Day: October 12, 2020

Hi guys,

Just wanted to share an episode of Code Switch that came out a couple of weeks ago that made me think of this class! This episode was about “POC” as a term—who’s included/excluded in it, what role it takes, alternatives and other great discussion of its historical reach too. There’s a chunk where they get into the history of the term and mention its origins in the National Women’s Conference in 1977 for WOC and I couldn’t help but think of our exploration of multiple feminisms. Even more generally, I thought it fit into our conversations about language and connotations and demilitarization. It got me thinking about my own opinions on the term and whether its scope should be widened/narrowed. I thought about it just meaning all non-white people, but who does that serve and how can it be limiting? They have a linguists on as well as Naseeb Bhangal and Oiyan Poon (co-authors of Are Asian-Americans White? Or POC?) and I just found it interesting and applicable to our class!

Is it time to say RIP to “POC”?

What is BIPOC

Are Asian-Americans White? Or POC?

KP

This week’s blog post took me down a rabbit hole. I was intrigued by Sophia’s blog post, which led me to further look into the quote that was chosen. Sophia wrote about part 12 of The Book of Salt, in which Binh is offered a “cure” for his homosexuality. The cure was specified as “a regimen of rigorous physical exercise and a decreased intake of garlic, ginger, and other ‘hot’ spices” (Truong). Sophia wrote about the medicinal history of garlic, but I wanted to focus on the ingredients mentioned above that were recommended to be avoided, and why these foods were seen to be the cause of homosexuality. Obviously, foods cannot influence one’s sexuality, but it’s an interesting idea. After all, some foods are described to be aphrodisiacs, so theoretically, why can’t some foods make you more prone to be homosexual? I admit that there is no science basis behind this, but maybe history and stories matter more in this instance. When you google “Hot spices”, ginger, black pepper, Sichuan pepper, and cinnamon are the first results. Peppers and ginger can be traced to Southeast Asia (Higgins), and these hot spices all add dimension and kick to a plate. About queer foods, David Mehnert at Slate writes that Baked Alaska is inherently queer, because “it breezily mocks the threat of damnation, goes to hell and back, and lives to tell the story. Baked Alaska’s very identity, in fact, depends on having suffered an accusation of weakness, on surviving a trial by fire. It even gets a tan. What could be queerer than that?” (Mehnert). This implies that queer food is queer because it has gone through stages in its life to become something other. He continues, “Queerness comes only after an effort has been applied, the food combined with other foods, or after the food is processed or transformed into something else” (Mehner). Perhaps the doctor in The Book of Salt was onto something when he recommended a decrease in consumption of ginger, garlic, and hot spices. These ingredients all provide some sort of extreme kick and takes the food on a journey that is sometimes painful and intense, and the plate come out the other side as flavorful, layered, and deep. As Joseph Hawkins writes, “the queer approach to food is a variation on a common theme in queer lives: It’s a means of coping and improvising, adapting a facet of life to reflect an interiority few truly understand” (Fitzpatrick). Foods can’t cause homosexuality, but queer foods exist.

Truong, Monique. The Book of Salt. E-book, Houghton Mifflin, 2003.

Higgins, Edward. “Where Do Peppercorns Come From?” Farmers’ Almanac, 18 Dec. 2019, www.farmersalmanac.com/where-do-peppercorns-come-from-21386.

Mehnert, David. “What Is Queer Food?” Slate Magazine, Slate, 3 Apr. 2002, slate.com/news-and-politics/2002/04/what-is-queer-food.html.

This is a photograph of my father as the child in the center with his older sister to the left, and both are perched on my paternal grandparents’ knees. Although the picture is undated, I assume it was taken around 1973-4, when my father would have been a toddler. If I remember correctly, at the time of this photograph China would have been undergoing a period of transition from the Cultural Revolution to the economic reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s. However, I believe that Mao Zedong would still have been alive when this photograph was taken, so he must have still had considerable influence in Chinese politics and society. I see marks of the Mao era in my paternal family’s standardized, unisex style of dress (the collared button-up overcoat + pants worn by both men and women were very typical of the era) as well as the statue of a Communist Party icon in the background who may well be a likeness of Mao himself.

I took a picture of this photograph with my phone when I visited my grandparents in China in 2016. Although I can’t say I’m very close to my paternal grandparents, I spent many summers in that Suzhou home as a child myself, playing in my grandfather’s rooftop vegetable garden. I remember beds of lettuce and pots of tomato plants, cucumber vines that climbed the trellises like green snakes. My grandfather also grew his own chrysanthemum flowers, from which he brewed tea that he fed to me in a glass jar. In the kitchen downstairs, there would always be a string of dried red chilis hanging next to the door.

In the photo on the right, I have adorned my family’s picture with items that remind me of my own experiences. On the bottom left, dried chrysanthemum flowers for my grandfather’s tea; in the middle, a succulent for the plants in his garden; on the bottom right, a pack of dried chili peppers for the bundle next to the kitchen door. Although the other two items, the scarf and the sunglasses hanging over the screen, are not necessarily associated with childhood memories, they represent the material outcomes of my family’s legacy. Almost fifty years later, I exist in this moment as a product of those before me, and these are the items that prove I exist.

“‘Oh,” I said sighing, “I was not expecting a Chinese Restaurant” Three kinds of vegetables, any three will do, just as long they are cheap and drowned in a cornstarch-thickened slurry, I thought.” (94, Truong)

The scene has been set and Binh’s first interaction with Ba is dependent on them choosing where to dine. The two attempt to interact with one another, Binh lying about his family in Vietnam as Binh attempts to become a more western version of himself which is clearly shown through his distaste towards such an Asian restaurant. However, for this section I was considering the process of velveting meat in which protein is marinated in a mixture of starch and cooking alcohol, precooked prior to stir frying to ensure that even the toughest pieces are succulently tender.

Velveting is primarily seen within Chinese cooking with cornstarch and tapioca starch being a staple in most households. Soy sauce, mirin and other condiments can be used depending on the dish which serve to not just tenderize but can remove unpleasant odors that may remain in cheaper cuts. Whats interesting is that velveting can serve as a sauce thickener, the starches on the meat coating the sauce within the pan to create a much more satisfying flavor.

This traditional and almost trivial form of cooking has reached increasing heights with mainstream American media companies such as Bon Appetit publishing this method. Bon Appetit even interviewed our upcoming guest Mr Lucas Sin who gave his own take on the starch providing a slippery and therefore silky texture (Yeo). In this article Yeo even mentions using Worcestershire sauce, a quintessentially British condiment, in lieu of any other tenderizers. This seems like a complete rejection in an attempt for the catered party to find suitable substitutions for Chinese ingredients that are very much easily accessible so long as one just looks slightly harder (just look in your store, it will be there). Binh’s own cleansing of his background is an example of the need to overly complicate stories for the sake of the comfort of another party. In this case, velveting is created as some form of new found ancient historical technique when it remains a staple in cooking.

Yeo, Patricia Kelly. “Velveting Is the Chinese Technique That Takes Stir-Fries to the Next Level.” Bon Appétit, Bon Appétit, 9 Sept. 2020, www.bonappetit.com/story/velveting-meat.