m a r c h

Because food—what we eat, how we eat it, who we eat it with—these tell the histories of a place and its community of people, their practices, their values. It’s a way to challenge our own weltanschauung and worldview. And it is our hope that in learning about the foods of others—and of others through their foods—we are also learning about ourselves, and how to tell our own stories with better clarity.

In a recent newsletter—part of a series corresponding to lectures given to students of the Masters of Gastronomy program at Boston University—food writer and educator Alicia Kennedy opens with the question What is culinary tourism?, relying on Lucy M. Long’s definition as a starting point: “‘the intentional, exploratory participation in the foodways of an other,’” including, Kennedy adds, the “consumption, preparation, and presentation of a food item, cuisine, meal system, or eating style considered to belong to a culinary system not one’s own.” 

The question is a springboard to exploring the concept and its relation to, amongst other things, “cultural appropriation, neocolonialism, and climate change.” I should note that Kennedy is not the first to bring this question to the forefront of culinary consideration—critics and thinkers have wrestled with this since the dawn of the colonial enterprise—and the matter deserves a much more dedicated engagement and response than we have space for here, so I’ll just use her question here as a jumping off point for some thoughts post-Thailand travel. 

(What makes a culture or culinary system “one’s own” is a wildly unwieldy—though very important—consideration, one I’ll only address indirectly here, but something to always keep in calibration.)

I find this to be an exigent topic of discussion, in general, due to its intersection with global commerce, cultural identification, and socio-political histories, especially with the current trends in neo-fusion cooking—the new New American cadre—and the gaping lacuna in addressing the loss/gain in the commodification of cultural borrowing, and in particular, because, well, it’s something we’re personally deeply invested in. And think about a lot. Like, a lot a lot. 

As foodmakers who borrow widely in both pantry and practice, we think about this constantly. How the application of a particular ingredient, or integration of a culinary technique might transform the way we think about “our” food. And how we decide which foods we call our own. Our interest in exploring foodways outside our own is to gain perspective, both into our personal culinary traditions, and also into those of others. Because food—what we eat, how we eat it, who we eat it with—these tell the histories of a place and its community of people, their practices, their values. It’s a way to challenge our own weltanschauung and worldview. And it is our hope that in learning about the foods of others—and of others through their foods—we are also learning about ourselves, and how to tell our own stories with better clarity. 

And we must, of course, consider our role, especially while traveling away from home, as culinary tourists. Here, away from home, we are the guests. Quite a reversal of our more typical role as hosts, inviting others to come and participate in our offerings.  

We must remember the inherent possibility of hostility in hospitality—intended or not—in the relationship between host and guest. Ironically, the two stem from the same root: hostis, meaning host and guest, or stranger, and in some cases, enemy (hostile). With guests, there is always the menacing potential of threat (think: Trojan horse). Though the term historically implies a reciprocal exchange of duties and generosity, the improbable Derridean notion of absolute hospitality—a yes without a why—means total and radical exposure, leaving wide open the opportunity for harm or exploitation. As tourists, we have to remember that we represent that potential threat, despite whatever good we intend on bringing to the table.

But all the theory is only that: theory. What matters more, I believe, is how we conduct ourselves in our interactions with our hosts. There’s something fundamentally parasitic about touring another’s culture and foodways for the purpose of enhancing our own subjective understanding of the world. (Remember Edward Norton’s character in Fight Club, his interloping excursions through the various support groups? Though this presents an extremely pessimistic scenario, it’s also too often a realistic one.)

But there is also the possibility for something beautiful that comes with (responsible) cultural borrowing that can lead to the exchange of old ideas and the creation of new ones. As humans, we evolve and adapt, we collect and we shed, forming coexisting intra- and intramural ecosystems that help sustain one another through empathy and connection. Ultimately, that is the goal—to maintain, to build and sustain a network of cultural ecosystems that allow for better lives across the board through generating awareness and understanding. 

