Blaxican : Fusion Food

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My family is very big and diverse and thanks to the diversity I was introduced to the term “Blaxican”, a person who is racially mixed with African-American and Mexican. One of cousins is married to an African-American and their oldest daughter often refers to herself as a Blaxican and that really caught my attention but never really looked into it. As we began watching films in class about Soul Food I started thinking if it mixed with other food, particularly Mexican. Which later on I found out due to research that there are chefs that are implementing the combination of both worlds. After this I began to wonder how much of it was placed within the life of my cousin and her family due to her husband’s heritage and how much of it mixed with our Mexican heritage. Richard Rodríguez an editor at Pacific News Service and an essayist for PBS's News Hour makes it clear in his article ""Blaxicans" And Other Reinvented Americans" that Americans are no longer identifying themselves as solely black or white by saying that people now are “Identifying themselves by virtue or language or fashion or cuisine or literature” rather than by the complexion of their skin. First I would like to talk about fusion food and its importance to my project. The concept of fusion food began in California during the 1970’s and has developed into the hottest food trend in the world. There are three known kinds of fusion food one of them is regional fusion. This is when you combine the food of different regions, take for example Asian fusion restaurants they have a selection of food that comes from China, Japanese and Korean. The second form of fusion food is a bit complicated because it implies the creation of a new dish by combining different non related foods... ... middle of paper ... ... you could say that they have a really unique variety of food. The combination of the cultures according to them came naturally and was a way of making each other comfortable with the exposure of their two cultures. They cooked a whole meal to show me their own unique way of mixing both cultures. Take for example Ana baked Corn Bread but she added sugar and cinnamon, according to her the original corn bread recipe does not include sugar. I asked her if this was her way of including her Mexican heritage because we love sweet bread or just anything sweet. After spending the day with the Stewart family I learned a lot from their family dynamic, I have a belief that you truly get to know a person through the dishes they create. I truly want this concept of fusion food to grow and become as popular as many of the other well-known fusion foods around the world.

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