Euro-Asian fusion, East and West

[Pan]

In Pim's Eating Bangkok! blog, she mentions the popularity of fusion cuisine there:

Don’t get me wrong, I am not completely against the idea of evolution or experimentation in any cuisine. But the impression I get from these “fusion” cuisine places in Bangkok is that they do it just for the sake of being different and fashionable, rather than for the taste or for serious experimentation with techniques or ingredients. I mean, anyone can simply throw foie gras into some spicy Thai sauce and call it innovation. I call it crap.

Crap or not (and many of you no doubt know that I generally cast a wary eye at Euro-Asian fusion), Euro-Asian fusion exists from the viewpoint and to the taste of Euro-Americans and Asians alike.

Perhaps in this thread, we can discuss how fusion cuisine to Euro-American taste is similar to and different from fusion cuisine to Asian taste.

[SobaAddict70]

Just got the newest flyer from pizza hut in today's newspaper.

The newest pizza:

potato and corned beef!

with:

cubed potato

corned beef (canned)

asparagus

red bell pepper

black pepper

mayo

they advertise it as a perfect match with the sausage crust! 

This particular thread may be of interest....

Don't say I didn't warn you!

heheh

Soba

[Pan]

Thanks, Soba. That was certainly interesting!

[hillvalley]

About 15 years ago there used to be a French/Japanese restaurant on Capitol Hill right on Pennsylvania Ave. All I remember is that the food was amazing, they had oyster sushi and great desserts.

[mongo_jones]

the question is whether you're talking about self-conscious fancy-schmancy fusion or not. there's a lot in indian cooking that is already fusion (the use of bread in pau-bhaji, indian vege-burgers--to take just two examples from opposite ends of the fast-food world); but very few expensive restaurants in india expend energy in fusion of the kind that you see in the west.

even in the west--where fusion usually means a western chef playing with "exotic" ingredients in a way that brings words like decadence to mind--there are the nobu matsuhisas and masaharu morimotos who come at the fusing from different places, so to speak. but for the most part (and i speak not just of crap like p.f chang but also expensive, highly-rated places like patina in l.a) what i've experienced in the u.s of fusion involving asian cuisines suggests that it is aimed at people who don't usually interface with those asian cuisines directly or know much about them (usually, in l.a these are wealthy, displaced new yorkers who've never been to the san gabriel valley but complain about chinese food in l.a).

i don't object to fusion per se--but i'm sceptical about individual approaches, methodologies, criteria of evaluation etc. until convinced otherwise.

(a good place in l.a to experience an "east-west" fusion meal which seems to begin from the east rather than the west is the sawtelle kitchen in west l.a)

[mongo_jones]

here's a link to an entertaining review of a couple of restaurants in denver that might resonate (i'd posted a link to this on the southwest forum some time back):

http://www.westword.com/issues/2004-01-08/...ml/1/index.html

[Pan]

Thanks, Mongo. I'm not sure what's more quotable:

Of course, if you're going to bastardize a cuisine, it's best to go someplace were no one knows the parents.

or

Six months ago, if someone had asked me whether a high-end Asian fusion combo bar-restaurant-nightclub named after a dead mass murderer and decorated in the style of a Chinese head shop would ever make it among the new money of Cherry Creek, I would have bet no.

[John Whiting]

Here's what Sri Owen (Indonesian cook and writer, author of the classic, The Rice Book) has to say on authenticity:

   Everywhere in Asia, foodways are becoming less traditional, and the dishes less 'authentic'. Ingredients no longer have to be local or seasonal. Middle-class, well-to-do, well-travelled Asians are familiar with western food and are becoming more eclectic in their tastes and cooking – they adopt the bits that they like from the west, reject what they don't like. Migrants have taken Asian food to Australia, where they grow Asian vegetables and fruit and open Asian restaurants – especially the Thais and Vietnamese. Indonesians aren't very good at restaurants, but I won't go into that now. Asians are always nostalgic for the food they had at home – and some are proud of their cuisines just as they are of their cultures generally. Most of them work hard to preserve their favourite cooking. But they're not. going to complain that – for example – a Thai dish cooked with olive oil isn't authentic. What matters is the final result, which should taste recognisably Thai. I've said in several of my books that I'm no longer interested in being authentic; I'm a purist and an eclectic, and I take what is good from wherever I find it.

