My family\u2019s culture is like a jigsaw puzzle made of different ingredients taken from different recipes. Some of the pieces fit together perfectly, but others clash and bump edges, never having been meant to belong there. To be mixed is to be kimchi jjigae with too much gochugaru; to be mixed is to not have enough crushed tomatoes in the marinara sauce. But to be mixed is to also be perfectly cooked rice, perfectly cooked pasta, and just the right amount of garlic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To be mixed is to be unknown and undefinable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eating and cooking, as for most people, has played a prominent role in my life. It has been my family\u2019s tether to Motherlands that have long since been left and languages that were buried in foriegn lands. The puzzle pieces I received as a child were kimchi and rice, musubi and macaroni salad, baked ziti and spaghetti. My household was the ultimate fusion restaurant, and I was the studious chef\u2019s apprentice. I would wait by the stove as my parents cooked, standing upon the tips of my toes to watch as they\u2019d sprinkle in the various seasonings, a plethora of aromas wafting through the halls. It often felt like magic to me, as though my parents were cooking up age old spells. I would drag a little white stool over to the counter and have Mom and Dad instruct me on what to do. I am Korean on my Dad\u2019s side and Italian (from Calabria) on my Mom\u2019s side, but funnily enough it was my Dad that taught me how to cook spaghetti bolognese and my Mom who taught me how to make kimchi fried rice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
To be mixed is to be a contradiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As they taught me how to cook, my parents mixed their puzzle pieces in with mine and showed me how to make a mosaic. \u201cYou only put pork in your spaghetti sauce,\u201d Mom told me, \u201cNever beef. If there\u2019s beef in the spaghetti sauce, it isn\u2019t Italian.\u201d Dad would explain, \u201cThere\u2019s not a whole lot of measuring to be done, the way my mom cooked was by feel. By what tastes good.\u201d Oh, how I held fast to those little bits of knowledge Mom and Dad would hand out. They were more like lessons on life and history disguised as a recipe book. Each new recipe they taught me felt like a reclamation of a cultural history that was lost to time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
To be mixed is to be a reconciliation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Being a person of mixed race in America, I have always been in contention with the Great American Melting Pot, but I have learned to make peace with that struggle. I learned acceptance of myself through cooking. I learned how to cook rice and pasta to perfection. I learned what just enough garlic means. I learned how to measure sesame oil, fish sauce, soy sauce, and rice vinegar in perfect amounts without measuring cups. I learned how to make a delicious red sauce and an excellent, but unconventional, cream sauce. I learned to be both Italian red pepper flakes and gochugaru. I learned how to cook from my soul. Moreover, all these ingredients have shown me how to accept myself as one entity composed of multiple races. I have learned throughout my life and through my experience with cooking that I do not need to argue the validity of my existence to anyone. I am white, I am Polynesian, I am Asian \u2014 and nobody can take that away from me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Lee \uc774 Therese A. My family\u2019s culture is like a jigsaw puzzle made of different ingredients taken from different recipes. Some of the pieces fit together perfectly, but others clash and bump edges, never having been meant to belong there. To be mixed is to be kimchi jjigae with too much gochugaru; to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"geo":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":168,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions\/168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}