Speaker 1: M M. What does the diaspora mean to you? The
Speaker 1: diaspora to disperse a scattered population whose origins lie in
Speaker 1: a separate geographic locale. The diaspora is not a singular
Speaker 1: experience originating from one place. It is a multitude, a
Speaker 1: complex experience with many origins. Diasporic Food Waves examines how
Speaker 1: food has traveled from origin to adopt at home and
Speaker 1: in doing so, taken on new meaning while steadfastly keeping
Speaker 1: communities connected to their heritage in many instances, and the
Speaker 1: grappling is the creation of a third culture. In today's episode,
Speaker 1: we hear from several voices connecting us to Diasporic Food Waves.
Speaker 1: At Third Culture Bait gree in Berkeley, California. The team
Speaker 1: shares with us how they're Mochi muffins connect their Indonesian
Speaker 1: in Taiwanese heritage. Katherine Bowen tells us the story of
Speaker 1: honoring her roots through Paboosa's the iconic Salvadorian flatbread. The
Speaker 1: chef Ashley Shanti, who lives in the Appalachian South, tells
Speaker 1: her story and amplifies those of African Americans and her
Speaker 1: hybrid West African and Appalachian cuisine. We learned how to
Speaker 1: make another kind of flatbread, the Jamaican miannike case, a
Speaker 1: dish with Afro Caribbean origins popular on the Atlantic Coast,
Speaker 1: and finally a rohein the Rain. Unpacks the colonial history
Speaker 1: of Japanese curry as a cultural and culinary artifact from
Speaker 1: the perspective of an Indian woman in Tokyo. On today's
Speaker 1: episode of Plant of Origin, we're exploring what the diaspora
Speaker 1: means and how it informs and enriches our food. I
Speaker 1: grew up in the Indonesia and also in New York City.
Speaker 1: That's Sam boots Are Boots Are. He's the co owner
Speaker 1: in chef at Third Culture Bakery in Oakland, California. So
Speaker 1: we kind of identified as Third Culture kids, and it
Speaker 1: was kind of like more of a sociology term, and
Speaker 1: it was trying to describe kids who originally they grew
Speaker 1: up in a an immigrant family and they didn't particularly
Speaker 1: attach themselves to the culture where they grew up nor
Speaker 1: to the culture where they were born. My partner, I
Speaker 1: felt that we were too white to be Asian and
Speaker 1: too Asian to be white, ended up forming our own culture,
Speaker 1: our third interpretation of it. We wanted to create a
Speaker 1: bakery basically that tells that story and all the flavors
Speaker 1: and all the pastries and drinks a third culture. They're
Speaker 1: epanomizing third culture by creating mochi muffins and mochi donuts,
Speaker 1: an Asian dessert molded into an American pastry. And I
Speaker 1: I also really missed all these flavors that I grew
Speaker 1: up eating, all these tropical fruits like passion food and
Speaker 1: glove and mango. Selfishly, I want to eat all these things.
Speaker 1: I really wanted to create a bakery, and I actually
Speaker 1: partnered my partner Winter, he was born in Taiwan but
Speaker 1: also grew up in l A came and it was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I kind of want to create a bakery
Speaker 1: where it reflects our upbringing. When Sam and his co
Speaker 1: founder Winter launched their bakery, they lead with the intention
Speaker 1: of creating the pastries of their childhood. Yeah. The first
Speaker 1: adapt adaptation was actually just taking taking my mom's recipe
Speaker 1: and kind of putting it in a muffin tin um.
Speaker 1: That's how it started. I still remember the first night
Speaker 1: I made it and is just shocked at how this
Speaker 1: contrast of texture that you get out of baking emoji,
Speaker 1: and you know, the outside gets kind of crispy and
Speaker 1: crunchy and the insights stay soft and gooey. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about one of the ingredients that makes these cultural ties,
Speaker 1: and that is the mochi itself. So could you explain
Speaker 1: to us what is mochi Mochi is. It's a type
Speaker 1: of rice. It's basically glutinous rice. It's a variety of
Speaker 1: rice that is cultivated to have more a specific starch,
Speaker 1: kurd amulose. So when it's cooked, it kind of connects together.
Speaker 1: It forms this kind of sticky network, sticky chewy network.
Speaker 1: The word mochi itself is actually Japanese, but the crop
Speaker 1: itself um is from China. You know, the species of
Speaker 1: rice comes from and it ever since it's spread to Japan,
Speaker 1: it's spread to the Southeast Asian, and it's spread to Thailand.
Speaker 1: So it's very interesting in that Japanese UM, Japanese, Southeast
Speaker 1: Asian and Chinese they all now have their own varieties
Speaker 1: of mochi rice. They have different qualities. The Japanese is
Speaker 1: more supple, more soft um. The Southeast Asian is more firm.
Speaker 1: In China and Japan, the mochi tends to be pounded
Speaker 1: into this kind of soft, sticky thing and Um, usually
Speaker 1: it's stuffed um, I believe in China. UM. In Indonesia, though,
Speaker 1: UM it tends to be more like the steam cake
Speaker 1: that I told you, where it's layered and it's cut UM.
Speaker 1: I think because of the fact that Indonesian they just
Speaker 1: love to eat snats on the go. You mentioned that
Speaker 1: when you were a child, you grew up eating these
Speaker 1: pastries called kol at bees. They're a Southeast Asian steamed cake.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us more about the pastry and your
Speaker 1: childhood memories of having this dish? Yeah, super special dish.
