I’m reading a cookbook which mixes Jamaican and Chinese influences. Not made the recipes but they look amazing. Chinese means five spice, soy sauce, ginger. Jamaican means scotch bonnets and jerk, citrus and rum.
What is your favourite fusion cuisine?
I like Japanese fusion cuisine. They take western food, like pasta for example, and serve it with sushi. I’ve mostly seen it done in Japan. Seems to me like the best of both worlds.
I grew up in Pakistan, my parents are from South India, my wife is Chinese (not just ethnic Chinese, born and raised in PRC). We’ve lived in the US for 30+ years and have a daughter who loves French cooking.
Every day is fusion cuisine day. We just had a lunch of:
Okra and Mince Curry
Rice pilaf with fava beans
Tofu with Chinese broccoli
BBQ pulled pork
Crepe suzettte
Does Tex/Mex count?
Isn’t Tex/Mex just a style of Mexican cuisine versus a combination/fusion of cuisines?
My favourite was Vietnamese and Mexican: Bánh mì fish tacos. Basically a fish taco, but with all the vegetables and pickles and accoutrements of a bánh mì sandwich. It was stupendous.
It had pate?
No. Much as I like pâté, it did not. Just the vegetables, so it was kind of light. So when I wrote “all the accoutrements” I exercised a little creative license.
What about the Maggi Seasoning?
I might vote “Vietnamese”, which is sort of a French/East Asian fusion.
Isn’t bánh mì itself already a fusion dish?
Back when I was in grad school, I mostly hung out with the international students. Every year, we’d have Thanksgiving dinner together, potluck-style. Most of the international students knew that Thanksgiving was a holiday marked by a big feast, and that turkey was the traditional main course of that feast… and that was all they knew. So the turkey was prepared in the style of whoever was hosting that year, and everyone else brought whatever you would make in their culture as a side dish for a big festival meal. It was amazing.
I don’t know about those particular banh mi tacos, but it’s interesting in that Maggi Seasoning is also used occasionally in Mexican cooking. It’s soild as “Maggi Jugo.” I have a bottle of it in the cupboard (along with four other Maggi Seasoning blends – the recipe varies a bit from culture to culture, although the base taste is fairly the same.) The Mexican one is the most straightforward with just hydrolized soy proteins and caramel color listed as ingredients on my bottle. The other ones may contain wheat, spices, various flavorings, and other ingredients.
Our Thanksgiving for the last ten years has been six unrelated families, all first generation immigrants from China, Malaysia, Serbia and Pakistan. Hosted on a rotating basis, with the host family doing the turkey. For about 20 people a medium turkey is plenty (lots of leftovers) because everyone is chowing down on curries, stir-fries, roti canai, pulao, stews and an assortment of sweets.
Not so much fusion as free-for-all
When I look it up, it appears that it’s the cuisine of those people who were living in what’s now part of Texas but was a Spanish colony and then part of Mexico. These people (like most people in Mexico, being of Native American and Spanish ancestry) continued to eat the same food when that area became part of Texas. It then became common among other Texan residents and then common all around the U.S. It’s presumably been much influenced by other American cuisines by this point.
A type of fusion cuisine that you may have eaten at a chain restaurant is the food at Nando’s. This chain has 1,186 outlets around the world. They reached the U.S. last, I think, and only have 43 restaurants in the U.S., all in D.C., Maryland, Virginia, and Illinois. The food is that of Portuguese immigrants to Mozambique. The headquarters for the chain is in South Africa. The countries with the most outlets are the U.K., South Africa, and Australia.
I’ve eaten at a restaurant near me that served the cuisine of Chinese and Japanese immigrants to Peru. Incidentally, there were lots of Chinese immigrants to Jamaica. The descendants of them often moved to Canada and the U.S., so it’s not surprising if you’re reading about Jamaican-Chinese cuisince.
I’d vote for this too.
Indian/Mexican is pretty good. Falafel burritos are a great idea; ditto paneer burritos.
Have I ever mentioned here my idea for a fusion restaurant? Black-Thai Affair. It’s a soul food-Thai fusion.
Pad Thai with collards and bacon. Fried okra seasoned with Thai chili and basil. Stir fry with fried chicken over rice. Mac & cheese with Thai chili, curry and duck. Spring rolls with hog jowls. Corn bread with pineapple curry jam. Black-eyed peas with curry, basil and Thai chili. Everything topped with hot sauce. Sweet potato pie topped with fresh mango and coconut cream.
I’ve never had any of it, but danged if it doesn’t sound delicious. Perhaps one day I’ll put it all together.
I’m wondering if Cajun and Creole dishes would be considered fusion cuisines. Southern ingredients with French and Canadian influences. (And maybe Spanish? I think so.)
I don’t think of fusion cuisine as something that was established hundreds of years ago (so that Nyonya for example would still be considered “Fusion” if the fusion happened 500 years ago).
It has to be something more recent.
Thai-Mexican or Viet-Mexican are both winners in my book. Especially the cuisines of the pacific area of Mexico where the emphasis is on seafood and lighter ingredients.
Also, Mexi-Korean, Kalbi burritos? Yes please!