Food is Culture. Food is Identity. Food is Memory.
Think back to a dish from your childhood. Do you remember its flavors? its smells? How did you feel? No matter if this dish was passed down from your great-grand-parents to your parents or if it was a new invented recipe from your creative family member, that dish has a story.
Every dish has a story, in fact, every ingredient has a story of its own. These stories are our stories - our human stories of migration, of rise and fall of Empires, of colonization, of rituals and celebrations. I’m obsessed with these stories. I’m obsessed at how much we can tell about our humanity through them.
A modern story; let’s start where it all started, in a plate of my own, and let’s explore together why it might not be the only story that matters.
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We’ll start where I was in the 90’s. In a small city of less than 40 000 people in Quebec, Canada. It was a time when I was probably “not taller than three apples” eating the meals that my parents grew up with - meaning; over-steamed vegetables with butter and a braised meat of some sort, that is, if it was not a lucky night, and we’d eat some good ol’ pan-fried bologna with mashed potato, carrots, and rutabaga. In high-school, most of my lunch were frozen microwaved lasagna and my afternoon snack, the infamous pizza pocket.
Fast-forward to my University years, in the late 2000’s, when I moved to the biggest city of my area, Montreal. Montreal is the only bilingual city in Quebec, and it has a much more ethnically diverse population than where I grew up. I remember how excited I was when I first ate Chinese food that wasn’t from an all-you-can-eat-buffet and didn’t offer deep-fried egg rolls with a cherry sauce. Even though, moving to Montreal was the beginning of a food revelation - let’s not get too excited just yet - I’m pretty sure I didn’t even know what hummus was yet…
While today’s generation are growing up with hummus and avocado toast for lunch and pad thai for dinner.
This is the story from the gourmet’s perspective. Now, on the other side of the plate, let’s think of the chef’s story.
Through these decades of rapid globalization, many generations of diasporas survived their ways into new countries by becoming chefs and restaurateurs. Many locals have been enjoying different foods than the ones their parents grew up making for them. Slowly these new dishes have been acquired in their daily lives. But for that to happen, sacrifices have been made. Whether it was to change the recipes to better suit the local palates or modify the recipes in accordance to the local produce availability, and most definitely, by putting in the hours needed just to make ends meet. These stories are often left untold by self-preservation or unpublished by silencing the minority stories because it doesn't “meet the market” . These stories are left minimized by a “market” daring to consume gluttonously blinded by the excitement of novelty.
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There are so many topics to research and most are heated debates, but I am not here to debate - only to research, document, and expand our minds.
Today’s world has a complex story to unfold and I want to take time to take away one layer at the time. I want to take the time to study, learn, and share with you my discoveries about the past, the present, and maybe even, the future of food. The past, to understand where we come from and how a world in movement always influenced local food culture. The present, because it’s such a complex world that we live in. And the future, because today’s actions will influence the next generation.
I don’t want to write a dissertation and I don’t want to explore everything. I will start by what I’m most interested in, which is Food Culture in China and Taiwan. I will read what I can in English, but to be honest, I don’t want to only read what a foreigner’s eye has to say about Chinese food. I’ve been very interested in the regional food of China, but I can’t find much written in English. And so, I decided to take one province at the time and read and translate books slowly for us to really dive into what truly is Chinese food. I’m also fascinated by the food story behind 長安 Chang’An, current Xi’an 西安. 長安 Chang’An served as China’s Capital during 10 different dynasties including Former Han (206 BCE – 9 CE), the Sui (589-617 CE) and the Tang (618 – 907 CE). And most importantly for us foodie, the city was also the gateway to the Silk Road, it was then a place where a lot of ingredients, food, and ideas around food were exchanged. And so, this is where our adventure begins!