Cultural Fusions
- Aubrey Johnson
- 6 minutes ago
- 9 min read
I love to travel. Not so much the getting there as the being there, experiencing “there.” The culture, the people, the landscapes, and the food. When I went to Italy, I wasn’t comparing their pizza to Hideaway Pizza, a chain restaurant in Oklahoma, because Italian pizza is worth crossing an ocean for. When I was in Dublin with my cousin, I opted out of the McDonald's experience that her kids wanted, and my cousin and I found an Ireland-only restaurant instead. When I was in England, you can be sure I enjoyed a scone with clotted cream since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration prevents Americans from enjoying the real, unpasteurized original. And in Madrid, I checked off tapas, Vermouth, and churros and chocolate, all as good as Phil Rosenthal said they were. The real thing in the real place cannot be skipped or taken for granted. However, if travel is not always an option to get the real thing, there is sometimes a “second-best” alternative. I have found that these alternatives often come from individuals with a history of that culture, whether through their ancestral family or their own lived experience.
When I lived in Connecticut, serving with FoodCorps, I experienced a mix of cultures that differed from my small-town Oklahoma upbringing. Historically, I knew the Northeast has been a cultural melting pot. When people immigrated to the United States hundreds of years ago, many didn’t settle far from where they landed. As such, over the years, CT has become home to various populations, including the Irish, Italians, Polish, and French Canadians, to name a few. However, what I wouldn’t have known without going there myself is that, post-1930s, in addition to Asian immigrants from India and China, CT also became home to Latinos from Mexico and Central American countries (Ellis, 2024). This is not something I would have guessed with the region so far from the southern states, to me, a more logical choice to settle, if only going by proximity to one’s home country. The wide demographics of the region are one of the reasons FoodCorps chose CT as a service location and why I was able to venture into the Northeast. FoodCorps strives to serve diverse populations in high-needs areas where at least 50% of the students qualify for free or reduced-price meals. While in New Haven, I served in two K-8th-grade schools.
Both schools had dual-language classes in which students learned in Spanish one week and English the next. It was fun to practice my college Spanish with 2nd and 3rd-graders who helped me with vocabulary and pronunciation. I met students from Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Costa Rica. And, as part of my FoodCorps service, I was there to talk with them at lunch, teach them in the gardens and classrooms, share a meal, and encourage them to eat a few fruits and vegetables. I remember looking lost in the Hispanic aisle at Walmart and asking a random customer which masa harina I should get for a tortilla lesson. Then one of the 7th-grade girls I was “teaching” took over the tortilla lesson for me, which I was happy to have her do.
Some of my favorite classes during my year in Connecticut were the 2nd and 3rd graders from Columbus Family Academy and Hill Central School. Their teachers were also my friends - Mrs. Gomes and Ms. Barberia. Those kids always made me smile and laugh, regardless of how much we understood each other. They made my day when they asked me to sit with them at lunch. Now they are 9th and 10th-graders. Ms. Barberia just won District Teacher of the Year at her current district. (Hear her inspiring message here!)
In her speech, she stated that every bilingual lesson serves as a bridge between cultures, and people’s differences are their greatest strength. She emphasized the importance of helping students maintain their native language, as it is tied to the stories of their identity through their family and culture. It takes a great deal of courage and perseverance for people to come to a country and build a life for themselves far from family and friends, all while trying to learn a new language and adapt to local customs. Some of the hardest-working students I’ve met are bilingual learners. Their dual language abilities, which take time to develop, should be seen as a strength, not a weakness, if they’re not fluent in English before coming to the States. Barberia made the point that those young students are learning to master two languages, including reading, writing, and subject-level content, in half the time it takes students learning in one language to master their own. In Oklahoma, there are fewer English Language Learners, but they are still part of the demographics. While I cannot say anything explicitly to my classes, I hope my other students see how hard these ELL students work on their language and content learning. I often discuss with my students social and emotional learning concepts like self-awareness and social awareness. These practices are important for everyone, not just middle schoolers. If more people, including myself, cultivated their own self- and social awareness, that awareness would allow the resilience and dedication of immigrants to serve as a source of inspiration for society as a whole.
Before moving to Connecticut, I went to culinary school in Arkansas at Brightwater in Bentonville. There, I learned that Arkansas is a melting pot of cultures, too. For a year, I worked at a business called Young Chef’s Academy. The franchise owners happened to be a young family from Mexico. After leaving my job at Panera Bread (read about that experience here), teaching kids’ cooking lessons at YCA was a fun part-time job, one I looked forward to. I also had great bosses and fun coworkers, many of whom were also immigrants to this country, with whom I became friends. Before moving there, I didn’t realize Northwest AR is so diverse. This is largely due to the job opportunities at world-renowned companies, which have brought population growth to the area. I was there from 2017 to 2018, and according to the 2022 Diversity Report, Northwest Arkansas’s population has risen by 20% since 2010. At the time of the report, in 2021, 17.3% of the region’s population was Hispanic/ Latino, 3.5% was Asian, predominantly Indian, 2.5% was Black/ African American, and 1.7% was Pacific Islander. The report shared that in Northwest Arkansas schools, more than 90 countries were represented and over 87 languages were spoken. Researchers projected that by 2026, the diversity of the region would increase from 29% in 2021 to 32% (Engage the Future, 2022). In the current times, I’m not sure if that projection decreased, but I think it’s a shame if that’s the case.