Speaker 1: My my mom usually she makes it during the big
Speaker 1: holiday Christmas and New Year's UM. And it's a super
Speaker 1: traditional cake that you make kind of a batter, kind
Speaker 1: of a thin batter with rice flour, coconut milk. And
Speaker 1: traditionally in Southeast Asian pastries they use this herb called
Speaker 1: pandan and if you ever if you ever google it,
Speaker 1: it looks like this long kind of grassy leaf and um,
Speaker 1: so at these Asian people, they Indonesian and Malaysian and
Speaker 1: type UM cooking uses this leaf as a flavoring and
Speaker 1: it smells a lot like vanilla, like a very grassy sweet,
Speaker 1: and so she would kind of blend out all together
Speaker 1: and um, have a giant steamer going on, and would
Speaker 1: pour this batter close the lid and and and then
Speaker 1: the batter would kind of like thicken into this kind
Speaker 1: of um trewy layer, and then she would keep adding layer,
Speaker 1: and she would pour another second layer, close the lid,
Speaker 1: and so um it would have this like, you know,
Speaker 1: ten or fifteen layers. And usually she makes it kind
Speaker 1: of little fun and it's different colors. There's like green
Speaker 1: and red, um, depending on what kind of flavorings or
Speaker 1: what kind of color she uses. And then when it's
Speaker 1: all done, she would let it cool, take it out
Speaker 1: of the steamer, let it cool, and then unmolded and
Speaker 1: when you cut it, you see these beautiful lines. And
Speaker 1: as a kid, I just remember loving and I don't
Speaker 1: know if this is like a childhood thing, but I
Speaker 1: think kids love chewy things, you know, So it has chewy,
Speaker 1: sticky kind of sticks in your teeth kind of consistency.
Speaker 1: Um kind of this netty coconutty flavor, but very subtle um.
Speaker 1: And yeah, that was my memory of it. And my
Speaker 1: mom would always because It's such a long process to make,
Speaker 1: and she would make the batter from from whole rice,
Speaker 1: like whole grain rice, so she would have to soak
Speaker 1: it overnight and then blended in the morning. So it
Speaker 1: was it was a very special dessert, time consuming, and
Speaker 1: you would only do it for your family or a
Speaker 1: loved one. So Um, I think a lot of Indonesian
Speaker 1: kids have a very special memory of that, you know,
Speaker 1: um telling the story of why the pastry meant so
Speaker 1: much for me and what I wanted to do. But Um,
Speaker 1: I think I think that the pastry itself and the
Speaker 1: storytelling together kind of just made a life of its own.
Speaker 1: And I'm just still amazed to this day that so
Speaker 1: many people eat our pastries because of that. Sam and
Speaker 1: I start to talk about fusion cuisine. Is there a
Speaker 1: conflict between preserving and honoring tradition. How do foods and
Speaker 1: recipes modernize and how do they modernized based on location
Speaker 1: and adaptation. I fee like Asian cuisine as like more
Speaker 1: of a trophy, and I feel a lot of places
Speaker 1: do that. They just they disfuse cuisine for the sake
Speaker 1: of using cuisine, and I feel a lot of time
Speaker 1: they don't understand the heart of like, you know, the
Speaker 1: heart of Japanese cooking, like what is it, or the
Speaker 1: heart of Vietnamese cooking. And I feel that a lot
Speaker 1: of times it's it goes a right just because they
Speaker 1: don't really understand the history and the flavor, and and
Speaker 1: for me, at the end of the day, it's just
Speaker 1: it has to taste good. You know. There is a
Speaker 1: lot of resistance from people who are kind of purist
Speaker 1: and being like, oh, that's not you know, that's not
Speaker 1: Indonesian food, or that's not Vietnamese food. And I think
Speaker 1: for us, we are not trying to make Indonesian pastry.
Speaker 1: And I think if you acknowledge the fact that you're
Speaker 1: not trying to make Vietnamese cuisine modern quote unpute modern
Speaker 1: or Vietnamese cuisine better um, and you're trying to like
Speaker 1: lift it up from the you know, the Dark Ages
Speaker 1: or whatever and the savior kind of mentality, I think
Speaker 1: that that's when it gets troubling. And for us, it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, weird, Well, I'm just trying to make stuff
Speaker 1: that that I grew up with and I'm trying to
Speaker 1: make it to my interpretation in and I'm not calling
Speaker 1: it necessarily American food. I'm not necessarily Asian Indonesian. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like a thing of its own, and it's
Speaker 1: it's a very thin line. I think any exposure of
Speaker 1: um other culture that I'm there underrepresentative, I think is
Speaker 1: a good thing. But I think that the intention has
Speaker 1: to be there, a good intention, and not just for
Speaker 1: the sake of doing it. Yeah, so you bring up
Speaker 1: many good points here. I agree with you fundamentally that
Speaker 1: Asian cuisine as a moniker is absurdly broad, and it's
Speaker 1: also usually the first cuisine that comes to mind when
Speaker 1: we think of fusion and we think of all the
Speaker 1: parts of fusion that have gone awry. Uh. It's like
Speaker 1: if you just slap Asian or Pan Asian alongside any
Speaker 1: other global cuisine, we just call it fusion. Um. So
Speaker 1: that is understandably maddening. Um. I'm really interested in what
Speaker 1: you said around the fear of bringing this savior complex
Speaker 1: into into your cooking. Um. I haven't exactly thought of
Speaker 1: it in those terms. I mean, of course we we
Speaker 1: know about the savior complex outside of food as a concept,
Speaker 1: but as a third culture, kid, it seems that you're
Speaker 1: saving the cuisine by not being a purist or I
Speaker 1: think that's really too much to ask if anyone cooking
Speaker 1: the food of their childhood or the food of their memory.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of those in the naming because
Speaker 1: the naming kind of um presents the viewpoint, you know, um.
