Asian Food

It is completely reasonable to think this is a terrible title. It works for my point, but that will not be completely clear until tomorrow's post. Personally, my first thought is "Yum!", but there are issues with that too.

About two months ago, my sisters and I were being shown around Los Angeles by Steve and Jen, two of our favorite people. Steve knows the city very well, and in general he thinks about things a lot, possibly over-analyzing, which I cannot criticize. This means that he can often provide little-known background information and make connections.

The discussion often turned to food. We would pass a restaurant, or a row of restaurants, or be near an area, and would start talking about that. While they do not self-describe as foodies, they have tried a lot of different places (and thought about them).

Anyway, there were two things that came up that made me think. One is that in talking about Korean food that you get in the States, Steve said that a lot of it is not what you would get in Korea, but it was developed here. The other was that in reference to Thai food, he said that the flavors were a lot more complex than Korean food, and it took some getting used to.

Just to give some context, Steve's parents came here from Korea, so that is his family background but he was raised here. I served a mission with Laotian refugees in Fresno, and Lao food is pretty similar to Thai food.

With the first comment, I had never known that about Korean American food. With the second, it made sense, but it was something that I never thought of.

I have done a little bit of Lao cooking, as well as watching natives cook. When I go into a Thai restaurant, most of the dishes sound familiar, but with different names. I am sure a lot of the dishes get Americanized too. For example, MSG was used a lot in the mission field; most restaurants probably shy away from it. There are other ingredients I doubt restaurants use, and I don't know what to call a lot of them because it's a different language with a different alphabet. So, there is something where I don't know what else to call it besides "rotten fish", but I bet it doesn't get used a lot.

Anyway, it was very common that regardless of your main ingredients, seasonings would involve something pungent (like shrimp paste), something sweet (like MSG or sugar or both), limes, and often chili peppers too. That gives you some fairly complex, layered flavors. I haven't tried any Korean recipes, but the seasonings do seem simpler from what I have tasted.

It was interesting to think about the differences in seasonings, but also not too surprising, because it is not unusual that as you get into hotter climates that more spices are used. Thinking about the Americanization of Korean food though also got me thinking about the camps.

Pho and banh mi are considered Vietnamese food, but a lot of Lao people served us pho. Now, I read in an article some time ago that those two dishes are considered to be influenced by the French colonists, both because of how they compare to other French and Vietnamese foods and because of their names. "Pho" the word is similar to "feu" for fire and as a food is somewhat similar to the Pot au Feu dish. "Banh" not only sounds like "pain" for bread, but is made with bread.

Okay, Laos was colonized by the French; did they get pho from that, or because when everyone was in the refugee camps, waiting for their chance to come to America, they all traded recipes? Maybe only for pho. Maybe the ingredients were easier to get.

While there I also once participated in a marathon egg-roll making session for Lao New Year. Is that a Lao food? Or something they borrowed from China? Or were they actually more like spring rolls and borrowed from Vietnam? I'm not sure.

Obviously you can eat and enjoy food without having a deep understanding of its origins, though that can enrich the experience. It's worth understanding that there is great complexity out there, and expecting complexity. Why I even mention that, I will get into tomorrow.

For now I will say that on that trip, though we discussed cuisines from many regions, we ate at an old-fashioned hamburger counter and a Jewish deli. And again, Yum!