Chinese Outlaws and Baguettes
I am a mixed breed lady, half Chinese, thank you, dad, and half dust bowl Okie, thank you, mom. Over holiday meals, I heard tales from my mother's family how we could lay claim to family ties linking us to Jesse James and Belle Star. I love the image of being a Chinese outlaw...galloping off into the dusty sunset, a wok strapped to the back of my horse. The result? A pretty complex and I think, nuanced palate. After all, I grew up eating hominy, red beans with ham-hocks as well as congee with preserved eggs and pickled shrimp paste. My palate was further refined after spending time in Paris, beurre blanc? Mais ouis! My palate further gained an earthy resonance when, after eating my way through each delectable arrondissment in Paris, I returned home and moved next door to a lady from from Sicily whose raison d'etre or rather, a causa di essere was found in a bowl of hand rolled pasta and glasses of San Giovese wine. We'd spend weekends making pasta, or hours of chopping olives and eggplant for caponata. Despite growing up eating food from two incredibly distinct cultures, I doggedly laid claim to what could and could not be called Chinese. As a child I more than wrinkled my nose at what putatively passed as American Chinese cuisine. Serve me "Chinese" noodles with corn and hot dog slices and call it "Chow Mein" for example, (this deranged mix was a school lunch entree when I was a child) and I would feel as if the school lunch lady had smacked me with a sock full of nickles printed with a racial slur on the outside. On family vacations, we'd sometimes stop at a Chinese restaurant in a small town while on a road trip. As the waitress put the dishes before us, I would point out with the whiny indignity only a child could muster, much to my parent's chagrin, "But this isn't Chineeeez." For some reason, this co-optation of our culture, made me mad. How could they not know what black bean sauce was?? I am sure that since I was confined by my own strict rules of culinary purity, that if we had traveled through Hong Kong and was met with mac and cheese served with chow fun instead of proper macaroni, I would have whined just as loudly. As the world shrinks around us, I have, thankfully, become much less pit bull-like in terms of guarding the cultural borders of my food. Fusion, if done thoughtfully, is not a trendy marketing trick, but an act of respect. There should be no borders between cuisines: haleem and a crusty baguette, cooscoos with vegetables grilled with hoisen glaze, chicken in a creme fraiche sauce over a steaming plate of jasmine rice. The dinner table should be considered a dance floor where we all can spin a new partner. The only criterion for the success of fuising cuisines is that authenticity underscore the culinary intent. Fusion only works if the constituent elements are true components of each culture's pantry.