Speaker 1: And I think I think for me, the most compelling,
Speaker 1: the most compelling cuisine, I think I always say it
Speaker 1: has a sense of time and space. Um. And I
Speaker 1: always tell my my partner Winter, you know, I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, when we go to a restaurant, I just
Speaker 1: love places that just feels that it belongs to a
Speaker 1: time and space. And not necessarily that has to be
Speaker 1: authentic or it has to be like true to whatever
Speaker 1: tastes it comes from that country. But I think it's
Speaker 1: just like it speaks very um honestly about like where
Speaker 1: they interpret the cuisine. So why is it perceived as
Speaker 1: acceptable to take French or Italian dishes and adapt them.
Speaker 1: Sam has a perfect explanation and it's not one lacking nuance.
Speaker 1: You know, we we find it acceptable, and myself included
Speaker 1: if if someone makes an Italian or French and you know,
Speaker 1: even if they're not French or they're taking into another direction.
Speaker 1: Society accepts it and cognizant of what I find to
Speaker 1: be true is that I think a lot of Asian
Speaker 1: cuisine have had so much history of just colonization and
Speaker 1: history of change. And that's part of the reason why
Speaker 1: Asian chefs and you know, third culture kids who who
Speaker 1: want to make these food are more aware of it.
Speaker 1: And I think the same can't be necessarily said about
Speaker 1: French or Italian just because it's so ingrained and so
Speaker 1: part of the American culture already, and so there's you know,
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of history there, and and I
Speaker 1: feel that a lot of food that we make are
Speaker 1: also reflective of these occupation times. I wish I could
Speaker 1: tell you I came from a family that cooked together
Speaker 1: from an early age. I helped my mother recreated a
Speaker 1: beloved dishes from her birthplace, outs off the door. I
Speaker 1: wish I could say I looked like her, because she
Speaker 1: has always been consummate beauty. I wish I could claim
Speaker 1: that I spoke fast, seamless Spanish with her. That's Katherine Bowen.
Speaker 1: Katherine is an Oakland based writer with a background in
Speaker 1: law and food policy, and is a first generation Salvadorian.
Speaker 1: The truth is that I'm often ashamed of my Spanish,
Speaker 1: which is choppy and littered with English words, in part
Speaker 1: because my father insisted that growing up we speak a
Speaker 1: language he understood. The reality is that I received his
Speaker 1: skin and European last name, and though there is undoubtedly
Speaker 1: privilege that attends to those attributes, they made me feel
Speaker 1: less able to claim my Salvadoran ancestry. My cultural, linguistic,
Speaker 1: and physical and securities were in some ways exacerbated in
Speaker 1: my birthplace, Miami, Florida, where the population is predominantly Hispanic,
Speaker 1: but I never felt Latina enough. Looking back now, I
Speaker 1: partly attribute my early cultural dissonance to narrative. As a child,
Speaker 1: I heard only conflict written story of Salvador, a place
Speaker 1: that my mother says she escaped, where I learned she
Speaker 1: ran from police after peaceful protests, had friends shot at,
Speaker 1: acquaintances kidnapped, among so many other casualties of the country's
Speaker 1: twenty years civil war. We didn't discuss home cooked salvador
Speaker 1: And specialties or treasured family recipes. Are dishes, tomatas and
Speaker 1: papusas and yuca were store bought near holidays like Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: our Christmas. Still, it was a one time, I felt
Speaker 1: that as a family, we were Salvadoran together. I saw
Speaker 1: my mother, her brothers, and my grandmother celebrating this food,
Speaker 1: and with this food, I recalled Papusa's hermetically expertly fashioned
Speaker 1: sheathed in a light caramel masada, their cores molten, brimming
Speaker 1: with rich, smoky cheese. The papusas with loco, a zippy
Speaker 1: green vegetable, where my grandmother's favorites, so they were mine too.
Speaker 1: I recall fat logs of fried yucca, their interiors tender
Speaker 1: beneath Cragley Crispin ears. As a writer, I knew that
Speaker 1: I wanted to explore my relationship to Salvador and that
Speaker 1: part of my identity. So towards that end I sought
Speaker 1: out two chefs in particular, Anthony Sataghetto and Rosa Gonzalez. First,
Speaker 1: I meant Anthony Sagaeto. He is the chef and owner
Speaker 1: of Popoca, a salvador and inspired pop up in downtown Oakland.
