Wren’s Reviews > Buttermilk Graffiti: A Chef’s Journey to Discover America’s New Melting-Pot Cuisine > Status Update

Hmm is the ultimate goal assimilation? I don’t think so. I feel like you should know where food comes from, on many levels

This book says a good amount about American food culture but says a lot more about Edward Lee

“The stories, the memories, the movements that have been performed for generations - without them, we lose our direction.”

“When you look at the evolution of American cuisine, you always find this tension between tradition and innovation, a tension that produces the foods we crave most. It is in that intersection of the home we leave and the home we adopt that we find a dish that defines who we really are.”

“We can take a recipe out of its native environment without the tedium of having to find a person who will teach us”

It’s interesting to think about sensory experiences defined by opposites

I think something that gets me with this book, especially the Unfamiliar Noodle and Accidental Faat chapters, is the idea of observer versus participant. And the idea of insider versus outsider. Edward Lee literally says he was recommended to bring a translator to Dearborn but didn’t. I’m very curious about that. And what it says that places and food need a translator

“I never understood why the Asian identity and the American identity had to be comparmentalized, the way my Salisbury steak and apple pie were separated in my Swanson’s dinner. I wanted them all in one bite.”

“In order for any cuisine to evolve , it has to be passed on to people who have not lived the authentic life from which It germinated”
Hm I’m not sure if I agree. How do we define authenticity

“Good food is just the beginning of a trail that leads back to a person whose story is usually worth telling.”