A Mixing of Flavors

Food is a lifestyle; it is the way cultures interact. Food is a language; it is a way tongue speaks without words. Too many times my family would eat a typical Chinese dinner: rice, meat, fish, vegetables, and the occasional soup. This is our culture and this is how we set up our meals; however, the problem is that eating has become a chore! The meat lost its tenderness, the vegetables lost its buoyancy, and the fish grew a poor habit of staring at me. My dinner grew to become something like a haunted house. Luckily a bulldozer came along and destroyed that house. That bulldozer was the flavor of Korean cuisine. Since our neighbors were Korean it was inevitable that my mother would speak to them. Eventually they began exchanging cultural secrets. Witnessing two Asian mothers teaching one another how to cook in broken English and finger pointing was one of the most amusing things I had ever seen. However, the taste itself is a language and they were able to communicate through flavor. I was blissful with this interaction as my buds on tongue rejoiced with a party. The taste of different Korean spices, meats, and vegetables was exhilarating. This cultural mutualism was beneficial and resulted in something new, the taste of “Chorea”.