Food for Peace-An Asian Heritage Festival, Toledo, Ohio May 22, 2021

Yesterday, I attended one of my first public events since covid-19 shut things down. It was the Asian Heritage Festival: A Showcase of Local Asian Women Owned Businesses. It was organized by two nonprofits, Women of Toledo and HerHub (www.womenoftoledo.org/www.419herhub.org). The first “advocates for diversity and inclusion with a focus on economic empowerment.” A worthy cause, and the festival advertised art, food, and fun. There were a number of art activities and educational displays as well as a Bollywood dance lesson.

       It was the food, of course, that drew me, and it definitely brought people together. After gathering some food to taste, I sat at one of the few spaces open at a table, starting talking with my tablemates about the food and made two new friends. The entrance fee included tickets for 2 meals and one “Asian mocktail.” I selected an Indian dinner from Bombay Kitchen, the restaurant that offered the site for the festival. They advertised street food, but the samples were standbys that usually go over well with Americans: chicken curry (“butter chicken”), rice, samosas (fried filled turnovers), mango lassi(yogurt drink with mango), spicy chickpeas, and gulab jamun, a delicious deep fried ball of flour, milk, and sugar soaked in rose-water syrup (which sometimes come with a warning that they can be detrimental to diets). It was more than enough food to sample, and it was delicious. 

   Shokudo Kitchen from Perrysburg, Ohio was there with choices of Korean beef bulgogi or Japanaese teriyaki, rice or noodles, and a side (Asian slaw, kale power blend, or edamame). I didn’t have enough tickets to try everything and had to pass on this one. It looked delicious, although adapted to American styles of serving and current trends in mixing flavors and ingredients from different cuisines.. Food has always been adapted to new circumstances and new tastes, so that authenticity is a false illusion. These fusion and “Asian inspired” dishes can be a good entryway into a new food culture for newcomers, but they also reflect a newer aesthetic that some describe as cosmopolitan.

   The next offering was Kay’s Kitchen, Sylvania, Ohio, offering Vietnamese food. The owner, Kay, is actually Hmong (one of the hilltribes that lived in the mountainous north part of Laos and Thailand). She married a man from Vietnam and learned to prepare food from that culture as well as from Laos. Certain Vietnamese dishes have become popular in the U.S., and she offered those for tasting: bahn mi (sandwich made on a long roll, legacy of French colonialism in the region), crispy spring roll, summer rolls, and two varieties of cold noodle salads (bun ga and twit nuong). I got to taste most of these because my tablemates shared tidbits with me.

    I know I said above that authenticity is an illusion, but the food evoked the memories of the four months that I lived in Saigon in 1974, attended university there. I loved the food there. I would stop with my friends at stalls by the side of the street and get the same types of noodle dishes and bahn mi. The only difference was the absence of the ubiquitous nuoc mam (a pungent salty fish sauce). The bahn mi, in particular, I loved. They consist of various meats with pickled carrot, turnip, and the leaves of fresh herbs (basil and cilantro), and piercingly hot chilies on mayonnaise inside a long bakery roll, the rolls being the legacy of French colonialism in the region. 

Kay was being helped by her daughters, who were all wearing Vietnamese ao dai, a close filling long tunic over flowing pants. That brought back memories also and somehow made the food taste even better!

    The final tasting was dessert from the Tiger Bakery in Toledo, one of my favorite sources for Middle Eastern food. They feature dishes from Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Libya, reflecting the heritages of the cooks and owner. For this event they gave out two baklava, a pastry of ground nuts (I think in this case, walnuts) layered with thin sheets of phyllo dough and soaked in honey and syrup. The dish is not only delicious; it also shows the complexity of foods and cultural identity. Variations of baklava are found all over the Levant, all around the Mediterranean Sea, and into southern and southeast Europe. It’s one of those foods that a lot of cultures claim, but something this good is always going to transcend national boundaries.

    Most of the audience at the festival were likely unaware of the histories of the various dishes and cuisines being offered. They probably would have found them interesting, but the real intent of the event was successful. It brought people together to support local Asian businesses, and in doing so, people were clearly relishing the food, the chance to socialize, and the various activities being presented. It was a pleasurable outing for me, and I appreciate the 419 Culinary Nomads (World Affairs Council of NW Ohio: https://www.facebook.com/groups/506208900563098/) letting me know about the event. 

   More events of this type can help spread understanding of the diversity of and within cultures. Such understanding is particularly needed in these days of negative portrayals of Asians. 

 In honor of Cinco de Mayo tomorrow, I thought I'd post a link to a short documentary I produced on Mexican American foodways, particularly, tortilla making, in Northwest Ohio. It features my friendand colleague, Gloria Pizano, a wonderful cook as well as scholar and activist.(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBfK7amGoC8&t=218s)

One of the points of the video is that we all have foods that hold a special place in our memories of home--or places, people, past--and these oftentimes are overlooked because they seem so ordinary. They might also seem easy to make and not particularly special. Tortillas are a good example. They are ubiquitous and inexpensive, oftentimes taken for granted. As Gloria demonstrates in the video, though, there's a lot more to them than meets the eye or tongue.

Another aspect of the tortillas are the various associations with the flour used to make them. Corn flour (ground from corn treated with lye which releases the vitamins and softens the hull) is the traditional kind. Corn is native to Mexico and was domesticated there around 9,000 years ago! Wheat was brought in with the European colonists at the turn of the 1500s. It grew well in northern Mexico (which spread up into what later became Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California) and became established there. When migrants moved north from that region, they took their wheat flour tortilla traditions with them. Some Mexicans, though, consider only the corn tortillas to be authentic.

The holiday celebrates the victory over the French in 1862. It's not considered a big deal in Mexico, but it has become the public celebration of Mexican culture in the U.S.--I think, partly, because it fits so well into the calendar at a time when Spring really does seem to have arrived. In any case, it's a good excuse to try making tortillas (as shown in the video) and ordering take out from some of the many excellent Mexican American restaurants in this region. Most of these emphasize "Tex-Mex" dishes since much of the local population migrated up from Texas (and had lived in that area before it became the U.S.) starting in the 1930s to work in the sugar beet and tomato industries. For more information on this food culture, see the handouts on the website of the Center for Food and Culture (https://foodandculture.org/.../activity-guides-community.../).