Speaker 1: I think it was pride, or perhaps admiration that I
Speaker 1: felt swelling in my chest when I first heard what
Speaker 1: Anthony was doing, in short, applying his experience in fine
Speaker 1: dining to create what he calls progressive salvador and cuisine,
Speaker 1: while still using traditional techniques, including cooking with a comal
Speaker 1: over an open plain. At Popoca, I tasted for the
Speaker 1: first time traditional dishes like guyo and chica, which Anthony
Speaker 1: prepares with chicken stewed in a fermented pineapple juice with
Speaker 1: turnips and prunes. For me, it was a revelation. I
Speaker 1: had never tasted dishes that were classic and foundation but
Speaker 1: prepared in a seasonal, ingredient driven style that I'd seen
Speaker 1: a myriad times. The chickin was so tender it practically
Speaker 1: cascaded from the bone. It's sonic broth was thick and
Speaker 1: pleasantly sweet. The prunes bobbed in the liquid like small
Speaker 1: candied islands. There were, of course papoosa's too, made with
Speaker 1: a rich, self known massa. Some were stuffed with silks
Speaker 1: and garlic confused geso. Others delighted in Japanese brace pork
Speaker 1: shoulder like glimmering orbs, they reflected light from the fire,
Speaker 1: and when cracked, they emitted steam like an exhortation to consume.
Speaker 1: After talking with Anthony, I learned that his father, like
Speaker 1: my mother, left El Salvador thirty plus years ago because
Speaker 1: of the country civil war. But by contrast, Anthony's dad
Speaker 1: was extremely passionate about Salvador and food, and he passed
Speaker 1: that admiration onto Anthony. Anthony realized something he needed to
Speaker 1: prepare and share the food he felt connected to, the
Speaker 1: food that he says was in his blood, his roots.
Speaker 1: After talking with Anthony, I spoke with Rossa Gonzalez, who
Speaker 1: was the co owner and chef at Los Cocos, a
Speaker 1: restaurant in Oakland's Fruit Bale neighborhood. Los Cocos opened its
Speaker 1: doors thirty seven years ago, before I was born. Its
Speaker 1: walls are the shade of marmalade, and a bluebird awning
Speaker 1: overlooks the restaurant's facade. I spoke with Rosa to the
Speaker 1: repeated the wap of a tortilla the sound of a
Speaker 1: meal's coronation at Los Corcos. Rosa told me that she
Speaker 1: grew up in Al Salvador, where she began cooking at
Speaker 1: age nine. She lived there until the late nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: when she was forced to leave. She told me after
Speaker 1: being labeled subversive for speaking at work about a mass
Speaker 1: killing in a nearby park. After moving to the United States,
Speaker 1: Rosa settled in Oakland and helped her brother to open
Speaker 1: Los Cocos because she loved to cook. To this day,
Speaker 1: her longstanding recipes are a source of pride, and despite
Speaker 1: feeling compelled to leave, Rosa still has so much affection
Speaker 1: for Salvador she goes back at least once each year
Speaker 1: to purchase spices and see which she uses to make
Speaker 1: a chatta. The week after I meet Rossa, my mother
Speaker 1: visits me from Miami. I bring her to Rosa's restaurant,
Speaker 1: where we order prolifically. I asked for the God, and
Speaker 1: what I received is a brothy missive to home. The
Speaker 1: soup is warm and honest and invigorating. The chata is
Speaker 1: a tap dance of spice and cream. I watched my
Speaker 1: mother clutch a papoosa and folded in half to create
Speaker 1: a crescent moon. She stuffs her creation with ptito, a
Speaker 1: spicy cabbage slaw. I laugh and ask if I can
Speaker 1: have a bite. As always, she gives me what she has.
Speaker 1: I copy her technique, exulting in memory for Catherine, connecting
Speaker 1: to the Salvadorian diaspora and dishes like her grandmother's papoosa
Speaker 1: coincided with her own pursuits to seek and find Salvadorian
Speaker 1: chefs and cooks within her own community. It's within those
Speaker 1: kitchens and on those plates that Catherine tasted and found
Speaker 1: the identity of her Hispanic heritage. M Hm, Chef Ashley Shanty,
Speaker 1: you're the chef de cuisine at Benny on Eagle, which
Speaker 1: is a historically African American neighborhood in Asheville, North Carolina.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us about the restaurant at the Foundry
Speaker 1: Hotel and the neighborhood and the nature of your work there.
Speaker 1: Our restaurant is nestled in a neighborhood that was historically
Speaker 1: referred to as the Blocks, and some older folks in
Speaker 1: the community still referred to it as that. So this neighborhood,
Speaker 1: past um crow Era was just a thriving African American
Speaker 1: business district and it was full of black owned barbershops
Speaker 1: and hair salons, bakeries, restaurants, all of those things. And
Speaker 1: I mean, I even can remember myself just kind of
Speaker 1: coming through the Green Book and landing on North Carolina
Speaker 1: and wondering what Asheville, North Carolina would have looked like
Speaker 1: at that time, and seeing all of these businesses in
Speaker 1: the green books that were on Eagle Street right where
Speaker 1: we are right now, which is really amazing. And you know,
Speaker 1: we pay homage to a lot of what the block
Speaker 1: used to be. Because of urban renewal, things look a
Speaker 1: lot different. There are still some of those historic businesses
Speaker 1: still standing. Actually one of barbershops which is still owned
Speaker 1: by the same family. We pay homage to a lot
Speaker 1: of the women that owned businesses. And we're chefs in
Speaker 1: Baker's that ran kind of the block in the community
Speaker 1: and said all of the children people in need in
Speaker 1: the block. And we have actually four portraits of these
Speaker 1: amazing women that we're part of the community, kind of
Speaker 1: beacons of light, and still are. Two of the four
Speaker 1: women in the portraits are still living, and that is
Speaker 1: Miss Mary Joe Johnson and Miss hann Shabaz, who actually
Speaker 1: is very much so a part of um this project
Speaker 1: and involved in what we do. We kind of call
Speaker 1: her our culinary advisor. She makes our corn bread and
Speaker 1: fish cakes and those are some of the things that
Speaker 1: people have known her for for still long in the community.
