459090/ Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. https://thecuriouseater.substack.com/?utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page

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 revelation! The mooncake continues to be reimagined. In more recent years, the snowskin variety has supplanted the classic mooncake in many households. The reasons are not hard to guess: the newcomers are lighter and healthier. They are also a little chewy: think of a cross between the purple sweet potato balls and mochi. Plus they are easy to make and can be filled with virtually anything: custard , chocolate ganache, taro root, and even purple sweet potato puree. Readers already familiar with my blog will notice one ingredient that seems out of place in Chinese cuisine: milk. Now that my daughter is old enough to appreciate the Chinese holidays, I have been experimenting with different recipes. Stay tuned for the results of my other experiments. Filling (adapted from SideChef ) Purple sweet potato, 1 pound Butter, ghee, or oil, 2 tablespoons Glutinous rice flour, 1 tablespoon (optional) Milk ¼ cup Sugar, ¼ cup (or to taste) Salt, a pinch Mooncake “skin” (adapted from RedHouse Spic e) Glutinous rice flour, 9 tablespoons (I use Thai glutinous rice flour, which has a finer texture than Japanese mochiko, but the latter will work too) Rice flour, 9 tablespoons Powdered sugar, 9 tablespoons Wheat starch (or cornstarch), 6 tablespoons Milk, 1.5 cup Vegetable oil, 3 tablespoons Condensed milk, 3 tablespoons (optional, for richer flavor) Potato starch, for dusting (or substitute cornstarch or toasted glutinous rice flour) Equipment: Steamer, Instant Pot, or microwave spatula food processor for sweet potato puree (unnecessary for other fillings) mooncake stamping mold Methods: Start by mixing the dry ingredients for the skin, then add the milk(s) and oil. Whisk to incorporate thoroughly. Some recipes insist on pouring the ingredients through a sieve. (I found it made no difference.) Pour into a heat-proof container like a Pyrex measuring glass and steam the “skin” batter for 25 minutes. The batter will solidify like mochi. Remove from the steamer as soon as it is safe to handle and place the dough on a clean (undusted) surface. Knead the dough for several minutes until it becomes a smooth and shiny ball. If you don’t have cooking gloves, use a plastic spatula to manipulate the skin. Wrap tightly in saran wrap and chill in the refrigerator for at least half an hour. It is best to leave it for an hour or two, but do not go beyond 4 hours. (Shortcut: if you don’t want to bother with steaming the dough, you can put the batter in the microwave with a lid. Heat on high for 1 minute, then remove from microwave and give it a good stir. Return to the microwave for another 30 seconds and stir. If the dough is set, you can remove it and then knead it. Otherwise, heat for another 10-15 seconds. The dough may be a little harder than what you get from putting it in the steamer, but it will be serviceable. Wash, peel, and cut the sweet potatoes into cubes, and steam for 20 minutes. After the sweet potatoes are soft enough to be mashed with a fork, put them in a food processor (this is necessary for creating a smooth paste without coarse fibers). Add all of the dry ingredients except for the rice flour. Then fold in the milk and fats. At this point, you can decide to incorporate the rice flour to make the paste stiffer. If the paste is sufficiently solid, skip this step. If not, cook the paste. Using a non-stick pan on medium low, heat the paste and stir for about 10 minutes. The paste will thicken. Refrigerate the paste until stiff (chilled overnight works fine). Scoop about 2 tablespoons of the paste and roll into small balls. Stop when you have rolled all of the balls and store in the refrigerator until ready to use. Remove the “skin” from the refrigerator and divide into 21 -24 pieces. Roll the pieces into balls with the palm of your hands, and then flatten them gently into a round disc as if you were making dumpling skins. The discs should not be thin: you just want them big enough to cover the paste ball filling (see picture above). Place one of the paste balls in the center of the skin, then bring the ends together, pinching to hide the purple centers. Roll in the palms of your hands and place the ball seam-side down. Dust the top with a little potato starch (or cornstarch). Insert the mooncake stamp in the press and dust with starch. Place the stamp over the ball and press down to stamp the ball, then release. Consume the mooncakes fresh. For chocolate mooncakes: Add 1/2 teaspoon of unsweetened cocoa powder to the "skin" batter. Use cocoa powder instead of starch to dust the molds and mooncakes. For the ganache filling: Heavy whipping cream, 1 cup Semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate, 9-10 ounces, chopped into small pieces. Butter, 2 tablespoons (optional) 1. Heat the cream over medium low until it simmers (do not allow the cream to boil, otherwise it will scorch the chocolate, creating a greasy mixture). 2. Add the cream to the butter and chocolate mixture. 3. Allow the ganache to stiffen at room temperature. Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. https://thecuriouseater.substack.com/?utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page

