Feast of Words: Andrew Lam on “East Eats West”

The following is an article from New American Media, reposted with permission. The original article can be found here.

Vietnamese Author Lam Serves Up Pho and the Diaspora’s Influence on America from New America Media on Vimeo.

A friend who is wise in the ways how East and West interact recently quipped that, “you know your cultural heritage is a major success when someone else is selling it back to you.” He said this after I observed that all my yoga teachers are white, and that it’s ironic that Steven Spielberg produced Kung Fu Panda – Kung Fu and Panda being native to China – how it became one of the biggest movies in China.

West has long ago changed East, but in the age of mass migration and globalization, East too, in profound ways, is transforming West.

And nowhere is that so more self evident than in the area of taste.

A month or so ago, because Rachael Ray was teaching television audience how to make Pho Soup and got the recipe wrong -she said it’s a Thai inspired dish and using -gasp – pork instead of beef and no fishsauce- she caused this response from Vietnamese American chef and food writer Andrea Nguyen. “Pho is in the dictionary,” Andrea noted… “I’m rather appalled that the producers of the Rachel Ray show would such an injustice to pho noodle soup. I wish that her show producers would go the extra mile for Asian food.”

Yet what’s taken now for granted is that Pho is in the dictionary and being taught by food channel network chefs like Ray. The Vietnamese noodle that until the Vietnam war ended was unknown outside of Vietnam’s borders now became part of a global phenomenon. Even Campbell soup cans the broth back in 2002.

What it all means is that American palates are shifting, and radically.

Think about it: three decades ago, who would have thought that sushi—raw fish—would become an indelible part of American cuisine? Or that curry powder and soy sauce would be found down Aisle 3 of Safeway? Or that an entire new basic taste -umami – meaning savoriness – a loan word from Japan – is now part of American culinary idiom.

Such affinity for all things Asians is no longer restricted to American coasts but the heartlands. According to Specialty Food Magazine, Charlottesville, Va’s Foods of All Nations, will increase its 30 feet of Asian products by another four feet, adding Korean and Chinese items. “Asian condiments and products have been growing over the past few years,” notes Joe Slavic, specialty food buyer. “We have Asians and Asian-Americans from the university who purchase products for traditional Asian dishes and non-Asians who buy products to incorporate Asian flavors into their own meals,” he says. “Soy sauces, wasabi pastes and powders are the store’s quickest movers.”

Indeed, Asian cultural influences have lapped at the American shores ever since the Chinese brought their herbal medicines and array of other plants during the California Gold Rush in the mid-19th century. But it is only since the 1980s that Asia’s influence, along with Asian-American demographic growth, began to take off on a massive scale, becoming respectable and —indeed — desirable. The effect is that what once was considered ethnic or even esoteric has spilled irrevocably into the mainstream, mixing with mainstream habits and transforming the landscape.