Speaker 1: And I mean they come into our restaurant knowing that
Speaker 1: they're going to get the same fish cake today that
Speaker 1: Hannan made, you know, the same way thirty years ago,
Speaker 1: so it was really cool. And we try to do
Speaker 1: our best serve the some of the marginal lives of
Speaker 1: the community, underserved and underemployed, and yeah, we we just
Speaker 1: try and make good food and not take ourselves too seriously,
Speaker 1: but also make sure that we're doing our parts by
Speaker 1: by uplifting the community that we're in. The food has
Speaker 1: been described as Appalachian cuisine, which presumably blends all kinds
Speaker 1: of influences Black folks, colonial influences, Native people. I want
Speaker 1: to make sure that I'm not putting you in a
Speaker 1: box by calling your food that. But within that historical
Speaker 1: and regional context, can you explain to us what Appalachian
Speaker 1: cuisine is Appalachia where we are specifically in western North Carolina,
Speaker 1: there's what people call mountains and culture. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: there's just a different way of preserving a lot of
Speaker 1: legos being what people would consider peasant food. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of game meats, so I mean regionally, food is
Speaker 1: very familiar to me. My maternal great grandmother, she was
Speaker 1: from Dan River, Virginia, so that is the western part
Speaker 1: of Virginia. I mean she was Appalachian through and through
Speaker 1: just you know who she was as a woman. But
Speaker 1: I don't think that as a black woman, she considered
Speaker 1: herself to be an Appalachian person, but she did consider
Speaker 1: herself to be Southern, and so I think the food
Speaker 1: that my mother cooked is reminiscent of that. And I
Speaker 1: don't know that I consider what it was untill this
Speaker 1: project and I started to explore my own identity through
Speaker 1: what I'm doing. It is difficult for me to describe
Speaker 1: my food outside of just calling it what it is
Speaker 1: regionally and just saying that it does just kind of
Speaker 1: describe who I am. I mean, it has nuances of
Speaker 1: Um and Guici cuisine that that is part of the
Speaker 1: paternal side of my family. My paternal great great grand
Speaker 1: parents are from Ghana, so I mean there's some West
Speaker 1: African influences there as well. I love Um Japanese culture,
Speaker 1: so I mean, I'm really inspired by that cuisine. So
Speaker 1: they're kind of nuances of a lot of different places regionally,
Speaker 1: and I think that that might be unexpected for some people,
Speaker 1: which I don't know that. I think that's kind of cool. Definitely,
Speaker 1: I love that too, and especially as an African American
Speaker 1: woman who was in the kitchen. I'm seeing you get
Speaker 1: to experience the full breadth of the things that inspire
Speaker 1: you without limitation. And I'm sure that it's something that
Speaker 1: you're pushing against every day, but the fact that you're
Speaker 1: in a position to push at all brings me great joy.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me about the point in which you
Speaker 1: started to more clearly see and define yourself in your
Speaker 1: own food? What is it that you begin to see?
Speaker 1: For so long, I've worked in establishments that have been
Speaker 1: amazing and I've learned so much from but that I've
Speaker 1: cooked food that never felt like my own. That is
Speaker 1: why I feel like what I'm doing right now is
Speaker 1: so meaningful and it's so important to me. It's because
Speaker 1: I do finally feel like I'm finding that identity through
Speaker 1: what I'm cooking, and it's something that I'm constantly acting myself.
Speaker 1: How does this relate to who I am? So that's
Speaker 1: that is a daily journey. And of course now we're
Speaker 1: talking about identity and the civic initiatives that you've always
Speaker 1: been really focused on in your work. Do you have
Speaker 1: a vision for how this all comes together? Or is
Speaker 1: it that your personality just demands that you sample a
Speaker 1: bit from all parts of life. Uh well, I think
Speaker 1: a very large part of that sampling was that quest
Speaker 1: for my identity in the culinary world, especially as a
Speaker 1: black queer woman. Um in the kitchen, it is not
Speaker 1: uncommon to feel like you don't have a place and
Speaker 1: to feel like that's the world that you don't belong in. However,
Speaker 1: feeling like there's there's not much else you want to do,
Speaker 1: or not not many other fields that you belong in.
Speaker 1: So it was a very large part of that was
Speaker 1: wanting to find some sense of belonging at times where
Speaker 1: I just didn't feel like I belong at all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have dabbled quite a bit in order to get
Speaker 1: to where I am now. And do you feel like
Speaker 1: you belong now? I do, Yes, I do finally feel
Speaker 1: like I have found that place. And I mean there
Speaker 1: are instances that happen on a daily basis that remind
Speaker 1: me that there is still a lot of work to
Speaker 1: be done. You know, there are still people that walked
Speaker 1: right past me and asked one of my cooks to
Speaker 1: sign the invoice because they can't imagine that I'm the chef,
Speaker 1: or you know, guests watching me direct the kitchen all
Speaker 1: night and still asking me if they can talk to
Speaker 1: the chef, and you know, there there are a lot
Speaker 1: of there's are so many instances that occur like that,
Speaker 1: I still feel very empowered to be in the position
Speaker 1: that I'm in there. Mm hmm. Yanni cake is is
Speaker 1: a local adaptation of Jamaican Johnny cakes, also known as
Speaker 1: journey cakes for the bread's ability to travel over long distances.
