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It's interesting because a lot of Southern food and soul food is a result of a mix of American culinary practices with African culinary practices that were brought over during the transatlantic slave trade. And so even if you think about like hairstyles, like in the US, the braids that a lot of Black people get, they're called corn rolls, right? Rolls of corn.
Right? Because at that time, Black people used to hide seeds of different plants in their hair. And they used to braid it into their hair so when they got to the new land, they could still grow foods that they were used to eating back at home.
Welcome to Cultural Coalition. I'm Victoria. I'm EJ. Today, we want to unravel the rich tapestry of human experiences and explore the intricate connections between culture and everyday life. In today's episode, we embark on a flavorful journey as we delve into the fascinating intersection of food and culture. From traditional recipes passed down through generations to modern culinary trends,
Join us as we uncover how food reflects societal values, preserves its shape collective identity. So how do you feel about culinary traditions?
It varies across different cultures. And what role do they play in defining cultural identity for you? That is a great question. For me, I feel like, so I live in the Midwest. I'm from the Midwest, but my family has roots in the American South.
And so a lot of our food culture and like food identity is centered around both American Southern culture and soul food and American Midwest food. And so typically what that meant was that when we did holidays,
We never had them with just our immediate family. It was always a bunch of people coming together. It was potluck style. So everyone was responsible for bringing one dish. We would get really excited about who was cooking which dish. Maybe it was my favorite dish. That was always really important. And it was just really big to signal family and community and how strong community was. It was also a really big time for families.
people in the family, the older generations to pass down stories. And so it was a lot of storytelling that happened. And that was always my favorite part about, you know, having big meals with family was all of the storytelling and the oral history that would get passed down. And because my family has, you know, roots in the South, particularly in like the Southern Baptist Church,
there was a lot of faith and religion that was involved in it. And so it was a mix of not just food, but it was religion, it was family history. And I feel like it was really good about preserving, you know, even though we don't live in the South anymore, I almost never go to the South. I don't know any of my relatives in the South, but we still feel connected through our food culture. And that has always made me, you know, really excited and feel special. What about you? How do you feel now?
and culinary traditions have shaped, you know, cultural identity for you? Actually, what you just mentioned about like for holidays, everyone bring a dish to celebrate together, which I remember like a couple years ago when we had celebrate the Thanksgiving together and we asked people, right, to bring his or her own dish to the company and we share together. I was very surprised. Like for Chinese people, it feels like something
something very new. Because when we celebrate festivals, we normally gather together and we have the female or have the host to make all the dishes. Rest of us just like wait there and wait to eat. But I also do feel that's a very nice tradition to do when celebrating. It feels like everybody is contributing to this dinner or this meal. And that was very nice. Yeah. For me, actually, I think I have very mixed feelings
food experiences because I was born and raised in Beijing, the northern part of China. The habit there was like people eat very salty things, a heavy taste. Like you can see the pickles everywhere. There's a very famous brand called Liu Biju. It's famous just for pickles. You can find like pickled Chinese cabbage, pickled cucumber, pickled all kinds of vegetables.
But the thing is, the common thing is it's very salty, right? And also, some people like noodles, like balls, like dumplings, like mantou, the bun. But I grew up in a family, my grandparents are from southern area. So they usually cook very fresh vegetables, fish and meat. I remember when I was young, like my grandma will buy the live chicken and she will...
cut the chicken, she will cut the fish, she will do that by herself. So I have all the taste of different food is very fresh. And when we try to buy vegetables is very interesting things compared to the northern people is we only buy maybe one Chinese cabbage. You cannot see that in northeast area of China. Because people don't do that people buy buy a lot of bunch of things because also, I think the weather is and it is very cold and
and try to storage a lot of food. So I think the food can reflect people like very differently. And for me, I have like really mixed experience and mixed. So I think I also like from food perspective from like when I grow up, I feel like very, I have a big tolerance on all different kinds of food. So after talking about the
identity for food with the role they play. Can you share some examples of iconic dishes that symbolize the cultural heritage of specific region or countries? For example, what's your favorite food? Like Western or Chinese? My favorite food is definitely Indian curry. I've always loved Indian curry as a kid. I think it's partially because growing up,
My best friends in middle school and high school were Indian.
