“Ew, that’s a lot of mayo,” I overheard as I dolloped the condiment across my fries. Whether or not they were talking about me is irrelevant. People indulge in different, weird food combinations like Cheetos and milk, salami and grapes, ice cream and fries and of course, Hawaiian pizza.
Hawaiian pizza — a must-have, pizza perfection and invention of Greco-Canadian Sam Panopoulos — is the cornerstone of innovation and a case study for multiculturalism. Like Hawaiian pizza, fusion food brings people together by redefining the meaning of cross-cultural identity and uniting people together under a new level of appreciation and understanding of what it means to cook, serve and eat food.
Fusion cooking is borderless. It’s reaching a golden era, marked by a desire for understanding different cultures and cuisines around the world. Fusion food represents the nuances of cultural adaptation and the shaping of new, global identities.
Precisely, cooking and eating is all about this sense of evolving. Our food morphs with us as we develop more sophisticated taste buds and take on new identities. When Chinese immigrants came to the Americas in the early 1860s, sweet and sour combinations were an innovative take on Chinese dishes. Though there is no such thing as pineapple chicken in China, the dish should still be recognized under its own historical, cultural and social context. The inherent creation of new food corresponds to the spread of cross-cultural assimilation.
While we often prioritize authenticity in preserving cultural food practices, cross-cultural food brings people together and actually helps maintain parts of our identity. Because of globalization, people have been and always will migrate around the world. In fact, compared to the 4.8% of immigrants in the U.S. in 1970, they now account for 13.7% of the U.S. population. Whether it be in search for better job opportunities, higher education or a chance at social mobility, the mobilization of people inevitably means that we will never just belong to one identity group.
Some people claim that globalization is just another form of homogenization, and cite corporations like Starbucks. Now a multi-billion-dollar chain, the coffee store has ingrained roots of the green mermaid logo no matter where we go and steals the business of local coffee shops. As an object of cultural influence, Starbucks does not have to homogenize the way that we drink coffee. Instead, fusion food is symbolic of the growing togetherness of the world. At the same time, it is an ode to the individual stories of each culture and symbolic of the fluidity of identity. As such, unity and diversity are not mutually exclusive. For example, Roy Choi’s Korean-Mexican taco food truck Kogi started in 2008 in Orange County, after Choi lost his job. Certainly, he revolutionized street-food culture and challenged the Eurocentric culinary teachings at school. But more than that, the tacos are filled with traditional Korean flavors like gochujang and kimchi in its barbeque sauce, paying homage to his cultural roots.
No one owns the rights to a specific type of food or preparation. What they do own, however, is what was produced in their specific sociocultural context. Food is versatile, unconfined by stringent definitions. But this freedom comes under the condition that we continue to recognize the distinctions between adaptation and appropriation. The difference can be small: simple changes in techniques, adding uncommon ingredients to existing traditions or even just the way we market the food we serve. Being purposeful in recreation is the key to preventing ourselves from toeing past the line into cultural appropriation.
Food is beautiful and beloved by people around the world because of its ability to connect with others. The future of food is spurred forward by greater interactions. In other words, if we lived our lives by everything that was “supposed to be,” we would not have popsicles, nachos, cheese puffs or ice cream cones, just to name a few. Inventions are only created because someone went against the status quo to find something new.
Like fusion food around the world, Hawaiian pizza defies the greater world order for the better. It is a revolutionary food influenced not only by its traditional Italian roots, but by the ebb and flow of immigration and the daring imagination of Panopoulos.
The future of food is endangered when we live by what we know. Though fusion food might toe the line of adaptation and appropriation, it’s crucial to recognize the value of expanding cultural gastronomy to encapsulate more diverse and complex identities.
Sophia Ling (24C) is Carmel, Indiana.
