A Food Writer on How to Highlight Your Culture
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I'm basically hungry all the time (who else loves snacking at work??) but it wasn't until I was an adult that I really started to think about the impact of food. Especially culturally, when I realized what made my mom's Guatemalan cooking so delicious. But guess what: we also ate burgers, hot dogs, lasagna, all the American recipes we loved. I'm a first generation kid whose siblings took her to eat sushi, ramen, Indian food, things my parents hadn't ever tried. I fell in love with food and how it connects me to other people.
I recently got to chat with Karla T. Vasquez, food writer, speaker, and founder of SalviSoul, which celebrates the stories of Salvadoran women. You might've seen her recently featured in KCRW, you know NBD. She told me a little bit about her work and what she's got coming up next.
Karla with her article in the SF Chronicle, "How Salvadoran Sausages Came to the Bay Area"
SalviSoul is all about the connection between food and culture. Was there a moment in particular when you thought, oh wait food isn't just about eating, it's about something larger?
I remember one moment in high school when a group of classmates and I started talking about how excited we were that Thanksgiving break was coming up. We were so excited to go on break so we started talking about the foods that we'd be eating. To my surprise, I couldn't relate to the conversation. They talked about stuffing, candied yams, green bean casseroles, garlic dinner rolls and my family and I definitely didn't have those at our Thanksgiving table. Then abruptly one of them looked over at me and said something like, 'Oh don't you El Salvadorians eat your turkey wet?' I was surprised by his comment and bothered by it...
I felt so awkward and uncomfortable. I went from not participating in the conversation to now having every single eye on me. I tried to explain the best I could back then about our cooking techniques and recipe for our holiday chumpe (turkey) and why our turkey is cooked the way it is. It's definitely a moment I rememeber when I realized food is a huge identifier and connector.
What does an average day usually look like for you? (Next one is Sept 28!)
If I'm working on a story, or planning a cooking class, it'll look different but for the most part this is how it'll go. I'll start the morning with some French-pressed Salvadoran coffee (my favorites are Cafe Juayua and Don Leo's) and some good ol oatmeal. Then I will workout. I'll either go walk for half an hour or run a quick mile. After, I clean up, I get settled into my home office, do a 10 minute meditation and then write my priorities for the day. Only after I've done that do I open my computer and get to work.
Right now, I'm working on a few writing projects so I'm working from home a lot. I'll usually work until about 6pm, at least I try to stick to that time, but it depends on what's going on. I love cooking dinner so I'll look through a cookbook to see what ingredients I have that closely match a delicious recipe.
Any words of advice for other people looking to use social media and writing to highlight their culture?
Truly center the people of your culture first, or the people you want to represent. Folks will say that that approach is too narrow but it's so important to create visibility for who you want to represent. Make them (your people, your culture) important first, talk to them. Don't even explain things that need translating, it's a tiny risk but it's so valuable to center your communication around who you want to highlight.
You're doing a series of classes on curtido, can you tell me more about that?
In each SalviSoul workshop we focus on one Salvadoran dish. I go over it's ingredients, it's food history (how ingredients found themselves on the Salvadoran pantry or on a particular dish), the science behind it and it's cultural significance. My goal is to build confidence and an appetite for these foods by breaking down the techniques, the histories and the flavors. In these particular curitdo classes, we will taste three different kinds of curtidos, and make two kinds of curtidos with hands-on instruction provided by me.
At the end, participants, will enjoy their tasty curitdo and walk away feeling capable to practive the skills and recipes learned. The classes are small and are held in private homes, so folks always get a lot of connection from it.
I'm grateful to Karla for her time! What are your fave family recipes?
I'd love to hear you.
xoxo,
Your favorite small but feisty writer
Eva
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