One of the greatest benefits of working across cultures, aside from the terrific people, is the fabulous food we are privileged to enjoy. I’m sure most of you agree, as some of our food posts have proved to be popular entries on this blog:
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“I challenge you to find anyone in the history of the world who was enslaved and who revolutionized the food, sex lives, religion, dance, music, and aesthetics of the people who enslaved them—like Africans in the Americas did. The man and woman who became enslaved enslaved the palates of those who enslaved them.”
—Michael W. Twitty, food historian
Michael Twitty is aspiring to be the first US Civil War-era Black chef in 150 years. To that end, since 2011 he has researched, written, and, amazingly, performed the day-to-day labor of an enslaved person. Why? “It’s my job, using imagination, body, archeology, ethnography, anything I can, to honor and restore dignity to my ancestors.”
It is important that we not only honor the ancestors but provide a lifeline to contemporary communities and people of color looking for a better life in the new economy, a way out of the health and chronic illness crisis, and a way to reduce the vast food deserts that plague many of our communities. To honor the food past and provide for the food future is “culinary justice.”
—from Michael’s website, Afroculinaria
All over the world, people have lost and are losing proprietorship of their ancestral traditions. As Michael explains, “Spam colonized Oceania, Korean traditions were usurped during the Japanese occupation, there was the pseudo-history of the Columbian Exchange, Native Americans probably exchanged recipes with immigrants as they shivered under small pox blankets and dodged musket balls.” Too many people have no claim over their own heritage, no access to a field of heirloom vegetables that their ancestors brought to a country or a continent.
Maybe you have heard about Michael Twitty. I had not until I read a post by colleague Missy Gluckmann from Melibee Global this morning. Learning from Michael has occupied my entire morning, and I can’t tell you how thrilled and how moved I am by his work and who he is! Bless you, Missy and Michael!
Readers of this blog know that we often write about food (1, 2, 3, 4, 5); it is central to the soul of a culture. We also frequently write about cultural appropriation (1, 2, 3), from fashion to symbols to traditions, how to avoid it, and how to extend power and privilege, credit and honor where they belong—to origins and originators—while also continuing to be generative. Heck, bridging and blending cultures is what Cultural Detective is all about! Building on others’ work while honoring it respectfully and justly is a difficult line to maintain, however, one that requires ongoing dialogue, learning, and adjustment. Living as a gringa in Mexico, I learn more about that “thin line” on a daily basis.
Here in Latin America, where colonization and the appropriation of historic lands remain modern-day concerns, and the switching from heritage to GMO crops breaks my heart and worries many for our future, Michael’s work provides a much-needed vocabulary and conceptual framework. According to Michael, “In a world where oppressed communities worldwide are struggling with food security and economic inequalities, advancing culinary justice is essential to a better and more sustainable future for the global community.”
How does he define some of his terms?
Culinary Injustice: “When the descendants of historically oppressed people have no sovereignty over their culinary traditions, and essentially go from a state of sustainable production and ownership to a state of dependency, mal- or under-nutrition and food injustice. It results in feelings of shame for being under history’s boot heel, and puts distance between our past, ourselves and our future. Culinary injustice places originators in a tertiary and passive rather than a primary and active role in the transformation of culinary traditions, and results in fortunes being made for others”—those who oppress, appropriate, or innovate unjustly.
Culinary Justice: “Respect for truth and honesty in telling the stories and traditions of the oppressed. Reconciliation not blame, hope not guilt, the power of working together not avoiding one another. Ensuring that children of color have access to the land, ecosystems, clean water and legal protections to grow the heirloom crops and heritage breed animals of their ancestors. This results in a greater connection to nature, spirit, and our ancestors. Culinary justice enables the oppressed to become entrepreneurs, producers and providers by using their unique cultural heritage, and lifts communities out of poverty.”
Bridging Cultures via Culinary Traditions
Michael himself is a Blended Culture person, both African-American and Jewish, among, no doubt, many other identities. How does he bridge cultures? Again, in his words, “Food is extremely culturally connected and inherently economic and political. It is a proving ground for racial reconciliation and healing and dialogue. The responsible exploration of the Southern food heritage demands that the cooks of colonial, federal era and antebellum kitchens and enslaved people’s cabins be honored for their unique role in giving the Southland her mother cuisine.”
Think about this a minute. Here’s a culinary historian who has dedicated his life to reclaiming the Black culinary heritage of the Americas, especially in the US South. How do you think he might feel about someone, like, say, Paula Deen, celebrity chef and doyenne of Southern comfort food, who, when you think about it, has made a fortune off adapting (or appropriating) African-American recipes and traditions? In fact, Michael named one of his projects “The Southern Discomfort Tour,” to help us redefine how we think about what is commonly referred to as “Southern comfort food.”