Exposure to other people and cultures different from one’s own broadens people's understanding and appreciation for each other. This also ties in with the reduction of implicit bias, as explained by Dr. Vanessa LoBue in Psychology Today. Research has shown that children as young as infants develop automatic and unintentional bias for or against a specific people group. These biases then show up at various stages of one’s life. LoBue cites a 2003 article and summarizes, “In fact, there are decades of research demonstrating that individuals exposed to more diversity show more cultural awareness, lower racial stereotyping, and more civic responsibility” (LoBue, 2023). If people do not grow up with or live around people of different cultures, races, and beliefs, then their exposure to such groups is limited to what is portrayed in the media. Hopefully, by now, everyone knows those stories (real or fiction) do not represent the whole population of each group. This is where our own positive experiences and stories of diversity are instrumental in reframing fixed mindsets.
I was fortunate enough to live in areas with diverse populations and get to know some wonderful people. One of my favorite memories of my time at Young Chefs Academy is when I was invited (or I may have invited myself) to a tamale-making party, or tamalada. On a morning when YCA was closed, the owners invited their friends from Mexico to the two kitchen classrooms to make their tamales before Christmas. The corn husks were soaked the night before, and most of the carne fillings were already made. The real work came in the form of making the masa and filling the husks with the masa and meat. When I arrived, dough mixers of brands I’ve never heard of were spinning, bringing the water and masa flour to the right consistency. Water was boiling to pour around the tamales once they were wrapped and packed standing up in big aluminum pans. The smells and flavors - adobo, mole, beef, chicken, pork, green chili, pineapple and raisin, and strawberry and cream cheese - permeated the air. And rapid-fire Spanish and laughter were ringing around me while I watched, learned, and tried to help. The owner, my boss, who orchestrated everything, and my other coworker helped translate to me for some of the women who didn’t speak English fluently. I just enjoyed being there, even if I didn’t understand everything. When it came to knowing how much masa or filling to add to the husks or how tight to wrap the tamales, I didn’t need an English translation; facial expressions and demonstrations sufficed. While the women were cooking for their families, I was fortunate to take home a few of the tamales myself. Since that experience, I have made tamales at least once with my Montana family, but as delicious as those elk and venison creations were, the morning and results from my time with the Latinas were completely different. I may not have been in Mexico, but those women shared with me a tradition that started in their home country, probably in their abuela’s cocina. I had never heard of sweet tamales before that day, so it was fun and tasty to try the pineapple and strawberry flavors. My preference will always be the savory, though. The ingredients may not have come from a farm in Mexico, although, with the amount of imports we rely on Mexico for, they could have. The technique and recipes were the original, though. Because of that, I had the next best thing, short of traveling to Mexico myself! (While I do not have a recipe from that day to share, this recipe from the Smithsonian Folklife online magazine seems similar and authentic.)
Another cultural memory from my time at Young Chef’s Academy came from the YCA classes. The franchise develops its own recipes for anything one can imagine. They also have different theme weeks or months. One such theme was Indian food. As mentioned above, Northwest Arkansas has a large Indian population. Making curries, Indian flatbread, and chutney is a delicious way to spend an afternoon with elementary students. What makes it more interesting, though, is when there are students of Indian nationality present to share their expertise on their recipes and ingredients. No matter how I tried, I could not pronounce garam masala to one girl’s liking. She would be unsurprised to learn I have trouble rolling my “r’s” in Spanish, too.
While Ken does not have any tamale recipes, he does include two Indian-inspired recipes. They are Curried Vegetable Pot Pies and Potato-Stuffed Indian Flatbread (Aloo Paratha) that I paired with his Curried Yogurt Dipping Sauce. The curried vegetable pot pies involve making a vegetable curry with chickpeas first, which then is encased in a pie crust. The recipe made plenty of curry, so it can be served with rice as leftovers. The flatbread is a savory appetizer or side dish, but it does involve more steps than a basic flatbread. The potato filling is made separately, then the dough is flattened with the filling inside before frying in a skillet. The yogurt dipping sauce is key since the bread is a little dry on its own. I love Indian (or Indian-inspired) food, so these two were fun to try and will be added to my winter-weather recipe rotations.
The right food can take you on a journey. But what’s more is that it’s the people who have a connection to different foods and the cultures from which they originate who should be valued and recognized. According to a 2024 Pew Research article, 85% of U.S. counties have at least one Mexican restaurant (Widjaya & Shah, 2024). If so many Americans like Mexican food, shouldn't we also value the people and culture from which it originates? Our diverse ancestors settled in America, coming to a new country, for various reasons. Thankfully, they brought their cultures with them, which made America the melting pot it is today. I value inclusiveness since those who were in the country before my ancestors allowed (or included) my relatives in this new place. I know if my relatives from the current United Kingdom and Scandinavian regions were not given equal rights in their own country, they came to the United States, where they hoped for a better future. They probably never imagined I’d learn about Indian food from a transplant to Arkansas or that I’d learn how to make tortillas from a Latina living in Connecticut. However, I like to think they would be proud of the diverse education I and others are receiving, thanks to our country continuing to open its doors (or borders) generations later.
Thanks for the pictures, Allison Mayfield Photography!
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