EDIT: quoted with Sri's permission. Edited February 22, 2004 by John Whiting (log)

[Pan]

I think few would disagree with Sri Owen. And of course, there's also the matter of intra-Asian fusion, though that isn't the topic of this thread. Nevertheless, Thais have cooked Masaman (Muslim, i.e. Malay-style) curries for a long time, and Malaysia, in turn, has been suffused with influence from Thai cuisine in the last decade or more, such that Tom Yam and Pad Prik are available not in Thai restaurants but in Malaysian restaurants owned and staffed by Malaysians all over the place. And then there's the case of Hainanese Chicken Rice, made for example by loads of Malay restaurants on the Terengganu coast...

[John Whiting]

Definition of fusion: the way things have always been, as promoted by a press agent.

[Pan]

Not exactly, John. You're not suggesting that all fusions are the same and created equal, are you?

[Modern Day Hermit]

I don't think fusion is anything new, it has been happening for centeries when countries had invaders who left imprints on their way of life and cuisine or people migrating from one region or country to another.

I don't find anything wrong with people experimenting with food and it is only natural that not everything is going to work. The only problem that I personally have is when a dish is noted as being an original cuisine from 'xxx' when in fact it is but an inspiration. That is what I find intolerable and quite irritating.

I think it is natural for food to evolve over time, especially since the world is getting smaller and smaller. Crappy results are mistakes that are learning experiences. That is what I like to say anyway

[John Whiting]

Not exactly, John. You're not suggesting that all fusions are the same and created equal, are you?

Not really, it was just a cheap witticism. My sentiments approximate those expressed above by Modern Day Hermit. I've no objection, of course, to the evolution of tradition, but I dislike spurious claims to inventiveness which are motivated by unscrupulous salesmanship; i.e. hype.

[PCL]

Pan Posted on Feb 22 2004, 02:07 AM

  I think few would disagree with Sri Owen. And of course, there's also the matter of intra-Asian fusion, though that isn't the topic of this thread. Nevertheless, Thais have cooked Masaman (Muslim, i.e. Malay-style) curries for a long time, and Malaysia, in turn, has been suffused with influence from Thai cuisine in the last decade or more, such that Tom Yam and Pad Prik are available not in Thai restaurants but in Malaysian restaurants owned and staffed by Malaysians all over the place. And then there's the case of Hainanese Chicken Rice, made for example by loads of Malay restaurants on the Terengganu coast... 

Pan, I haven't checked your bio, if you have one , but I've noticed you are very familiar with the food of Malaysia. I am Malaysian-born Chinese, living in London, schooled in Australia, and have always defended the naturally-selected "fusion" cuisines of my birthplace. For example, in Ipoh, a tin-mining city on the east coast, a specialty of a particular "Coffee-Tiam" is pork-chops. Flattened and battered, fried and served with a bastard sweet-sour tomato sauce, chinese greens, chopped chillies and to top it off, with a knife and fork... tastes nothing like you'd expect in a western joint, but a staple of the blue collar non-Malay (read non-Muslim) population... definitely a leftover from the colonial times.

...in short, it's a sign of a socially well adjusted multicultural population that such dishes can evolve and be accepted into the culinary fabric without the type of microscopic scrutiny 'established' societies impose on fusion foods in western cultures such as we are practising right now...

...or maybe simply in places like Malaysia, Thailand etc, there isn't the hang-up of vehemently defending culinary traditions, or dare I say, a sense of snobbery over what each particular place produces or plates up as food or cuisine??... people in those parts seem much more adventurous, more open to new experiences, and perhaps in our western frame of mind, typecasting is a result of centuries of cultural proprietorship to the detriment of new experiences...

...all that said, while I think Peter Gordon is a great fusion chef (new place just opened in NY, can't remember the name), there is a lot left to be desired in places where the chefs have backpacked around and returned with a shit load of lemongrass in their luggage, to paraphrase an oft-quoted broadside...

...the long and short if it though, in my tasting experience, is that when people expound things like individual approaches, methodologies as mentioned by mongo, then the entire community and acknowledgement of precedents would only render the final product vulgar and devoid of that most important ingredient, good taste.

Edited February 22, 2004 by PCL (log)

[John Whiting]

I am Malaysian-born Chinese, living in London, schooled in Australia, and have always defended the naturally-selected "fusion" cuisines of my birthplace.

There speaks the easy familiarity of one who has lived real fusion rather than "discovered" it. (Pan also, of course -- that wasn't a veiled insult.) See also the writing of Rachel Laudan (familiar on our Mexican pages), whose The Food of Paradise explores the amazingly polyglot cuisine of Hawaii.

EDIT: This isn't the appropriate thread, but I'd be interested to know what modest exemplars of unpretentious Asian fusion you may have discovered in London.