Speaker 1: So we now take you to Jamaica where wet Stone
Speaker 1: magazine contributor in A. Haynes is interviewing chef Maurice Henry,
Speaker 1: who is making Yanni kick is. Yeah, um, alright, So,
Speaker 1: like I said, they are various. They're like different species
Speaker 1: of the flower. Different types of the flower though that
Speaker 1: we consume here in Jamaica. One most popular one is dumpling,
Speaker 1: which is basically just flower, bacon, powder water, all right,
Speaker 1: So people make that and just fry and have it
Speaker 1: just laid up. Then then then we move over to
Speaker 1: another one that we call festival. It's the same flower
Speaker 1: door again, and they add a corn meal to the
Speaker 1: flower dough. So corn corn meal is added to that
Speaker 1: same flower dough and a little bit of sugar, and
Speaker 1: that one is it's called festival typically round, but people
Speaker 1: make them elongated or just flat, so you'll find it
Speaker 1: like that. And then there's one. The Johnny cake is
Speaker 1: basically the same floor though we just sugar in it
Speaker 1: and a little bit of butter and um. And that's
Speaker 1: what we call Johnny cake. So it's flower water, butter, sugar,
Speaker 1: and they fried. They're all fried. And these are used
Speaker 1: mainly for as a starch, and it goes particularly typically
Speaker 1: all day. People will have them for breakfast, they'll have
Speaker 1: it for lunch, I'll have it for dinner, even late night.
Speaker 1: Snap because you stop at most of these little cook shops,
Speaker 1: they'll have fried chicken, your chicken with festival or with
Speaker 1: the with the Johnny cakes or with with with fried
Speaker 1: dumplanes and um. It's part of what we do. It's
Speaker 1: part of our culture as part of part of us
Speaker 1: so we grew up on it. Coming from the club
Speaker 1: two o'clock in the morning, you'll find a Snap shop
Speaker 1: that's open them that's what they would have. They'll have
Speaker 1: fried Dumblin's festival. You can find iterations of Johnny cakes
Speaker 1: all along the Eastern coast from Newfoundland to Jamaica, sometimes
Speaker 1: called Johnny cakes, Shawny cakes, home cakes, journey cakes, or
Speaker 1: Johnny bread. The origins are a bit of a mystery,
Speaker 1: but as Chef explains, johnny cakes are an essential part
Speaker 1: of the Jamaican culinary identity and the epitome of Caribbean
Speaker 1: street and beech food. Quoting from Anna, her investigation into
Speaker 1: the bread's modeled history would find that the first record
Speaker 1: of Johnny cakes dates back to the sixteen hundreds, when
Speaker 1: European settlers to Rhode Island supposedly learned how to make
Speaker 1: the bread from the native Algonquian tribes, for whom maze
Speaker 1: was a staple ingredient in their diet. The humble bread
Speaker 1: made its way south along the Atlantic coast, and today
Speaker 1: various preparations can be found as far as Newfoundland and
Speaker 1: as far south as Colombia. But still there remains no
Speaker 1: consensus on when johnny cakes were first created and by whom,
Speaker 1: nor is there any clear evidence on how they made
Speaker 1: their way to the La Popa. But why do we
Speaker 1: need to know where our food traditions come from and
Speaker 1: why do they need to be owned by one culture?
Speaker 1: I think the question of what is curry is one
Speaker 1: that you know Indians in the so called Motherlands right
Speaker 1: like in the Indian subcontinent and then also in the
Speaker 1: dast But I have been wrestling with for centuries. Now
Speaker 1: that's a rowhean arranged a row. He tells us about
Speaker 1: her experience eating Indian curry in Japanese curry as an
Speaker 1: Indian woman in Tokyo Arohe unpacks the colonial history of
Speaker 1: Japanese curry as a cultural and culinary artifact brought to
Speaker 1: Japan by the British imperial officers from India. She links
Speaker 1: the historical trajectory of curry to the experience of being
Speaker 1: around and consuming curry as an Indian woman from New
Speaker 1: Delhi who's in Japan, and doing so, she examines many
Speaker 1: of its cultural implications and her own experience as an
Speaker 1: Indian woman feeling both alienated and produced to a singular dish,
Speaker 1: in this case, curry, while at the same time finding
Speaker 1: that curry houses were the places that provided her the
Speaker 1: most to comfort and acceptance and what she describes as
Speaker 1: an otherwise very lonely city. It's so vague as to
Speaker 1: be meaningless. Um it doesn't for a particular style or
Speaker 1: or technique, but really it's often used to flatten the
Speaker 1: diversity of you know, foods in an entire subcontinent. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's my kind of roundabout way to answer what
Speaker 1: is curry? It doesn't really exist. And for something that
Speaker 1: doesn't really exist, there are you know, infinite variations and
Speaker 1: interpretations of what it could be. Perfect answer. During a
Speaker 1: semester abroad in two thousand seventeen at the Lasa University
Speaker 1: in Tokyo, she explains her specific experience eating Japanese curry
Speaker 1: versus Indian curry in terms of some specificity, what is
Speaker 1: what is Japanese curry? Japanese guy? You know, it's really
Speaker 1: its own thing, um, And what interests me about Japanese guy?
