Magnolia, atlanta and dr. Martin luther king jr. a ... - Goodman Theatre

IN THE OWEN
A Taste of Truth: How Food Shapes
Personal Identity By Elizabeth Neukirch
Bea: You always act like cooking
is this big mystical thing.
Susan: It is.
—Ghostwritten
In Naomi Iizuka’s Ghostwritten, Susan,
an American visitor in Vietnam, is brought
to tears when a mysterious woman offers
her a taste of the Vietnamese dipping
sauce Nuoc Cham. “It’s like the most
amazing thing in the world,” she says.
While Susan is not native to Vietnam, the
flavor of this traditional sauce will become
an inextricable part of her identity, leading
her to become a famous Asian fusion
chef in America.
Susan’s strong connection to Nuoc Cham
persists in her cooking, even after she
returns to America, because she identifies
the flavor with the life-changing
circumstances surrounding the moment
at which she first tastes it. Susan is
lost when she meets the Vietnamese
woman; the woman helps her find her
way. Susan is hungry; the woman cooks
for her. Susan lives alone in America; in
Vietnam, the woman tells her, “...nobody
lives alone. Everybody lives together,
mother, father, brother, sister, everybody
all together.” The woman provides
companionship—and thousands of miles
from her studio apartment in Illinois,
Susan feels at home. By association,
Nuoc Cham makes her feel at home.
It is believed that the way people experience
a meal for the first time determines
how they will experience that meal for
the rest of their lives. As scholar Michael
Owen Jones writes, “Who prepares the
food, serves it, and cleans it up; where
people take their meals; the shape of
a table; and who sits where and talks
about what—all these convey roles,
values, and ideas” that can shape not
only people’s diets, but also their belief
system and way of life. Susan’s experience
with Nuoc Cham leads her to
blend Asian flavors with staples of the
American tradition in her fusion cooking.
Almost magically, Susan transfers her
own memories and emotions through
her cooking to the people who taste
her food; her dishes are renowned for
imparting calm and well-being.
Fusion cooking “fuses” the culinary
flavors of a particular region with those
of an entirely different region. Fusion
chefs will often incorporate flavors from
regions or cultures they feel connected to
in some way, as Susan does with Nuoc
Cham. The Mexican-American fusion
chef Rick Bayless at Chicago’s Frontera
Grill says, “[What I create is] not concept
food. I’m not trying to create new
cuisine. I do food that comes from my
soul.” Other chefs do use fusion cooking
to create something new. Asian-American
fusion chef and television personality Ken
Hom aims to reinvent Asian cooking; he
says that people in Asia consider him a
chef “who has brought a new vision and
look, a new perspective of Asian foods
that might fit into modern Asia.”
In other cases, fusion dishes are created
one step at a time by people of many
different walks of life. For example,
the sweet potato pie that has become
a staple of the American Thanksgiving
feast combines European, Native
American and African American culinary
traditions: the crust is inspired by a
European pie shell, and the traditional
Native American pumpkin filling was
changed by African American southerners
to sweet potato. Such “accidental”
fusions have resulted in numerous dishes
that are enjoyed as part of the American
tradition today.
Regardless of its origin, food represents
a combination of traditions, individual
taste and unique life experiences. People
define and represent themselves through
what they eat.
ABOVE: Photo of fishing industry in Vietnam,
©www.pedaltours.co.nz.
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