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 quote President Schlissel, this year is like no other. So I’ll skip the congratulations and cut to the chase. You won’t be watching a middle-aged woman deliver a PowerPoint twice a week or clicking for points with friends. Nor will you have an opportunity to crowd into a kitchen with me and the other member of the teaching team. Instead, we will have a different relationship, a virtual one. But never fear. I will spare you the looong pre-recorded lectures. Instead, I am going to reach you – much like a wellness guru – through the power of the written word. My blog: yes, the blog, delivered to your Inbox, for the rest of the term. If you want our relationship to continue indefinitely, you’ll have an option to subscribe to the blog at no additional cost. Of course, this class will entail far more than Miranda Brown’s blog. Starting Wednesday, May 5th, you’ll go to section in real time and meet me and your GSI. You’ll play games, explore recipes, compete for bonus points, and make friends. In the process, you’ll come away with a deeper understanding of Asian food. There will also be experiential activities this term. You'll also have a chance to cook Asian recipes with me and the Teaching Team -- on-line, of course. Some highlights: noodles, biryani, mochi, sushi, and, of course, pad Thai. Uighur Naan in Zhangzhou, SE China (Nov 2019) Most of these will be in real time, to give you a chance to interact with the class informally, but there will be also some experiments that you can pursue on your own time, offline. There will also be assignments. My assignments will be enticing invitations to learn. As such, they will be fun, engaging, creative, even a little crazy. You will have opportunities to reflect on how my blogs, your discussion sections, and readings relate to your daily life. These assignments will assume a myriad of forms – and you’ll have choice as to where you put your effort. This is why we use GradeCraft: a software that allows you to tailor your course work to your interests and schedules. This term, you will have opportunities to post and respond in YellowDig, to blog about your meals, and reflect on your efforts to cook or master banquet etiquette. There will also be an opportunity to create your own Food-for-Thought Manifesto. All of these activities will assist your journey through the world of Asian food. By the end of the term, you’ll have unraveled one of life’s great mysteries. That is, why is Asian food so darn yummy? In other words, this is not just another class. ASIAN 258 will change your life and haunt you for the rest of your days. After this term, you will never look at your food in the same way again, Asian or not. You’ll also have learned about a lot of food: food that you have never heard of, or tried. In the process, you’ll open up your palate, and hopefully, learn a few life skills about cooking and eating. Along the way, you will pick up a tremendous amount of knowledge about Asian culture and history – but in delectable bite-sized morsels and by watching plenty of the world’s funniest cooking videos. How's this relevant? You'll see... More practically, this class promises to help you become your best self. By best, I mean, your most polished and engaging self. Your assignments for the class will challenge you not only to demonstrate your mastery of Miranda Brown Thought, but also show that you can throw together a compelling and provocative argument: equal parts learned and titillating. This class also offers a crash course in acquiring social and cultural capital. As you head off into your post-graduate life, you will discover the importance of relationships, and I mean not just romantic ones: colleagues, bosses, and clients. As you all know, it can be tough connecting with strangers. Most often, we don’t know exactly where to begin. Do you really want to ask a new client how he or she feels about the presidential election? Or about abortion, mask wearing, football? Obviously not. Even football is full of landmines. Food is different, however. You can always count on it. As one savvy Ross student told me in the first iteration of this class in 2015, “Food is the safest way to connect with someone.” We all eat. And when we come together for a meal, we have in front of us a subject of common concern. That food will present you with an opportunity to demonstrate your smarts and cosmopolitan creds. In other words, you will come away from this class with a lot of cocktail talk. Having introduced the broad goals of this class, let me answer a question that you must be burning to ask. Who am I? I am Miranda Brown , the wearer of many hats. Officially, I am the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and Professor of Chinese Studies in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan. I have managed to hold down this job, albeit at various ranks, since September 2002. For the purposes of this term, you just need to know three things. One: I am obsessed with food, and you are welcome to talk with me about any food or drink, anytime. Two: I am also the mommy of domineering five-year old Sofía, who will invade our food labs. Three, I am half Chinese, but one hundred percent Californian. This last fact will acquire increasing relevance as this course progresses. My mixed parentage drives the way I see food. And if I were to ever write my own manifesto, it would be that good food is rarely pure (more on that later). Miranda Brown This term, I am not alone. The ASIAN 258 Teaching Team includes a high-powered GSI. Gou Wu (pronounced like the verb go)—who also goes by "Alexis" in English-speaking contexts, so pick whichever one you like!