Speaker 1: Of course it's a part of like the edible history
Speaker 1: of Japan. It's been called but has roots in the
Speaker 1: Indian subcontinent. And then secondly, it's sort of the anti
Speaker 1: thesis of what I think in the West are even
Speaker 1: globally is most revered about Japanese cuisine. You know, when
Speaker 1: you think of Japanese food, it's all about like the
Speaker 1: professionals or the minimalism in terms of both like farm
Speaker 1: and content. To still see a Japanese guy right, like
Speaker 1: the thickened ru um gloopy you don't need it with chopsticks. Right.
Speaker 1: It's quite the opposite of um, guy is a very
Speaker 1: maximalist kind of exercise. It it's almost vulgar. I want
Speaker 1: to say, what was your experience like as an Indian woman,
Speaker 1: because we're talking about the details of the dish, but
Speaker 1: for you dining out was your was how you experience
Speaker 1: the culture mediated by curry in particular? Right, culturally or
Speaker 1: on an individual level, there will be times when you know,
Speaker 1: instead of being greeted by my peers like hello or
Speaker 1: good morning, they would sort of see my face and say, oh,
Speaker 1: I ate curry for lunch today, right, So sort of
Speaker 1: on an individual level, that became this distilled entity that
Speaker 1: represented you know, their experiences with curry generally. Um. Often
Speaker 1: people would ask me, you know, like which cry do
Speaker 1: you prefer? Like if there's a Japanese one, you know,
Speaker 1: which is sweet and mild or is it the Indian
Speaker 1: kind which is spicy and and unpalatable for a lot
Speaker 1: of people? Um? You know, I was even asked like
Speaker 1: I've heard that cats in India eat guy. Can you
Speaker 1: can you conform or deny this? Um? Yeah? So on
Speaker 1: a on a culture an individual level, you know, I
Speaker 1: often felt like these questions that I was asked, I
Speaker 1: did not leave a lot of room for nuance, um,
Speaker 1: either in terms of kind of talking about the cuisine
Speaker 1: um of my country origin, or or even about my identity.
Speaker 1: A Roe's experienced eating curry in Japan became a broader
Speaker 1: questioning of her identity abroad for me. I mean, I
Speaker 1: didn't go to Japan to look for you know, authentic
Speaker 1: Indian food, right, That's not what I was there. But
Speaker 1: in these attempts that sort of spears people around me
Speaker 1: were making to engage with me or or make me
Speaker 1: feel at home or welcome, I was really kind of
Speaker 1: coming away from the interaction feeling doubly alienated, right. Um Like,
Speaker 1: on a personal level, I was sort of curious and
Speaker 1: eager to learn more. Um. I think on on my
Speaker 1: part trying to do my best to start to do
Speaker 1: the work and not come to the table with my
Speaker 1: own misconceptions of stereotypes. Um. But often I felt like
Speaker 1: maybe I would not be met halfway. And of course,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm always learning, and I wasn't. No, I'm
Speaker 1: not an expert, But I felt like oftentimes there was
Speaker 1: not kind of the curiosity along with empathy that I
Speaker 1: was hoping for. What about when you were actually dining
Speaker 1: out in restaurants? What were your feelings as a solo
Speaker 1: diner in Tokyo. Yeah, I mean there's a kind of
Speaker 1: well documented culture of solo dining right in in Tokyo. Um,
Speaker 1: But a lot of that is kind of reserved for,
Speaker 1: you know, the kind of white collar workers. So the
Speaker 1: salary man, right, that's usually the archetypal solo diana at
Speaker 1: like a round and shop, you know, at an unearthly hour. Um,
Speaker 1: So flopping on his on his noddles by himself, right,
Speaker 1: That's an image that we've i think seen many times over.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, you know, now you kind
Speaker 1: of swapped this salary man for an Indian woman youngish um,
Speaker 1: and it becomes quite a different equation, right. Um. There
Speaker 1: were many times when people next to me would try
Speaker 1: to engage me in in conversation or clearly wanted to,
Speaker 1: but maybe we're afraid that I wouldn't you know, be
Speaker 1: able to speak Japanese. Um. And I had a lot
Speaker 1: of great conversations with people who you know, owned and
Speaker 1: and and these restaurants or were cooking um, which is
Speaker 1: kind of kind of this conflict that I have right
Speaker 1: where on the one hand, I felt like I was
Speaker 1: being pushed towards curry, particularly in the South Asian kind
Speaker 1: of restaurant context, Right, I was pushed towards that. Um.