That really influenced me. I was definitely influenced by them. I was also involved in this organization in high school called Asian Awareness with a lot of the other Asian American students. And so we would do food sales to raise money for charitable causes. And so through those events, I got to taste a bunch of food from India, from China, from Nepal, from France.
The Philippines, from Korea, I got to sample a bunch of different foods. And so I would say Asian food at large is probably my favorite. But most specifically, I will always have a special place in my heart for Indian curry. I also really like pork belly, like hong shao rou and stuff like that. It's just so good and so many different things.
ways that you can prepare it. So for me, Indian food is definitely at the top of my list for favorite foods. What about you? Because I have tried very, very good Indian food in Singapore, but also sounds very usual with the Indian as well. But like in Singapore, you can taste all kinds of different like foods because we have also a lot of immigrants from
Southeast Asia. So we have all different kinds of food. It's very nice. For the past week, the reason like you bring India for us, like for the past week, you know, I have the, in the company, we have the global kickoff. A lot of colleagues actually from India. So we tried every single meal. We have like one, two to three dishes are from India. They were very good.
But I'm also surprised by how Indian people love their food. And they have to eat every single meal. That's what's so interesting. For me, I think...
I had this discussed with a friend before. So what's if you're gonna die very soon? What's your last dish you want to eat? The answer is Peking duck. I don't know why. Probably because I was like born and raised in Beijing. So I really love that it's more like, so homesick you would miss the taste. And when I was at home, I eat every single month. Well, that's, it's very like, more
More than I should eat because it's quite oily. It's quite heavy as well. Yeah, for anything else, I like jajangmian, the noodles. But like it's only, like I said, I have a very mixed culture of like northern and southern. So I like the jajangmian only made by my dad because it's supposed to be very salty. If you eat in a traditional like Beijing restaurant for jajangmian, it's very salty. But actually I love the flavor is a bit like sweet.
like more than salty. Yeah. Yeah. I, um, picking duck is also one of my favorite meals. I miss that a lot. Um, and jajangmyeon, I haven't had that in so long, but I've always preferred homemade jajangmyeon over restaurant jajangmyeon as well. For the same reason, it can get very salty. Um,
I feel like, you know, those are iconic dishes that come from Beijing. I feel like for me in the U.S., there are, for my family, two iconic dishes that everyone knows really well. One is greens and one is macaroni and cheese, which I feel like aren't
as common dishes eaten necessarily around the world, but they're like staples in soul food cooking. And oftentimes they're like side dishes, right? Greens are side dishes. You know, it's a green vegetable that's made with vinegar and sometimes meat, you know, macaroni and cheese is pasta that's made with the cheese and the sauce. And it's baked mostly a lot of times in soul food cooking. But even though they're side dishes, people actually, um,
respect them and like them more than the main dish most times. So a lot of times it's like more important than the meat. It's more important than the dessert. It's more important than the appetizers and all of that. So at holidays, when we would have the potluck style, people were always nervous about who was assigned to make the macaroni and cheese and the greens, because if they didn't make them good, everyone would be so upset.
So that was always my favorite thing. I always loved my grandmother's greens. My mom's macaroni and cheese. It's always my favorite. You talk about getting homesick and like, what do you want to eat? Like, oh, these are the two things that I wish I knew how to cook for myself. I need to learn. But my mom and grandmother make the best greens and macaroni and cheese. Oh, God. Speaking of like home cooking dish, I can't stop like thinking of all the dishes my grandma used to make.
She is very good at cooking. Like, she's 90 already, but she's in her 80s. She still cooks very good. All the dishes you can find in the restaurant, she can cook ba bao. Yeah, I don't know if you've ever eaten that. It's duck. But duck, you take all the intestine out and you put, like, rice and you put, like, all different kind of rice into the stomach and you cook it. It's very nice. And also, like, the fish head soup on the...
the traditional iconic Shanghai, Shanghainese dish, which is, wow, it's amazing. But like that kind of like cooking level is gone from my family because neither my, my auntie or my dad has that kind of like cooking, cooking like level. So I miss that a lot.
Yeah, it's so interesting how sometimes the cooking skill doesn't continue in families. That's something that I get nervous about. I definitely, my sister loves to cook and I love to cook. And so my grandmother is also like in her late 80s, I think. She might even be close to 90.