Again, in Michael’s words, “I invited Paula Deen to dinner, at a plantation, to engage her as a cousin, not a combatant. The Cooking Gene seeks to connect the whole of the Southern food family—with cousins near and far—by drawing all of us into the story of how we got here and where we are going. There is power in food traditions for bridging the pseudo-boundaries of race.”
Bravo!
Michael talks about “identity cooking,” which relates directly to the Blended Culture that we as Cultural Detectives talk about. He tells us, “Identity cooking isn’t about fusion; rather it’s how we construct complex identities and then express them through how we eat. Very few people in the modern West eat one cuisine or live within one culinary construct. Being Kosher/Soul is about melding the histories, tastes, flavors, and diasporic wisdom of being Black and being Jewish. Both cultures express many of their cultural and spiritual values through the plate, and Kosher/Soul is about that ongoing journey.”
He talks about the Americas as “a culinary cornucopia unknown anywhere else in the world, where foods from Africa, the Americas, Eurasia, the Middle East and Southeast Asia met. Cooks from modern-day Ghana, Angola and Nigeria perhaps exchanged recipes with each other in their new Afro-Creole pidgeon English,” and here, paraphrasing him, sharing with one another how they adapt their ingredient list to the plants and herbs available in the Americas, as well as the palates of their new owners. “What results is not like anything they have cooked before, but is the essential truth of all of the parts.”
Remember when I told you that modern science is proving that memory is biological, that it crosses generations? Michael Twitty, with his one-man mission to reclaim African-American culinary heritage, recently found out through DNA testing that he his paternal ancestors were the Akan of modern-day Ghana. The Akan language, called Twi, has a word and an Adinkra symbol called sankofa. Sankofa means that we must go back and reclaim our past in order to move forward! You tell me Michael isn’t doing what his ancestors, and his genes, tell him needs to be done! Inside each of us, indeed, is a piece of the puzzle, an answer to the challenges facing our world!
The Akindra symbol for sankofa
Akindra bird symbol for sankofa
Personal Learning (or Reframing) Points
What are some of the key points I learned, or reframed, from Michael Twitty this morning? Most of the below is verbatim from Michael via his videos on the internet.
African slaves were not unskilled labor. They were brought to the Americas for their skills, to help build nations. They knew how to grow rice and cotton from West Africa, and brought it to the USA. We brought over 20 different African crops and animals to the Americas on slave ships. They brought their ability to cook. Post-slavery, they were the first generation of caterers in America, culinary aristocracy, cooking for the White House, embassies, highest society. Yet our children don’t know that!
“Yam yam” is a Wolof word, the word enslaved women used when caring for white children in the big house, encouraging them to eat her food. Look in the dictionary under “yummy”: “origin unknown”? Black people!
As new generations were born in the USA, kids’ palates changed. They don’t like guts, which of course contained the spirit, the soul, the essence of the animal that was sacrificed to feed us. We began to lose the mystical, the mythological, the metaphysical, and the magical… Those chitlins (small intestine): they contain the soul, that’s why it’s called soul food!
Enslaved cooks from Central West Africa used spirituals to time their cooking; there were no clocks. To roast the meat, bake the bread… they’d reference the number of times they could sing the song before the food would be done.
Rice in South Carolina made 10 out of the first 12 millionaires, all of whom were involved in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. It took only two seasons to make the rice planters of Charleston millionaires. Charleston Gold Rice sells for $14/bag today, yet not one black person owns a rice field in Charleston. That’s food injustice.
It’s important to respect and revive the culinary knowledge of the oppressed. It takes guts to insist that the chef act as a keeper of tradition, an advocate of memory, of ecological integrity, of ethnographic and historical respect, with contemporary awareness and a sense of urgency to acknowledge debt. Culinary reconciliation will lead to healing and a better life.
I’m sure you’d love to see Michael in action. Below is a video of an 18-minute presentation he gave to MAD, a Danish non-profit.
If you have heard Michael speak or, better yet, eaten some of his food, please let me know about your experience. Bless you, Michael Twitty! Thank you for helping make our world more respectful, equitable and just!
Image from “Foodies,” a blog by L. John Harris on Zester Daily
Another terrific guest blog post by CD Russia co-author Carrie Cameron, combining two of your favorites: food and literature. Smells and tastes evoke our deepest memories, and for Blended Culture people they can easily lead to a round-the-world reverie…
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Perhaps you’re familiar with the famous madeleine of Marcel Proust’s A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu (Remembrance of Things Past, or In Search of Lost Time, depending on the translation). The author takes a bite of a madeleine, a simple cookie, and the taste-memory drifts him off on a long reverie of his childhood, connecting him to the people and moments of long ago:
“…when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring…remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.”
Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking, by Anya von Bremzen, is not a cookbook, but a literary madeleine, evoking through food memories her childhood in Soviet Russia. It’s not about her favorite foods or emblematic Russian dishes. It’s about how a taste connects us with a moment in time and space.
Vobla, dried and salted Caspian roach fish, “brings out that particular Russian masochism: we love it because it’s such a torment to eat…I’d happily trade all Hemingway’s snails and Proust’s cakes for a strip of [this] petrified fish flesh.” A half-piece of black-market Juicy Fruit gum takes her back to the girls’ bathroom in elementary school, where she would auction it off to the other girls, having obtained it through some elite family connections. She describes salat Olivier as a “metaphor for a Soviet émigré’s memory… loosely cemented with mayo.” In her mother’s American kitchen in the 90’s, making the salat, she notes how “a taste of Lebanese pickle that uncannily resembles a Russian gherkin leads to a snippet from a Rodina song, which in turn rouses a political morality tale, or reawakens a recollection of a long-ago dream, of a fleeting pang of yearning.” Starting from these tastes and smells, the author skillfully depicts the cultural intimacies of a point in time and place which no longer exists, yet is very real and alive in her memory.
What tastes and smells evoke your cultural insights? What clues do they provide to other ways of life, and why?? Post your answers in the comments, and let’s compare!
By now you know that Anna, co-author of Cultural Detective Deaf Culture, writes a food blog called “Bay Area Bites.” Inspired by the aforementioned articles, her latest is called “Food Speaks in Many Tongues.” Specifically she shares with us a few French, English, German, Spanish, Danish, Turkish, Japanese, Russian, Cantonese, Farsi, Arabic, Hebrew, Yiddish, Italian, and American Sign Language food idioms.
Illustrations are by Anna’s daughter, Lila Volkas.
Long suspecting that Chinese languages, like French, reflect a heightened preoccupation with food, I immediately focused on the chapter, “Food as Metaphor.” There I learned that China’s classics contain many examples of how food metaphors illustrate political, social and philosophical principles. The philosopher Laozi, for instance, observed that “one should govern a large country as one would cook a small fish — very gently.”
Yanzi, another famous Chinese philosopher, noted that “harmonious government, like cooking a fish, requires a proper blend of policy, just as cooking a fish requires the proper blend of vinegar, soy sauce, salt and plum.” If ministers were blindly to follow their ruler’s behavior, it would be like boiling a fish in plain water; who would want to eat it?
Hearing this, a Chinese friend reminded me that fish frequently are associated with prosperity in Chinese culture, though “climbing up a tree in search of fish,” is to do the impossible.
Chinese philosophers, according to Food in Chinese Culture, also used food imagery to explain literary creation. “It was said that a writer’s ideas are like grains of uncooked rice. When the grains are boiled into porridge, that is prose; when they are fermented into wine, that is poetry.”
In business, “being handed a rice bowl” is to be hired, while “having your rice bowl broken,” is to be fired. A Shanghai-born MBA student explained that if you protest being fired, the boss’ response might be: “the rice is cooked,” meaning it’s too late to do anything about it (my decision is final). Perhaps you should have just performed your duties as “talk does not cook rice.” Still, a Chinese employee might counter with, “I won’t bow for five measures of rice,” suggesting he refuses to do anything demeaning for money. Bottom line: “the squid had been fried,” or he was fired. Because the fried squid is shriveled, there is a serious loss of face.
Some of my other Chinese-speaking students remind me that in business and other activities, one should remember that “if you pick up a sesame seed, you may drop a watermelon,” or lose sight of important issues because you focus on trivial matters. And certainly one should avoid “stale grain and uncooked sesame” — boring unimportant gossip.
According to Gong Wenxiang, author of Food in Chinese Culture, the Chinese word shi means “to eat” as well as “to earn a living.” So perhaps it’s not surprising that “to eat land” means to get income by renting out farm land, while “to eat salary” means to work for wages, and “to eat strength” means to survive via physical labor.
A Mandarin-speaking foodie friend described other “eating” expressions that reflect consuming, digesting, or absorbing. “Stuffing a duck,” to prepare a fine meal, also can refer to studying hard or cramming to ensure excellent test results. Winning the lottery is to “eat delicious,” prompting jealous lottery losers to “eat vinegar.” And beating mahjong or chess opponents is often expressed as “eating their pieces,” the loser expected “to eat bitter” – to be able to withstand difficulty. Perhaps this is why the plum blossom is a national Chinese symbol. Flowering in winter, it overcomes cold, just as the Chinese people survive and thrive despite hardship.