To be sure, there are blind spots. I admit, when I travel, I often tend to seek out very specific dishes, food preparations, culinary modalities, etc., that I have read about while researching a particular place or cuisine. I get laser-focused on finding a particular thing—this can sometimes be burdensome on a travel partner. Sorry, Liz—with the thinking that it will somehow reinforce my preconceived notions of a place or the dish’s role within its cultural fabric.

The negative impact of this is two-fold: not only does it reduce certain foods and food types into a monolithic representation of the entirety of a place, but it often results in a lack of malleability and openness when it comes to the reception of a particular food or dish. It limits the possibility of understanding a food’s cultural resonances and the roles it plays within a community. To understand that these meanings are not fixed. They are not absolutes. 

Instead we should lean on the post-structuralist impulse to unhinge meaning from its antecedent, allowing for multiple readings of text, or in this case, a food, and its role both within its nuclear community as well as how this meaning gets translated across cultural or geographical boundaries: how we identify and perceive the structural relations that underpin the formation of culture. 

If it feels like I’m pinging all over the place here, I am. But it’s all connected. 

The beauty of food is that while it holds a fixed foot within a cultural epistemology—how we know what we know—on one hand, it allows for the subjective, particular experience and interpretation of its preparer/receiver, on the other. (Remember the discussion of the polysemy of puns and the meaning of dumplings from the October Newsletter? How dumplings, on a Sunday afternoon in my MaMa’s house, meant something very specific to our family, yet dumplings also hold a kind of universal cultural meaning across geographical and ethnic boundaries.) What I mean is that food demands a reading in both its nuclear context, as well as through the lens of an outsider. The broken rice porridge on the street corner in Bangkok means something quite different to me than it does for the Thais who order it while waiting in line for the bus on their way to work every morning. The hard part is trying to understand the resonances between the two. 

A simple bowl of rice is an extraordinarily complicated thing. 

I acknowledge my privilege even in writing about this, but even doing that feels like asking to be excused somehow, to be granted a universal hall pass to travel and eat and take back ideas for our own repurposing. What are we providing in exchange? At what cost is this to those cultures and practices we borrow from? It’s a constant yet necessary demand, trying to understand the boundaries of appreciation and learning while also engaging in acts of tourism that tend to reinforce colonial impulses without veering into exploitation and fetishism. That’s a tough one.

I feel compelled to say that it’s never simple. Because it’s not. The attendant ramifications of travel and culinary tourism are extremely fraught with various complicities in reinforcing colonial frameworks, of privilege, and of exploitation without reciprocal exchange.

The truth of the matter is, I think it is quite simple knowing how to navigate all these complexities: to lead with kindness and respect; to recognize our place as a stranger in another’s home; and to go with wide eyes and a hungry heart, with the hope that we come home a better version of our constantly evolving selves. 

But if I ever say we’ve got it all figured out, well, I’m wrong. And hopefully on the path of exploration and discovery, we gain a little better understanding of those outside ourselves, and of ourselves, too, with the hope that this will somehow help us be better citizens of the world we share. 

with love,

daniel + liz

After a week in Bangkok amongst the diesel buses and bustling markets, the street grills and urban canals, we went south, to the Island of Koh Yao Yai. The island is somewhat (relatively) remote, despite its being nestled between the two southern super-destinations of Phuket and Krabi. We flew into Krabi and taxied to Ao Nang, where we took a half-hour speed boat to the island with a handful of other passengers. From the pier, we hopped in the back of a songthaew that dropped us off at our resort. Other than the dozen or so small resorts peppered around the island, the only commercial buildings we saw were the two 7-11s, one on the north end, one on the south. (It is worth noting that these two 7-11s were also the only two ATMs on the island.)

The nights on Koh Yao Yai are quiet. Even the acoustic top-40 covers from the resort’s wide wooden-slatted restaurant barely register against the barking of frogs in the trees behind us. Out front, a gentle wind glides over the wet rippled sand, the tide a hundred meters out. A sole long-tailed boat anchored out in the water, gently listing, and the far off lights from the northern island barely awake in the distance. 

