A plate of food for me is more than about sustenance. It embodies the cook's identity, personality, locality, culture, heritage, and lifestyle. It represents the care the cook put into preparing the dish.
I recently watched a TED Talk called, "Don't Ask Where I'm From, Ask Where I'm a Local" by Taiye Selasi. Selasi observed that asking someone where they are from is usually a divisive indication, with that question we are trying to identify the 'otherness' of an individual, as opposed to establishing a commonality. Conversely, it can be argued that asking someone about their origin simply represents an innocuous curiosity about the individual's background and childhood.
But, this question is often posed to ethnic minorities. As an individual with ethnically ambiguous looks, I have been frequently at the receiving end of this question. Although, the said query pays homage to my ancestral background, it does not completely encapsulate who I am as an individual. This question makes us different from others, and on some level indicates that we are not truly from the land we live in. Instead, we have this mythical land to return to.
Both set of my grandparents were born in British India, but they had nothing in common with other citizens of the Great British Empire. They belonged to the Muslim faith, so in circa 1947, they became part of a new nation called Pakistan. After her exodus from India, my grandmother who was used to cooking Bihari food, started incorporating local flavors of her new land into her cooking.
My upbringing in multicultural Toronto represents what I cook at home. My travel experiences, and the ubiquity of the ethnic food aisle have made it easier for me to prepare food from places, where I am not technically from, but in some ways a part of, because of the culture I grew up in.
So without further adieu, I present to you the recipe of Egg Fried Rice, inspired by Thai flavors. You might wonder why I am using three different types of sauces, soy, fish and oyster, when all three of them are ultimately salty in flavor. The answer, my dear reader, is that fish sauce and oyster sauce render a rich umami flavor, and add a level of complexity, to this very simple and quick rice dish.
Egg Fried Rice
Egg Fried Rice - influenced by Thai flavors.
Posted by Cultivate Flavors on Friday, October 23, 2015