Edited February 22, 2004 by John Whiting (log)

[mongo_jones]

...the long and short if it though, in my tasting experience, is that when people expound things like individual approaches, methodologies as mentioned by mongo, then the entire community and acknowledgement of precedents would only render the final product vulgar and devoid of that most important ingredient, good taste.

i'm not sure i understand this. could you expand?

[Pan]

I likewise didn't understand that part. I agree with what Mongo wrote about fusion in the U.S., and also with what you wrote about fusion in Malaysia. I guess I'm biased, but I think Malaysians generally have really good taste, so whatever fusion catches on there is likely to meet with my approval. But when fusion hits the U.S. and results in what tastes to me like watered-down versions of Asian food that I love when made to the tastes of those who more ordinarily cook and eat such dishes - and, in addition, when I'm getting charged 4 times more than the cost in a Thai restaurant, say - I say bah, humbug.

By the way, here's my bio.

[torakris]

I think that the way fusion works in general is that you take the cooking techniques or styles of another culture and incorporate it into your own using local foods.

The word fusion isn't really big here in Japan, I have seen it a couple times but it is more popular with foreign chefs here rather than Japanese, but that isn't to say there isn't a heck of a lot of fusion going on here. Take a trip into almost any Italian restaurant and you will see loads of pasta dishes that no Italian would recognize. I have had wonderful "Italian dishes" made with mentaiko (spicy cod roe), gobo (burdock root), nozawa-na (a green), etc. The Japanese chefs are taking the Italian idea of pasta and using the ingredients that are more readily available.

I think a different type of fusion happens when a large group of people move into a culture different from their own (Hawaii is a perfect example of this) and then are using their own cooking techniques with the foods now available to them in their new location.

I am sort of mixed on fusion, I can't say I love it but it isn't all bad, there are some things that really work.

[herbacidal]

Six months ago, if someone had asked me whether a high-end Asian fusion combo bar-restaurant-nightclub named after a dead mass murderer and decorated in the style of a Chinese head shop would ever make it among the new money of Cherry Creek, I would have bet no.

Pan,

This is eminently more quotable.

Although I would say they're both accurate.

Mongo, I take that to be in Denver, or would it be LA?

PCL, you have some interesting insight.

Although, like Mongo, I don't think I totally figured out that last paragraph.

Are you trying to say that when people take particular techniques

and chef-specific ways of doing something out of their background and context,

they leave much too much behind, most importantly good taste, when they are examining the results of the particular technique combined with different ingredients?

Regardless, welcome to Egullet!

[mongo_jones]

Mongo, I take that to be in Denver, or would it be LA?

denver.

i am a 30 minute drive away--but the 10 years in l.a are beating out the 6 months in boulder in my head. though the 23 years in india are still dominant (and renewed for a month or so every other year).

[PCL]

Guys,

I've just gone over that paragraph, and I don't get what I was trying to say either... but after some contemplation of my navel, I think it should read...

"...the long and short if it though, in my tasting experience, is that when people expound things like individual approaches, methodologies as mentioned by mongo, then the disassociation with entire communities of tradition and an uneducated dismissal of precedents would only render the final product vulgar and devoid of that most important ingredient, good taste (in terms of literal flavor and perhaps morality as well)."... howzat!?!?

and thanks to herbacidal for the mental jump-start...context is very important, and an understanding of how things work together. It doesn't have to be a scientific or precise knowledge of chemistry, but rather an instinctive sympathy for ingredients and reasons why things work... like apple and pork, berries and duck... and also, social context... many SE Asian dishes are just so because they are best eaten that way, like in a bowl, with a nourishing broth, herbs to refresh, starch in the form of noodles, and protein in the broth and meat/fish components, and spices for flavor and sometimes medicinal properties... guess I've just described a LAKSA!!!... or PHO!!!...everything in one easy to gulp package packed with flavor and satiety... it's not easy to see how you can reduce that into a half-empty plate a'la cuisine minceur, but only maybe because its hasn't been thought through enough, such is the "appeal" of hype and trendiness...

and torakris, I think that the Japanese love of 'curry' is a fine example of a transplanted, successful, hence, selected dish that has permeated daily eating...

like any kind of evolution, it would appear that basic principles have to be adhered to, for no better reason other than that it works, the apparent fact that we stood upright at some point shows that it does... natural selection rears it omnipotent head even in gastronomy!

and Pan, thanks for the link to the Bio!... looking fwd to more discussions on Nasi Lemak, Chicken Rice and Har Mee!...