The morning nudged, its tender light kissing off the fat wagging palm leaves, so we walked to the beach for breakfast. We passed a man on a scooter hauling a fresh catch, the silver-scaled thing curled in a plastic grocery sack; another man carrying a small crafted bamboo bird cage, the creature inside in flight, though not flying. The morning smelled like banana leaves—damp and beany—and the sweet snap of cinnamon bark, a wet smokiness from the dying embers of the previous day’s brush burnings. 

We spent one day on a long-tail boat visiting the nearby islands, swimming in the pure deep turquoise, with intermittent stops to hike the shaggy jungles. But most of the week we spent barefoot in the sand, or taking flip-flopped scooter rides around the island. Not much was within walking distance, so the scooter was essential for getting around the island, chasing the sunset, and whizzing by the long stretches of tree fields and broken brush. The majestic cliffs in the distance, like ageless squatting elephants grown over with wild green—absolutely stunning. Inland, the rolling hills with rubber tree plantations, brackish marshlands with water buffalo and lizards the size of Fiats. 

It was a wonderful and relaxing week, a stark contrast to the dizzying buzz of Bangkok. Our last morning there, we took a boat to Phuket, where we’d hop on a flight back to Bangkok. I, stubbornly, insisted we walk from the sea port inland, hoping to stop for lunch along the way. A mile or so in, a van pulled over and hollered for us to get in. Liz looked at me; I looked at Liz. We slung off our backpacks, tossed them in, and off we went.

Nok was coming back from dropping a friend off at the port, she said. We told her we were headed to the airport but were planning to walk and find lunch first. When she asked what we wanted for lunch, I hail mary’d pad sataw goong! (Pad sataw goong is a dish of shrimp and large paddle beans called stink beans, whose long, spiraly pods look like a DNA helix, and the beans themselves look like a cross between butter beans and large, flattened almonds. They are, in fact, rather odorous, as the name suggests, with a remarkable flavor of something like a cross between asparagus and water chestnuts.) 

Sataw?! Nok shouted in response. Sataw, krub! I echoed back. 

She picked up her cell phone, made a call that seemed as casual as speaking to a friend about local gossip, and hung up. She’d called and placed an order, she informed us, adding that she was already heading to this place for lunch. 

To be honest, it seemed a bit bizarre. She had business cards in the van with TAXXI written on them, yet when we asked about paying, she refused. Good luck for you, good luck for me, she insisted. A few minutes later, she pulled off the highway to a small cart selling flower garlands called phuang malai that were ubiquitous on the streets of Bangkok. She bought one, leaning across the passenger side window, and replaced the one dangling from her rearview mirror with the new one. I learned later that these ceremonial garlands—often placed at the feet of Buddha statues or on temple steps as a votive offering—can have many meanings, including being displayed as a sign of good luck, with the hope of good fortune to come. 

Twenty minutes later we arrived at a tiny shop front with a few small tables and no one around but the proprietress standing over the wok in her kitchen cart. Nok extended her arm, meaning for us to take a seat on one of the plastic stools, and so we did. Moments later, the shop owner appeared with pad grapaw crowned with a fried egg, three bowls of rice, and pad kapi sataw goong. We sat and ate together, while Nok showed us photos on her phone of her daughter and son, the whole thing feeling somehow entirely unreal and also perfectly ordinary. We asked Nok why she chose this place. There is parking, she said, matter of factly. Ten years ago I came here and there is parking. Now I come every week.

We ate and we thanked her, and she pointed us toward the airport, just a 10-minute walk away. Good luck for you, good luck for me, she said again, as a final farewell.

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comin’ up

march

COLOR CLUB !

vol. 20

6-9PM

4146 N Elston Avenue Chicago, IL 60618.

We’re thrilled to be hosting March Supper Club at COLOR CLUB, a gathering space for Chicago’s creative community, run by husband and wife team Abby Monroe and Josh Dihle. We’ll be in the cozy Color Club’s Tavern space for this early spring dinner.