Speaker 1: And for these people who are pushing me, it was
Speaker 1: their way of being hospitable or um, trying to make
Speaker 1: me feel like I was being taken care of, right,
Speaker 1: which it was a strange and isolating experience. But then
Speaker 1: at the same time, when I didn't counter South Asians
Speaker 1: who were running these kind of noun and curry restaurants, Um,
Speaker 1: those were moments of unprecedented tenderness for me, right and
Speaker 1: what is otherwise I think a very lonely free you know,
Speaker 1: so these small kind of family run restaurants that Hollywood
Speaker 1: playing on the TV screens, um, you usually there the
Speaker 1: restaurantally named something like Billy or Ausality or Mango or
Speaker 1: something like that. Those moments, as much as I wanted
Speaker 1: to kind of resist this totalizing sweet puff um, even
Speaker 1: like Arry, I would say that those are still the
Speaker 1: times that I've felt most welcome and taken care of
Speaker 1: in Tokyo, right, usually at the doorway of a curry
Speaker 1: house mediated by some kind of imagined our actual shed
Speaker 1: history and food culture and identity. That is so true
Speaker 1: and so powerful as well. Um So when you say
Speaker 1: that you were pushed towards Curry, yeah, absolutely. Um. And
Speaker 1: you know there's not a lot of there's not a
Speaker 1: lot of stut Asians living in Japan, um, something like
Speaker 1: pty thousand Indians and then um, you know another other
Speaker 1: numbers for like Pakistani's and and Pasadas and Nippali and
Speaker 1: documentation is not very um pristine. Um So the site
Speaker 1: of you know, another brown face. As much as I
Speaker 1: didn't want to be stereotyped or I didn't want people
Speaker 1: to think that two round people were probably related or
Speaker 1: you know something like that, as much as that was
Speaker 1: the case on an intellectual level, it couldn't deny that
Speaker 1: on a kind of emotional personal level, I stills did
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, we were connected in somewhere. And
Speaker 1: it also sort of these experiences made me realized that
Speaker 1: you know, we're still really immersed in a in a
Speaker 1: landscape of like white food stories or white stories. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, when you look at sort of travelers for Japan,
Speaker 1: you will still come up with hundreds of results of
Speaker 1: you know, white men usually who went to Japan and
Speaker 1: discover Japanese, who would discover Japanese culture. Um. But I
Speaker 1: when I was preparing to go to Japan, I almost
Speaker 1: when there without any points of reference right to understand,
Speaker 1: so the possible parameters of the experience that I was
Speaker 1: embarking upon. Um. So everything was coming to me as
Speaker 1: something of the surprise, and I was sort of figuring
Speaker 1: things out by myself. You know. Often if I like
Speaker 1: I was the first ever Indian person to go to Japan,
Speaker 1: which obviously is not the truth, but just that some
Speaker 1: of those stories are not getting out or we haven't
Speaker 1: always done the work that we needed to be able
Speaker 1: to listen for those kinds of stories. Yes, definitely, And
Speaker 1: this is something that I think about, not just in
Speaker 1: the context of food either, but even the fact that
Speaker 1: I'm having this conversation with you right now in English,
Speaker 1: which is not for you know, the colonial history. I
Speaker 1: don't know that I'll be able to do that. Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then I think with something like food where perhaps
Speaker 1: it's harder to trace the origin or um sort of
Speaker 1: claim like a perfect unmediated history, where that becomes even
Speaker 1: more complicated. Um. It's definitely a source of kind of
Speaker 1: emotional conflict for me, UM, And it's really something that
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say I have answers to her that I
Speaker 1: feel completely at ease about. It's something that I'm constantly
Speaker 1: learning about UM. And I would also say that besides
Speaker 1: kind of colonialism, there's also other factors mediating the kind
Speaker 1: of food that I have had access to both India
Speaker 1: and elsewhere. Right there's um cost for instance, which I
Speaker 1: think even now is um someone neglected in a lot
Speaker 1: of contemporary analyzes of food. You know, more recently there's
Speaker 1: been more writing about it UM. But that's something that
Speaker 1: I haven't completely interrogated for myself. A rohe story points
Speaker 1: to an important lesson about the diaspora that as much
Speaker 1: as food is a marker of identity and expression of
Speaker 1: our culture, it is not the sole defining factor. That
Speaker 1: at our base, we are all humans experiencing and learning
Speaker 1: about each other through a variety of cultural exchanges. A
Speaker 1: row He at times felt reduced to curry. It became
Speaker 1: a stereotype that isolated her and one that she could
Speaker 1: not escape. So what is the diaspora. The diaspora is
Speaker 1: many things, cultural and ideological strains from the homeland sensory vocations,
Speaker 1: a conversation with sentence after sentence that begins with I
Speaker 1: remember it is an aftertaste, a source of pride, nostalgia,
Speaker 1: and reimagination. To be part of the diaspora is to
Speaker 1: have endured, and though the creation of a new home
Speaker 1: becomes a worthy possibility, belonging is not promised. M Thank
Speaker 1: you to our guest today, Sam Boots Are Boots are
Speaker 1: in co owner Winter Shy, you of Third Culture Bakery
Speaker 1: in Berkeley, California, Chef Ashley Shanty from Benny on Eagle
Speaker 1: in Asheville, North Carolina, wet Stone contributor Anna Haynes and
Speaker 1: chef Maurice Henry. And to journalist Katherine Bowen in a
Speaker 1: Roheana Rain, whose full pieces you can read in forthcoming
Speaker 1: volume six of wet Stone Magazine. Special Thanks to my
Speaker 1: business partner who makes all things possible at Whetstone are
Speaker 1: co founder Melissa she Thanks mel. Thank you to Selene Glazier,
Speaker 1: who is our lead producer. To Cat Hong, our editor,
Speaker 1: to Havin Obasa Lassa and Quentin lebou, our production interns.
Speaker 1: To our friends at iHeart Radio for helping us bring
Speaker 1: you this podcast. To Gabrielle Collins, are supervising producer, engineer J. J.
Speaker 1: Paul his Way and executive producer Christopher Hasiotis. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: the Origin Forager Steven Saderfield, and we will be back
Speaker 1: here next week with more from Whetstone Magazine's Point of
Speaker 1: Origin podcast h