When Culture Becomes Digestible
Edited by Barney Pau
When my friend Lou finally moved out of her flat share during the pandemic, the triggering incident was another “your food is weird” story.
Confronted by her three white girl flatmates, Lou was shamed for the “bad” smell when she soaked dried shiitake mushrooms.
Wait...
Do you mean that round, brown and black fungus which makes all dishes taste better?
The dried mushroom that’s a core memory for (almost) all East Asian kids?
Do you mean the liquid gold which makes steamed eggs taste like heaven?
That stock which elevates all soups?
Those same white girls are now touting the benefits of powdered mushroom tea and mushroom coffee on their Instagram posts, with a discount code to their personalised Amazon page.
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Recently, I premiered my production Two Plant Gaysians(*1) on the Pleasance Theatre’s circular stage in London. The crowd’s enthusiasm warmed the venue as my husband and I threw visuals, bodies and words across the space, unfolding a story about ecology, queer love and migration. Of course, the evening was packed with queer handsome East Asian men.
The others came, too. Out of curiosity, we always collect feedback from our audience. Reading this feedback is a whole other episode. Amongst the many lovely messages, technical questions, and thoughts on the plot; there are the usual comments to “explain a bit more about the cultural references as I feel rather alienated not fully understanding the context.”
Bro, me too. Ever since I moved here.
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I now stand at an imaginary fork in the path. Do I want to explain my culture to better appeal to “the crowd”? Or accept the fact that not everyone likes to cook with dried mushrooms.
In Hong Kong, I grew up eating and drinking “Monkey head” mushrooms and all other fungi. So it’s been a bit strange seeing the dried mushrooms stored on the top cabinet of my childhood home going viral and being sold as powders at ridiculously high prices. Even now, whenever I return to Hong Kong, I’ll leave half my luggage empty to bring dried mushrooms back to Europe.
Edible fungi have a long history of use in East Asian cuisines. Some are said to carry good luck (Tricholoma matsutake), others to slow dementia (Hericium erinaceus), and some lower blood pressure (Cordyceps militaris). I still vividly remember the TV commercial where a superhero uses Lingzhi (reishi in Japanese) as her weapon to fight a Godzilla-like monster, just to sell it as a tea which slows the spread of cancer.
My eyes were stained orange and brown by cordyceps and maitakes as they puffed up while soaking in a Tupperware. First, a bit of oil went in the hot pan, then we’d fry up these stringy mushrooms until my brain was massaged by the fragrance, reminiscent of the earthiness of a damp autumnal day. Grabbing whatever green leaves were to hand, we’d toss them in the pan with the mushroom liquid, serving them five minutes later on a plate of rice, accompanied by an episode of Rick and Morty.
This household item holds the memories of generations of refugees, flooding across borders, and bleeding on the soil of disputed territories. Here, foragers are both healers and illegal immigrants. Fungi grew from rot and decay, every time East Asia overcame traumatic periods of political oppression and famine throughout the twentieth century.
Writing dated to the Song dynasty (960-1279 CE) describes trees being carved with a special axe and then scrubbed by the juice of mushrooms in Winter. Which way these incisions in the tree faced depended on which side of the hill it was on, and were crucial to whether mushrooms would be harvested or not. The craftsmanship of these fungi growers was seen as a demonstration of intelligence in seeking the wisdom of the mountains.
***
The funny thing about powdering something anything is that it can be re-packaged. It no longer matters how it looks, or where it was grown, collected, or stored. You no longer care how to it was prepared or described in recipes, or how each family prepared it differently; everything is lovelessly ground down to dust.
How much do I need to powder down my culture; my identity; and my lived experience, to make them digestible for your appetite, just so that one day you can benefit from it?
***
References
1 - https://www.ghostandjohn.art/two-plant-gaysians
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This article is a contribution from one of the participants of The Gramounce Food & Art Alternative MA 2024-25. Their writing is inspired by one of our seminars, or responds to a similar field of interest within food & art.