And she still likes to cook, but she doesn't cook as much as she used to. And I want to go and record and document and make a short video of her cooking a whole meal so I can learn and preserve that rich family history. It's so amazing. So how do you feel that...
societal values and beliefs influence food preferences and dietary habits within communities. I think it's very interesting. In China, I think the cultural emphasis on not wasting food is deeply rooted in our upbringing. You can see from Asian poetry to the modern day slogans, the message of the cherishing food is always there. And it's very interesting. I hear that very much because when I...
have, like, when I have lunch, I have a meal with my friends. Always something I would say is, eat whatever is in your plate. Please finish it. Don't waste any rice, right? It's like, don't waste food. I think also because in China, a lot of people in poverty, they don't have food to eat. So, like, you know, like, how...
How easy people just waste food. They cannot finish. They just go into the trash bin. And it's such a waste. So Singapore is quite different because Singapore is a developed country. So what Singapore do is the government really initiate and advocate for mindful consumption, particularly in reducing sugar and fat intake.
You can see this is evidence in the labeling of the beverage with nutrient grade classifications. So when you go to the supermarket or go to any mall and to try to buy something to drink, and normally have something called like ABCD, it's nutrient grade, or it has vitamins, and it shows like, it will tell you this drink have less in sugar. So they are very emphasis on this, like house, so try to...
intake less sugar and fat. That's what I observed in Singapore. So how's that in the U.S.? The U.S. is interesting because I think the U.S. gives contradicting, contradictory messages when it comes around food. The American Standard Diet
isn't very healthy, right? It's not the best diet in the world in terms of nutrients, right? There's a lot of meat, there's a lot of cheese, there's a lot of sugar intake in the U.S., you know? So the U.S. has to counteract that, has a really big emphasis on
on diet culture and body image, which I think can be challenging because of lifestyle conveniences in the US due to past historical events like wars and things like that, which led to the increase in production of processed foods like spam, canned goods, things like that that can be preserved for a really long time but aren't
like you said, they're not fresh ingredients that maybe your grandmother would have gotten from the market. These are all things that sit on the shelves for a really long time. It's super convenient and it's easy to eat and it's easy to make a lot of different foods in the US, but they're not necessarily the most healthy. And so diet culture is there to sort of correct that, but diet culture can be really, really, really hard on people. And it ends up resulting in body image issues and things like that because people don't know how to really digest
understand the mixed messaging that you get, especially currently in the world of social media, where people like to post a lot of their food and there's a lot of food porn and things like that. And like influencers that try to get people to spend a lot of time thinking about food. I think in the U.S. people spend an absorbent amount of time thinking about food, looking at food online, sort of fantasizing about food. So social media is
has been helpful in that it has helped globalize and democratize access to food. I think in the U.S., a lot of my peers and I, because of this, we have very, like, broad palates. You know, you can find a lot of different foods in the U.S. and people get really excited about it. But it's not always done, I think, in the best way or in the most authentic way. And so I think it's
The social values around food in the U.S. are interesting because it's not really super standardized. But I think that from my own personal experiences, because my family... So part of the reason why my family moved from the Southern U.S. to the Midwest was during the Great Migration was to look for better opportunities because...
financially and politically and socially, things weren't great for African Americans in the South. And so they moved to the Midwest for better opportunities. But because of that, you know, my dad, you know, grew up very poor. And so he used to say the same thing to us, always eat all of your food, clear your plate. You know, we weren't allowed to be picky eaters. You know, we had to eat whatever was given to us. We didn't really have a ton of choice.
And so nowadays I can appreciate that because it forced me to eat a bunch of different foods growing up. And so I appreciate that. But as an adult, I still like,
I will eat things that I don't really want to eat because I'm in my mind. I'm like, you have to eat it all. You have to clear your entire plate, which is a funny thing to tell yourself even when your parents aren't there because I know I don't have to finish my plate. But I always feel like a little guilty around that. So I've experienced some of that as well. I also have the same feeling if I can't finish my food. And also, like, I grew up as not, like, very picky about the food. I just...
don't have the maybe we we have something we really don't like it but we normally don't cook at home but like when we eat at home is what you outside when something you just get into a plate you try to finish all even though you might not really like it but just you just feel oh i cannot waste this this is not good all we have this is like thinking but that's good thinking though
Yes, I think so as well. So in what ways does the history of a culture influence its culinary traditions and the ingredients used in traditional dishes? Yeah, so as I mentioned, my family being from the South, there's a lot of Southern tradition that is brought to the food that we cook. So, you know, it's interesting because a lot of
Southern food and soul food is a result of a mix of American culinary practices with African culinary practices that were brought over during the transatlantic slave trade. And so even if you think about like hairstyles, like in the US, the braids that a lot of Black people get, they're called corn rolls, right? Rolls of corn.
