Food and culture

A lot of people say to me “That’s not like you” when I cook something more western such as pasta, steak, a roast or a simple beef and lentil soup. It amazes me sometimes how people percieve a person’s cultural/ethnic background to what they cook or eat. Saying this, it is definitely universally agreed that a person’s cultural background can definitely affect how a person behaves, react to certain situations and definitely cook and eat.

I grew up in a Taiwanese family where mum usually cooks three dishes and a soup which is usually eaten with rice. The three dishes usually involves a stir fry vegetable, a stir fry meat of some sort and either fish or another vegetable for the third dish. Mum is a fantastic cook (who’s mum isn’t anyways) and she definitely spent a fair bit of time in the kitchen. Unfortunately, after my two sisters left home to go to college mum cooked a lot less and a lot more ‘healthier’. The ‘healthier’ became almost ‘super healthy’ when my dad went for a health check and the doctor told him his triglyceride levels and cholesterol levels were way too high. I still remember her ‘Oil rice’ ( a taiwanese dish where you fry glutinous rice with shitake mushroom, dried shrimp, shallots and meat in a soy based sauce ’Sweet taro’ (taro, sugar and glutinious flour kneaded together and deep fried), stew soy  pork (pork usually fatty, stewed in soy sauce; great with rice), ‘ba chang’ (glutinious rice wrapped in bamboo leaves usually eaten in taiwan on the dragon boat festival –> i have no idea what the festival is about really) and the simple but delicious stir fried rice vermicille noodles.

My family eat out a lot and we go to different restaurants and eat different cuisines. Bangkok has fantastic internation cuisine, in fact the best steak i had isn’t in any western country but in Bangkok at the Le Meridien steakpit. That steakhouse has to be the best i have ever tasted! I also remember this French restaurant in Thailand (there are a least a dozen or more French restaurants in Bangkok) called Giovani, they make the nicest soft shell crab and garlic snails. I don’t quite remember my experiences of Indian food in Bangkok but I definitely started eating a lot more and cooking it after I met VJ.

The Hyatt Hotel in Bangkok definitely has one of the nicest buffet. They serve smoke salmon with different condiments, beef, pork lamb roast, a different variety of fresh raw fish for sashimi , sushi, a variety of seafood either cooked in a asian stir fry or in a mornay sauce. I guess what I am trying to say here is people in today’s world are definitely getting more exposure to cusines from different culture.

People usually associate my cooking as more Asian style. However, VJ and myself cook a lot of pasta, steaks and roasts. In fact I have a favorite roast which is a fusion style where i roast the pork in chilli, and was definitely surprised with the outcome!

I have also decided to cook a lot more chinese/taiwanese food after my trip to Bangkok and Taipei early this year. After seeing my parents and meeting the extended family, I felt more foreign than anything! So my mission when I returned to Australia was to try and find/enhance my cultural identity (even though I claim that I find it hard to identify what culture i am really or actually from), hence all these Asian cooking.

Since returning from BKK and TPE I have made so many chinese/taiwanese food compared to what I would have had the last year!