I remember a US American graduate student telling me his new Chinese roommate at UC Berkeley’s International House asked him, “Have you eaten?” The US American responded, “Not yet. Will you join me for lunch?”
The Chinese student said, “No thanks, I’ve already eaten.” The US American was confused, until someone explained that “Have you eaten?” is a common Chinese greeting which means “How are you?” or “Are you OK?” And, of course, if you haven’t eaten, you’re probably hungry and not ok.
I suspect that the examples here are but a bland reflection of the rich banquet of Chinese eating and food metaphors that are yet to be savored by non-Chinese speakers. After all, according to a Chinese proverb “eating is even more important than the emperor.”
So, an invitation to Chinese-speaking interculturalists, linguists, and anthropologists: please bring on the next course!
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Joe Lurie is Executive Director Emeritus at University of California Berkeley’s International House, a cross-cultural communications trainer, consultant, university lecturer, and certified Cultural Detective facilitator. Another terrific article he wrote for Cultural Detective, also full of metaphor, was called “Language Under the Gun.”
I’m freaking out. The layered pandan rice cake–for which I so carefully poured 6 alternating colored layers–is totally stuck to the pan. No worries. Thy Tran, instructor of this Steamed Asian Sweets class at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center, calmly comes to my rescue, directing me to put the cake in the frig for a quick cool-down, after which it effortlessly peels out of the pan.
Pandan layered rice cake
After months of hearing about the wonderful range of Asian Cooking classes at OACC, I finally make it here for a four-hour class in their Oakland Chinatown kitchen. Sadly, it turns out this is the last class in a series entitled Cooking with the Senses, Fundamentals of Asian Food.
Previous classes centered on handmade noodles, flatbreads and crepes, wok cookery, fearless frying, all taught by noted chef, author, educator (and…
I have been quite ujiuji (melancholy) in recent weeks, feeling uzu-uzu (a burning desire) to hear and speak Japanese. Living in a small city in Mexico, zenzen (almost never) can(‘t) I hear Japanese, and my heart gets shoboshobo (sad).
Joe’s recent blog post on the French food fixation only fueled more tsukuzuku (heartfelt thinking) on my part. As you may have already figured out from my wazawaza (purposeful) language, I’ve been thinking about Japanese sound symbolism, particularly in the context of food.
Whether you eat gatsugatsu (gobble or devour) or potsupotsu (little by little), if you want to talk about food in Japanese you will be using words that mimetically represent feelings and senses. As the originators of the concept of umami (pleasant savory taste — one of the five basic tastes), Japanese tend to mokumoku (munch) the way they listen: with all their senses. Taste, texture, and temperature, sound, smell and sensation… all are important elements that combine to keep people ukiuki (cheerful), pichipichi (young and vigorous) and pinpin (in good health).
While many people think of Japanese food as the tastes and textures of sashimi or sushi, a typical meal may also contain iroriro–na (a variety of) food including boiled, broiled, fried or pickled dishes, a soup and hokahoka (warm) steamed white rice. Is your stomach starting to guuguu (growl hungrily)?
For the fresh or raw component of your meal, would you like something shakishaki — crisp as in veggies or fruits, e.g., lettuce washed in cold water? Or would you prefer something more korikori — crunchy and crisp, as in fresh raw abalone? Be sure to rinse the abalone well, so it doesn’t taste jarijari (gritty) or zarazara (coarse). Maybe you want something sharishari — tangy and juicy, like an Asian nashi pear or sherbet? Or is your tongue like mine, and craves the piripiri (sting) of wasabi or fugu (blowfish)? Any of these dishes will require chokichoki (cutting with a knife) preparation.
A boiled dish in our meal might include pumpkin nimono, stewed hokuhoku (steamy and dense but not soggy), or something more furufuru (soft and jiggly) like boiled eggs. Maybe we should make some chikuwa (fish paste roll) for oden till it’s buyobuyo (swollen and soft) and fuwafuwa (fluffy)? Oh that sounds good! There are just so many possibilities! So many tastes and textures!
There are madamada (still) ippai-ippai (lots) more onomatopoeia to consider. What about a main dish? Shall we eat something sakusaku (freshly cooked crisp and light) like tempura shrimp? I could fry it till the shrimp inside are puripuri (plump with a nice resistance) and the breading is poripori (quietly crunchy). Perhaps you are really craving the shikoshiko (chewy, elastic firmness) of some udon noodles? Never over-boil the pasta so it becomes betobeto (sticky and gummy); rather, you’ll probably be wakuwaku (trembling with excitement) to eat your tsurutsuru (shiny and slurpy) noodles and gabugabu (drink heartily) a beer!
