What is authentic?

My Thai cookbook prompted a field trip in search of ingredients for new recipes I must try. The first place I look when searching for all things East Asian is my local chinese supermarket--The Great Wall Supermarket on Queens Boulevard, not far from Jacobus Street. It's on the south side of the boulevard, and has a parking lot. I love this place! To tour this market is to tour another world. For me, it is more convenient and accessible than Chinatown in Manhattan--even though I often bike to work and ride right through it! The store is rather large and I take my children who are fascinated by the live food section (mostly fish and shellfish), and the meat section where chickens are sold with their heads attached. The store is full of Chinese and other Asians along with an occassional non-Asian face like my own. Although the products are mainly targeted to Chinese consumers, there are many others including Thai, Korean and Japanese, as well as a "Goya" (Spanish foods) section. In fact, this is where I found the requisite fish sauce last time I cooked Thai dishes.

This time I was looking for two items in particular, kaffir lime leaves and tamarind paste. These weren't the only things, but the main things. It was a very frustrating search! One of the problems with the store being so Asian is that no one speaks English. What made matters more frustrating is that I am certain it was there--I just didn't know where to look and exactly what I was looking for. I did find something interesting though: a Thai brand of chicken stock! Well, this called into question all my stock theories re: Thais and cooking. It also brings to the fore two questions: "What is authentic?" and "How much do cuisines affect each other in this shrinking world that we live in?" Both questions speak to the heart of the existence of this blog.

I am exploring new worlds through new immigrant populations more diverse and numerous than ever before, yet these populations, both here and at home, do not exist in isolation. The historian, Eric Hobsbawm, stated, "80% of the world's population emerged from the Middle Ages in the 1950's." The pace of change since then has been breath-taking! One can meet women selling ices and speaking on cellphones in Flushing-Meadows Corona Park (site of the World's Fair) who probably grew up in remote Amerindian mountain villages in Latin America. My parents visited some of these areas as evangelical missionaries in the 1960's, including jungle villages that probably no longer exist in shrinking Amazonia. I reflect on these things when I look at tons of "exotic" processed foods on local supermarket shelves. There is quite a paradox as many traditional peoples now straddle two worlds. This is reflected in food available, as fresh, traditional food is readily available, but obviously processed food has made its way into the home kitchen.

Just like most Americans, they are too busy working to cook. Sure, some folks were never fond of cooking, but most folks who remember the old ways know that cooking is not just work, but art. Your pots almost speak to you, urging you to create something new. They know that cooking is about love, not mere duty. There will always remain a faithful few who will not bend the knee before Baal! Okay, before I get all Luddite on you, let me take a breath and step back. It's not modern convenience that I object to, but the commercialization of our lives, which has extended to our very sustenance! It has become such that many now prefer processed food and find the taste of fresh food alien! Processed food can never be as good for you as fresh. It is also inevitable that we will use processed foods. I regularly use canned beans and tomato products. The latter can be found in many states of processing: from whole peeled tomatos to paste and sauce. Naturally, less processed is better, and jarred is better than canned, but that's just my opinion.

The other fact is that soup stock is a French concept that might have been passed onto the Indo-Chinese, as the region of Southeast Asia was formerly referred to, during French colonial rule. Thus, it may very well be a pretty authentic Thai adoption from nearby Vietnam. Vietnamese restaurants sometimes have frog's legs on the menu. Here's a recipe for chicken stock from ThaiTable.com: http://www.thaitable.com/Thai/recipes/Chicken_Stock.htm. It's a great site for Thai recipes!