For our March menu we’ll be celebrating spring’s early pops of color, as well as one of the season’s earliest offerings, like white asparagus (with cashew milk, cardamom, rose water, and sesame), along with a poached daikon dish with house dried garum and a tomato-peanut relish with pork sung; a white bean dumpling in miso brodo; and some sesame tang yuan—rice flour dumplings in a cozy bath of sweet pandan and ginger broth—various dishes in light broths as our mimetic response to spring’s untying of the cold and (this year, mostly absent), snow. 

april—

VOL. 21 t a t i n e

get ready for this, folks…

April Supper Club will be at the beautiful and vibey Tatine Atelier space. The menu concept—IMPRESSIONS—will be crafted through a lens of impressions left on us during our recent travels to Sardinia and Bangkok, as a way to convey experience through taste, texture, and aroma, in a mood set by the tiny flames of Tatine.

So come, enjoy, and be transported with us. 

BEST BITES

here we are wrapping up some of our best, and most notable bites from thailand.

BACK TO RECIPES next month…

Before this trip to southern Thailand, I’d read about a dish called kanom keen nam ya—rice noodles with coconut-based minced fish curry. It was on the list of must-finds (read above). But sometimes you stare at the center of something so hard, so fixed, that the thing itself becomes lost and meaningless.

One morning on a return scoot from the northeast tip of the island to catch the sunrise, we passed a little open brick structure with high wooden beams, like an old school house. A few Thais huddled over their breakfasts, a father and daughter before school (presumably), while women in soft lavender hajibs filled little plastic sacks with rice noodles, whipping the bags like little lassos, cinching them with red rubber bands. 

The next morning I scooted back there. There was a woman slapping translucent roti dough on the hot iron drum top. Reluctantly, at the fear of seeming an interloper, and not sure whether to sit or wait to be proffered a menu (there were none), I stood waiting, smiling, and was generously gestured to have a seat. I pointed to the nest of rice noodles and said neung-an garoona, krub, not sure if these were even the right words, and sat in a small red plastic chair. Thirty seconds later I was given a plate of rice noodles ladled with a pastel green curry sauce, unbeknownst to me, kanom jeen nam ya.

It was understated, unadorned, and most of all, unbelievably simple and delicious. 

She then brought over a basket of herbs, mostly unrecognizable to my outsider’s eye—bai makok, chik nam, cha-om, and others, I soon learned—and a large plastic tray including pla ching chang—sun dried anchovies—a specialty of southern Thailand. The experience was humbling, to be demonstrated such pure and beautiful hospitality. 

I thanked them abundantly and struggled to say that I would come back with my wife, not knowing how to say fiancée (though it didn’t matter), nor knowing there were two different ways of saying the same word. It felt like a game of audible charades—our going back and forth between trying to repeat the other and also say the thing we meant—until the woman and I both broke with laughter. 

I did, of course, return with Liz in tow the next morning, and all the women took turns coming to the table to greet her with a courteous folding of hands and sa-wat-dii kaa.

A few more from the week :

NAM PRIK GOONG SIAP, Hinkong Restaurant

Thailand offers myriad chili relishes / dips that are served with crudite. This southern version is made with chilis and shrimp and is probably the most concentrated spoonful of infernal heat and robust funk that we experienced the entire trip. Served with blanched or raw veggies that serve as both utensils and necessary cooling agents. 

RUAM MIT, roadside stand

Saw a mother make this for her young daughter and it looked absolutely fascinating and delicious. Sala grenadine and coconut milk with jellies and ice. The name (“get together / friends”) is indicative of it being several desserts all in one.

BANANAS IN HOT COCONUT MILK, Kruow Baanrow

Pure and simple, ripe bananas in hot, sweetened coconut milk frangranted with pandan leaves. 

COCONUT ICE CREAM, Sawkoh Ice Cream

Coconut ice cream with a slew of topping options. We went with grass jelly, crispy mungbean, and fermented sweet potato. Served over a bed of sweet pandan sticky rice. 

ROTI FOI THONG (crispy roti w/ egg threads and jasmine), Koh Yao Yai Night Market

Thin, crispy roti breads are very common in the south. Our favorite was topped with foi thong—duck egg yolk threads cooked in a jasmine syrup—with shaved coconut and banana.

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