Right. Because at that time, Black people used to hide seeds of different plants in their hair and they used to braid it into their hair. So when they got to the new land, they could still grow foods that they were used to eating back at home.
And a lot of that was like a ton of vegetarian cooking. You know, even if you think back in Africa now, they eat a lot of beans, they eat a lot of vegetables, you know, things like okra, you know, black eyed peas, watermelon, right? Those are all foods that were brought over from Africa to the US. And now in my family, right, of course,
I love watermelon, which is funny because it's a stereotype, right, in the U.S. that Black people love watermelon. But I don't think people realize that it's because watermelon originated in Africa. So it's just a native fruit that people were used to eating. Because of that, I feel like there's a lot of, like,
fusion that happens when those worlds collide, right? There's a lot of fusion. So for us, yes, we are from the South, but because I live in the Midwest, we sort of do it a little bit differently based off of how things are in the Midwest. I think it's very similar if you look at places like LA, where there's a huge Asian and Latin and Hispanic populations that exist there, right? There's
fusion around that. That's how you get places like, if you remember Palms LA, it was Korean-Mexican fusion, right? That's, you know, popular in areas like that. Or even in New Orleans where I spent time over Christmas. There's tons of fusion there from Black, French, you know, Spanish, Creole,
that are there and it creates these really interesting, distinct pockets of food and cultural traditions. So I think that's really exciting. And the U.S. is such a big country that, you know, depending on where you are in the country, each region is going to have its own sort of cultural history. And, you know, if you're by the water, there's going to be more seafood like in Maine and Boston, you know, versus here in
in the Midwest, we have a lot of cows. So there's a lot of cheese and there's a lot of dairy around that, which, you know, you don't get in a lot of other places. So it's always exciting for me to see those regional and cultural differences and how it shows up in food. Yeah, I totally can feel that. So you're talking about the fusion, right? I also can feel like
This is also how different landscapes inflect our food. The fusion for me in Beijing, I feel there is a lot of fusion from Western plus Chinese. Maybe like Middle East food was Chinese. So in China, we have eight different types of cooking style. And then they can be mixed and developed to different different
dishes and with different flavors. In Hong Kong, I think it also is a Hong Kong's cuisine marrows its status as a global hub.
blending with the Cantonese flavors, with the influences from the British colonial rules and neighboring the regions. And then in Singapore, it's very interesting as well, because Singapore's multicultural society has resulted in a vibrant cuisine, where you can see a lot of Malay, Chinese, Indian, Peranakan influences, coverage in the melting pots of flavors and ingredients. Like I mentioned, like, you can find all different flavors. They have very, like, good Indian food in Singapore, and very...
famous pernickan like malay dishes in singapore and also like thai food
Or like even Vietnamese, there is a street where like my company located on is called Vietnamese Street. So if all the Vietnamese sandwich, the pho and all the different dishes you can tell and it's not so traditional. It's originally from Vietnam, but it combined with like the flavor how Singaporean people love. So it's changed a little bit, it's a little bit different, but just for it to better understand
to the local people's like flavors. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's so cool how those I think about like Xi'an as a perfect example of like natural sort of Chinese fusion of like the Muslim culture, Chinese culture coming together and like making these really cool authentic dishes. I love seeing that happen organically in Singapore. Yes, you said being that multicultural nation. Singapore is like one of my
at the top of my list of places I want to go to eat because I feel like it has all of my favorite foods in one place. Well, you definitely can taste a lot like different foods here. I feel, but for the Chinese food here, I don't want to say like here is better than China. Probably not. But like the other Southeast Asia, like Asian food, you definitely can try a lot just in one country.