—is currently a master's student in the International and Regional Studies program (specializing in Chinese studies) after having majored in linguistics at UChicago. Alexis's specific research interests include historical linguistics, dialectology, and language contact, and you may soon be surprised to learn how these concepts will turn out quite relevant to the subjects of this class, too. Becoming a GSI for ASIAN 258 marks the first time Alexis's food-geek side and academic pursuits ever get to actually overlap, and this avid home cook (who has been one since high school) is still finding it a little bit surreal. As this blog has gone on too long, we’ll stop here. I’ll lay out the major problems in studying Asian Food in our next blog, and highlight a pressing controversy: is it kosher to reduce the sugar or eliminate the nuts in recipes? In the meantime, please scan the syllabus and explore our Canvas site. Have questions about course logistics? Go to the YellowDig Assignment in Canvas, click on it to register, and start posting your questions. I’ll be waiting. Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. https://thecuriouseater.substack.com/?utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page

January 6, 2021 was supposed to be another gloomy morning in Ann Arbor. At about 9 am, I awoke, still groggy from a night of wrestling Sofía to sleep. I crept downstairs to the kitchen and started the coffee. As I waited for the caffeine to coarse through my veins and vivify my brain, I reached for my phone and scanned Twitter. That morning, something had caught my attention. It was not the images of crowds breaching the Capitol. That would not happen for another four hours. It was something more mundane: an uncharacteristically sharp comment from a food scholar who I admire. “God this is awful,” he wrote. I did a double take. Had I misread the line in a stupor? No, I had it right and proceeded to click on the thread. Within minutes, I had secured my spot in the chorus. What on earth had set us off? Apparently, it was an essay, “ A Kitchen Resolution Worth Making; Follow the Recipe Exactly ,” published two days before by Genevieve Ko , New York Times food writer. Last month, she had successfully replicated a dish by the decolonial food anthropologist and feminist chef, Claudia Serrato : Carne con chili rojo (meat with red chilis). While preparing this Mexican staple, Ko had found herself, a professionally trained chef, tested. She had been tempted to switch out chicken stock for the vegetable broth and raise the oven temperature. But she resisted and followed “the instructions to the letter.” Ko wants us to know this would be her new way of doing things going forward. Her New Year’s resolution was motivated by more than a desire for superb food, though she was not disappointed. “It was one of the best dishes I prepared all year”: “a chunk roast braised tender,” one that “collapsed under my fork, readily shredding into fine threads to soak up flame-red sauce fruity and hot with dried chilis.” Instead, Ko had pulled off something else. She had transcended the limitations of being “an armchair traveler or restaurant diner.” She had become an “active participant,” one that challenged her culinary framework and kept her moving “towards a more expansive and equitable worldview.” This led her to realize that she could suspend “her own assumptions, culinary and otherwise,” excise “unconscious bias,” and embraced another person's—Claudia Serrato’s – “background and culture.” Sticking to the recipe, in other words, had made Ko a better person. I was moved reading Ko’s words. And I repeated to myself. She had overcome the urge to reduce the sugar. I was so moved that I got out my bakeware and started preparing my daughter’s vegan peanut butter cookies, following the recipes to the T. At the last moment, however, my wayward tendencies overtook me. I added milk to the vegan recipe and reduced the amount of sugar, substituting molasses. This predictably threw off the proportions of dry and wet, so I found myself adding more and more whole wheat flour. The color of the peanut butter cookie was now the wrong hue. Having gone so far down this road, I decided to see the experiment all the way through. I ditched the fork used to imprint the cookies and reached for the mooncake mold stashed in the drawer, and punctured every one of my peanut butter monstrosities with the mold. Twelve times and then posted my act of defiance on Twitter. Not quite what the author of the recipe intended... So why didn’t I just listen to Ko? After all, she has a job that I would kill for. She writes for the New York Times for a living and works with top trade presses, testing recipes. She has trained with the very finest chefs in the world, and even attended Yale. I imagine her kitchen is nicer than mine. I also have zero problem with sticking to recipes. I often do it, especially when I am trying to figure out what something is. Indeed, I have discovered that some baked goods – the French macaron shell, for example – don’t tolerate improvisation. I also dream nightly about the food as it tastes in Asia. There are even days where I strive to recreate the precise textures and flavors of a specific place for my family. Miranda's Vanilla Macarons (ca. 2011) So why was I roused? I have seen one version of this controvers y after another. It is now everywhere, even now: in a time when a record number of restaurants have failed, restaurant workers have struggled, meat packers are dying, and when 28% of households with children are food insecure . This argument asserts itself everywhere in discussions about Asian food, and it haunts our ability to enjoy our Philadelphia Rolls out in the open. You’ll see. This is a controversy also where people argue about who has the right to make – and ultimately change – not only “Asian food,” but all ethnic cuisine. Combatants insist that if the dish isn’t exactly like it is in Asia, we shouldn’t presume to call it Asian – especially if you aren’t from that part of Asia. Say Asian inspired. 