Instead of your normal bowl of rice you might enjoy something a bit more mochimochi (soft, sticky and chewy) or netoneto (glutinous and gummy) like sticky rice. Maybe rice that’s a bit more pasapasa (dry), like jasmine rice, sounds appetizing? The kunkun (smell) is so nice! Tabitabi (once in a while), though, I like the parapara (moist but loose) of fried rice.
Even though by now you are panpan (full), pukupuku (swollen), and maybe even kokkurikokkuri (nodding off), a karikari (hard and crispy) biscotti, a fukafuka (soft and fluffy) cream puff, or even some purupuru (wiggly, jiggly) kanten (gelatin) for dessert might refresh your soul. Maybe just a handful of something punyupunyu, like some gummis?
After such a big meal your throat may feel karakara (thirsty). I’d definitely recommend a chibichibi (sip) of a kachikachi (ice cold) shuwashuwa (sparkling) beverage over a betabeta (sticky) dessert wine. It can help settle any mukamuka (queasiness) you might have.
What if you’re not really that hungry, and you just want to mushamusha (munch)? You might want the paripari (thin and crispy) of nori (toasted seaweed) or chips. Sometimes, though, we crave a louder pachipachi (crispy snapping sound), like the baribari (loud crunchiness) of sembei (rice crackers) or the kachikachi (crisp firmness) of arare (another kind of rice cracker).
There are several categories of onomatopoeia in Japanese. They are:
Giongo (擬音語): These are the words that mimic the sounds of life around us, such as the sound of sprinkling vs. heavy rain, a door creaking or glasses clinking. Most of the food onomatapoeia above are giongo.
Giseigo (擬声語): Sounds made by people or animals, such as a cat’s meow or a dog’s woof.
Gitaigo (擬態語): Words that describe actions, such as smiling or grumbling, or psychological states, such as cheerful or irritated. Sometimes these latter are also called gijogo. Technically these are not onomatopoeia, since they don’t mimic sounds; they are mimetic words that mimic actions or emotions. However, since we don’t use these types of words often in English, and they are very important to speaking and understanding Japanese, I include them here.
I also found several online dictionaries of Japanese onomatopoeia. The first is Giongo Dictionary, where you can sign up for a daily email to keep learning. A second, if you read Japanese, is Onomatopedia. The third is a cool little resource with sounds you can listen to. Finally, though it only works sporadically, is Nihongo Resources, where you can search in English or Japanese. I hope you’ll enjoy them.
Japanese speakers: Please share some more of your favorite 擬音語 (giongo) and insights with us! There are of course regional (and personal!) variations of many of these!
Speakers of other languages: We’ll be happy to publish it if you send us your post about unique features in your language. Thanks!
Members of the Cultural Detective community are united in a common purpose: to spread respect, understanding and justice through collaboration in our world. I am so, so lucky to be able to work, each and every day, with such passionate and diversely talented people.
Yesterday was a wonderful day. We held the second in a successful series of two FOLEs (Facilitated Online Learning Events) with a globally dispersed group of movers and shakers; launched a MUCH-anticipated new package (CD Bridging Cultures); got out a blog post and a newsletter; and finished the admin area on our upcoming Cultural Detective Online subscription service. But, I was tired, and feeling rather overwhelmed by all the technology I (have to) work with. I was wondering, as many of us do sometimes, if my efforts were really having a positive impact on the world.
Just then I opened a note from one of my colleagues, a sign language interpreter who is a “foodie.” She reminded me that, yes, every little bit we put out there positively (including via technology) has constructive ripple effects in our world. Bless you and your beautiful work, Anna! Keep reading to see her note and a terrific effect of a recent social networking link.
Here’s the note I received: Hello dear Dianne,
I am excited to share with you a post and video I made inspired by a story on your Intercultural Competence Newsfeed. Do you remember the piece about:
My fascination with food and culture spurred me to write a post about different cultures who eat with their hands (including Indian, Ethiopian and Moroccan). And with the help of a friend, we shot a video of this lovely Moroccan gentleman I know giving me a lesson in eating with the hands.
I am hoping to make a series of such videos on cross-cultural food ways. Hopefully it can help build cross-cultural understanding and respect.
One of the greatest benefits of working across cultures, aside from the terrific people, is the fabulous food we are privileged to enjoy. I’m sure most of you agree, as some of our food posts have proved to be popular entries on this blog:
Cultural Detective Blog 