How do you think that rituals and customs surrounding food preparation and consumption contribute to the cultural significance of meals? I just think like good things are bad things. In China's culture is culture.
Sometimes we need to wait for everyone to be sitting at a table before starting a meal. So for me to have lunch with my colleague, even in Singapore, it's a Chinese culture and they're like very heavy Chinese culture. We'll wait everybody to be ready or like the meal will be served in front of you. Then we have four of us. Then everyone have a dish. Then we start to eating.
and in China is like in the family it's similar right like everybody sit on the table sometimes when we wait for the the grandma the elderly people to sit on table start to eat first and then the rest of us will follow in some traditions I also know is in this happens in northern and southern it does have like it's quite a
kind of by the way of tradition is where the the male members with the same family name start eating first and followed by women and those married into the family which is like what we call "wai xin ren" not with the family name here and this is a sign of the respect and hierarchy within the family structure during the festival gatherings this has happened in
What I heard, this happened in Northeast and also happens in South in Taiwan as well. So sometimes you cannot eat together with them on the first table or like even you eat the food they left over after they finish. That's something like is also under Chinese culture for like how we do, like how we eat together and especially like celebrate the Chinese.
celebrate the festival because you're going to have a huge family. Yeah. That's interesting. I've heard about that concept of the male members eating first and then everyone following. I feel like my Chinese professor told me that that's the original meaning of the word wrong. Not sure about that. I think that's what he said. I don't know if that's true or not, but he said that that was like the original meaning of wrong was to let
to yield to other people to eat first. And then the women would eat sort of last. And as you said, sometimes not even together. In the U.S., it's a bit different. I think particularly what I have noticed is that there's still the idea that everyone waits for food
All the food to be finished and for everyone to be ready to eat together. But typically, if there are kids around, you always let the kids eat first because kids tend to get whiny and they will complain about being hungry first, especially little kids. And so our tradition was always to feed.
feed the kids first, which when I got out of the range of being a kid, when I was in high school, I was always jealous because I would wait so long to eat and I would always get jealous of the little kids who got to try the food first. But outside of that, the biggest ritual that I remember growing up with outside of the potluck was prayer.
My family was really religious, so we would always pray and say grace before meals. And it's not something that I do anymore. Although I do think that what I...
just because I'm not as religious as I was growing up. But what I like about the idea of prayer and saying grace before meal is that it forces you to take a moment to stop and be grateful for the things that you have. So that was always the thing that I liked about it the most. It was being grateful for the food, being grateful for the time together with family, being grateful that we have the ability to cook for ourselves and to nourish ourselves.
And so it's something that as an adult, I've thought about reincorporating into my life again, like saying grace, not necessarily for the religious aspect of it, but for the gratitude aspect of it. I actually think that it's a really good way to practice gratitude. So, and then in more formal settings, like for really important holidays, there was always really, really important to set the table in a really specific way and
There's all the table etiquette around it, and I never went to etiquette school, but my parents always taught us there's a specific spoon that you're supposed to eat the soup with, which is a different spoon that you would use to eat dessert with. Or there's a certain knife that you use to cut meat with, and there's a different knife that you use to spread butter with.
And so those are all things that like as a little kid, I didn't really know. It wasn't as important. But as I've gotten older, I've learned how to navigate those in more formal fine dining situations. I love the pray part before like having a meal is just like you said, it's very grateful because all the food provided to us is now like what we call in China is not like fallen from the sky. Yeah.
It's not from Tianxiang down. Right. There's people fighting for you. There's people working hard to buy food and cook for us with love. Right. It's supposed to be like, we'll be very grateful for your eat meal. That's what's my very nice gesture. And also the tradition you mentioned about like,
especially for important festivals to decorate. I think that's very important as well is you cherish this moment, cherish this festival together with your family and make it special. Oh, I love all this, like the good traditions you have in the U.S. I think more and more Chinese people are trying to do that before we're having a dinner or before we celebrate the festival. Yeah.