2019 saw a myriad of these controversies. Gordon Ramsay got heat for opening an uninspiring Chinese restaurant in London with tacky décor. Arielle and Lee Haspel found themselves in hot water for their gluten-free and tone-deaf rendition of classic Chinese American takeout. Most recently, a few cooks in Chicago have gotten rough– on Instagram. Top Chef and Michigan alumnus Stephanie Izard made the mistake of preparing grilled beef with cilantro and mint , and had the gall to refer to it as bibimbap. The move enraged Won Kim , a fellow chef in Chicago. How dare she fail to properly “contextualize” her actions in her Instagram post? Her critics charge that she should be clear that her dish wasn’t really Korean. She should have found a different word. (By the way, when did Insta become the place for academic dissertations?) But Izard was guilty of far more than misspeaking. No one used the word, but commentators could see the federal case taking shape. Izard had committed cultural appropriation. What is cultural appropriation? The BBC defines it inelegantly in the following way: “[W]hen a tradition, such as clothing or a hairstyle, is taken from a culture and used in a different way. It can offend people when people do this without making it clear where the traditions come from, or when they don't acknowledge how important they are to certain cultures. This can make some people feel as if their culture is not being respected.” Other people tack on conditions , to differentiate cultural appropriation from mere cultural borrowing. Cultural appropriation involves power. The appropriator is usually a member of a dominant group. There may be a financial dimension, or profiteering. Take Izard. As a member of a dominant group, she had taken someone else’s food and profited, scoring coveted spots where she sold tacos and opening “reasonably authentic” Asian restaurants like Duck Duck Goat . For Kim, the episode drove home the deep inequalities in the food world. Not only do minority chefs lack the opportunities afforded by their white counterparts in America, but they must watch as those counterparts misrepresent, or even desecrate, their cuisine. By pairing the beef with the wrong plants, Izard had mangled the recipe for bibimpap – and Korean culture -- beyond recognition. To be sure, I agree with Kim, to a point. I would like to see more opportunities for non-white cooks. I also want Asian food to get the recognition it deserves (wouldn’t it be cool, for example, if the French Laundry hired a Sichuanese chef to make hot pot?). But is it a crime in itself to alter, or even mangle, a recipe? Or consider the flip side of the equation. Is it politically virtuous to hew to the recipe? This class will make a case for mangled recipes: not that is either right or wrong, or that it leads to good or bad tasting food. Instead, I will argue that there really isn’t anything aberrant about mangling, mislabeling, or appropriating a recipe from a different culture. It's been happening for thousands of years. Our class will thus explore the vast world of mangled recipes. Some of them will entice you. Picture the egg custard tarts at dim sum. If you have ever traveled to Lisbon, you’ll realize that this staple of my childhood was not a carbon copy of its Portuguese ancestor. Probably a poor imitation of the splendid original. Pastéis de Nata (Lisbon, Dec 2010). Others, however, may repel you: my daughter’s version of shortbread (yes, that’s a lot of blue food coloring). You can decide for yourself whether you are ready to dish out a lot of dough for gold dusted har gow with truffle (click on the link if you dare) . Har gow 蝦餃 (crystal skin shrimp dumplings) As we will see, the line between a proper culinary homage and mangling is murky. Cooks of the past had few qualms about substituting ingredients or sources of heat. I wish I could say that food fusions arose in the past mostly from people coming together in amorous connections, respectful exchanges, or trade. But food history is pure Hollywood: gore and opportunism. At the end of the day, I hope you’ll mangle a few recipes. I have done my share. Check out my very first attempt at making dumplings from scratch (2014). Yes, I know, it looks like an empanada. My cousin, who owns a Chinese takeout restaurant, said as much. The good news is that I have gotten better. Despite my progress, I still feel no compunction to stick to any recipe. Like my Cantonese ancestors, who found themselves cooking Chinese in tropical Malaya, I improvise. I’ve made a habit of adding turmeric to the dough for color and a punchier flavor: so far, no complaints, even from Sofi. How it started... How it's going... Have thoughts about culinary or cultural appropriation? Questions about the use of terms: some of pics and the links? Tales of your attempts to make recipes that ended in inglorious defeat or heavenly pleasure? You know what to do: go to Yellow Dig (after you have clicked on the Assignment) and find your inner food pundit. Next week, we’ll have a chance to spar more, when we get to the Great Noodle Debate. Stay tuned. Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. https://thecuriouseater.substack.com/?utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page