Early Look: Steph's Dad cooks Cantonese food using Thai ingredients
Added 2024-02-21 04:05:09 +0000 UTCSo... we've done this a couple times on the channel before, but I think this was the most fun instance.
You see, the two of us have this game that we like to play when we’re bored on the train or the bus or whathaveyou. Basically, one person chooses an ingredient from a certain cuisine, and asks the other person to brainstorm how a cook from an unrelated cuisine might use that ingredient if they bumped into it at the market. For example,
- What would a Sichuan grandmother do if she saw some hominy?
- How might a Cajun chef use young jackfruit?
- What would a Mexican cook do with some smoked bamboo shoots?
And it’s interesting because… this is almost precisely how ingredients spread around the world, right? Germany didn’t adopt the potato because some ambitious young chefs were seeking to make some Peruvian-German fusion. It happened on an ingredient-by-ingredient basis, with people incorporating new produce within their own cooking system.
And that specific moment’s always been super interesting to me. What was it like when chili pepper was first introduced to Thailand? When the tomato was first hitting the markets in Naples? The above game is probably a pretty drastic simplification of the actual historical process, but… if you’re food dweebs like us, it can be a fun way to pass the time at least. Get the creative juices flowing a bit.
Playing the game in real life - as we did before when Steph went to an American and Mexican supermarket - can also be a good bit of fun. But this time, we figured we'd see if Steph's Dad would be interested in whipping up a Cantonese meal using Thai ingredients.
Hope y'all enjoy.