So I talk about globalization and fusion, right? How do you feel that impacted culinary landscapes around the world? And what are the implications for preserving traditional food practices? It's a really good question because I think in the U.S., because the U.S. is, you know, a multicultural nation, there are people from all over. So we typically have access to
to foods from all over, even in smaller cities and small towns, right? You can still find food from different places. I think the challenge that happens in the U.S. is that there's this concept of cultural appropriation where people from, let's say, for example, if I were to open a Chinese restaurant,
Right. And I started making Chinese food and maybe I made it and it was really good. And I came up with these new dishes. It feels a little inappropriate in the sense that like I'm not Chinese. Right. Especially if I'm not giving credit to where credit is due. I think that in the U.S. there's a lot of tension around sort of people creating ethnic restaurants, right?
or creating new restaurants ideas, but not being a part of the culture, not including people from the original culture into the process and, you know, not working with those communities in order to uplift them. And so I think that because of that, I do my best
to support local and traditional restaurants as much as I can if I have access to them. You know, obviously businesses are businesses and they're going to run, you know, the way they are. And, you know, it's fair to have competition. But it certainly makes me
value more. As you said, you know, people are fighting for opportunities and especially in the U.S., a lot of immigrants who come to the U.S., depending on their situation, they do get involved in food business or service businesses. And so I definitely like to support them when I can, as opposed to going to sort of big chains or big places that might not really be connected to the culture anymore. I think that social media is
has played a big part in this. It allows people to be curious about new foods, which I think is really important because if you get curious about new foods, it opens a door for you to learn more about people and their cultures.
I think food is a great gateway into learning about people and their culture. So I'm very grateful to be in the city that I am. It's pretty international because of the university that's here. There's a lot of international students that's here. There's a lot of international restaurants here. And so because of that, I've learned a lot about different people here.
and their cultures as a result, just through eating. So that has been exciting. So definitely try to support local and traditional mom and pops places when I can. What about you? Yeah, I think we talk about fusion, the rise of fusion food, where the traditions from different cultures blend together and create innovative dishes.
For instance, like Chinese Western fusion cuisines have gained popularity, offering like different combinations to cater to involving tastes and preferences. I think the other side of this is as this spreads, there's a risk of overshadowing the authentic culinary traditions in flavor more commercially vibe and universal appealing options. So
when people really love fusion and then how about the traditional food right how to preserve the traditional food like you said it's like rooting for the local food for the local restaurants by run by the local people and that's kind of like very very important otherwise like the young people if they didn't try the traditional one they'd only
know the fusion part and they think this is like the the new fashion I want to follow this I have to try different different new things then the traditional part gone but I think in for for
For Beijing, as far as I know, it preserved very well. Where like in China, because you always want to try what the local people actually have, what local people actually eat. Sometimes the flavor is not like so acceptable, but still is something like where generations people try to eat and to keep this.
While the fusion cuisine celebrates diversity and creativity, it also is essential to strike a balance between innovation and the preservation of the culture heritage. Yeah, I think about preserving traditional dishes as much. I mean, I mentioned before how I want to
spend time with my grandmother so I can learn the dishes because I want to be able to pass that down to my nieces and nephews or if I end up having kids myself, you know, I want them to be able to make soul food and I want them to know the stories behind all of the food as well. I think, you know, there's so much more to a dish than just how
does it taste good? Is it salty enough? Right? Or is it spicy enough? There's so much more behind the dish. So this is definitely inspiring me to, to have some conversations and and to write some recipes down. Yeah, it's always good to preserve what our traditions are. You're right, it's not about like the flavor, maybe we cannot copy the 100% in make the same dish and make very delicious but like,
is important to keep or sometimes it's for us to when we have the homesick when we miss this dish by our grandma or like even their grandmas then we can cook and this help help us like emotionally feels good and to preserve to teach our kids our next generations is another kind of like
Keep the tradition. Okay. And that wraps up our delectable exploration of food and culture. From the vibrant spices of India to the comforting flavors of Italian cuisine, we've uncovered the diverse ways in which food serves as a gateway to understanding the world around us.
We hope this episode has ignited your appetite for cultural discovery and inspired you to savor the rich tapestry of culinary traditions that enrich our lives. As we bid farewell, we invite you to share your favorite culture dishes and culinary experiences with us. Leave a comment.
Join the conversation on social media and let us know how food has shaped your culture identity and brought communities together. Until next time, keep exploring, keep savoring, and keep celebrating the delicious diversity of our world. Bye. Bye.
