[Sonja Mason-Briscoe]

I plan on inviting Professor Kim to teach these connections of American and Korean history to my advanced class. I believe there are a lot more similarities than we realize. I believe now more than ever our student's need to be able to identify the correlations of the two ctures especially through food. I will have my students do a Korean holiday feast just to embrace their differences and celebrate the similarities. Professor Kim has inspired me.

[Sonja Mason-Briscoe]

I completely agree that this seminar was engaging. I too was inspired to visit my local Asian store and Korean restaurant.
I am inspired to learn and try more.

[Sonja Mason-Briscoe]

I was very curious about this drink and so I went and bought it. I may try it again. I plan on trying Bacchus next. Not sure if anyone has tried this other Korean energetic drink that has been around since the 60's. It was originally considered a herbal medicine' to prevent colds and cure hangovers, rather than as an energy drink.

[Sonja Mason-Briscoe]

This was by far my favorite seminar. Professor Kim was so relatable and her teachings are very on par for current trends in Korean fans. Korean BBQ, skin care products, fashion, entertainment, pop culture, and social media are extremely well followed by US young people.

Although my students weren't familiar with Korean cuisine, they were more open to trying to cook bibimbap because of their love of the other well known Korean sensations.

I also enjoyed the discussion of the pendulum swing of Korean food being healthy. Professor Kim explained very well how Korean food can be extremely healthy and assist in the elimination of many health factors yet at the same time it can be extremely unhealthy and promote various health risks.

I look forward to meeting Professor Kim in the near future.

[Sonja Mason-Briscoe]

The readings from Min Joo Lee, "Branding Korea: Food, Cosmopolitanism, and Nationalism on Korean Television" Situations 14.1were very unexpected. As the article discussed, "Due to these perceptions,
McDonald’s had a languid start in Korea. Many Koreans initially rejected
the franchise due to fear that McDonald’s was attempting to colonize
South Korea culturally through hamburgers and french-fries. To succeed
in South Korea, McDonald’s had to market the similarities between a
McDonald’s meal and a “Korean meal” so that Korean customers did not
reject the franchise for being too foreign."
The South Korean government demanded ethnic purity and uniformity though they gladly welcome the popularity of Korean foods in other countries like the US, France, UK and Italy.
As the article went on to explain, Koreaness is associated with foods and is very gender specific. I was surprised that even in this day and time how sexism is prevalent in the Korean culture and food plays a big part in this.

[Sonja Mason-Briscoe]

Perhaps maybe more now than ever we need to boost our immune systems. Korean food has always automatically encompassed foods that help the gut.

"Fermented foods like kimchi are an easy, low-calorie way to up your vegetable intake and load up on gut health-boosting bacteria (a.k.a. probiotics)" per Women's Health April 2021.

The Annie Lee and Kate Leonard, "A Gastronic Study of 20th and 21st Century Korea: Retracing Korean Food from Japanese Colonization to Modern Times," (November 18, 2020) shows that prebiotics are essential to so many health issues being resolved.

Just as we learned fortune cookies probably started in Japan it is possible Kimchi started in Japan as well. The process of fermentation, pickling, etc. was documented in history as having taken place long before in Korea.

[Sonja Mason-Briscoe]

I am not sure why after the California Roll other states like Texas decided to create a special sushi but I wish they hadn't. It seems like a fad like when a bunch of flavors get added on to an original good thing.

In my research I found that other states followed suit.
New York Roll
smoked salmon, apple, avocado

Boston Roll
crab or salmon or shrimp + avocado and/or scallions

Texas Roll
beef, cucumber, spinach leaves

Hawaiian Roll
garlic & albacore inside; avocado & albacore on top of the roll

Although, I like all of these ingredients, I feel us Americans always have to water down authenticity.

[Sonja Mason-Briscoe]

This seminar with Professor Rath was quite informative. I spend a lot of time teaching my students how to make sushi however until this lecture and readings, I didn't think about food being related to your status in Japan.

After this seminar I read a lot of articles about how Japanese diet wasn't very well documented because a lot of foods were dependent on your social and financial status. The servants weren't interested in documenting the scraps they ate. I even read that sushi as we know it with majority rice and a small amount of fish on top evolved as there was a shortage of fish among the commoners. Especially because when they fished they had to give their catch to the royal families to eat.

I feel that we barely scratched the surface with Japanese foods and its history. I hope there will be a follow up.

[Sonja Mason-Briscoe]

This seminar with Professor Rath was quite informative. I spend a lot of time teaching my students how to make sushi however until this lecture and readings, I didn't think about food being related to your status in Japan.

After this seminar I read a lot of articles about how Japanese diet wasn't very well documented because a lot of foods were dependent on your social and financial status. The servants weren't interested in documenting the scraps they ate. I even read that sushi as we know it with majority rice and a small amount of fish on top evolved as there was a shortage of fish among the commoners. Especially because when they fished they had to give their catch to the royal families to eat.

I feel that we barely scratched the surface with Japanese foods and its history. I hope there will be a follow up.

[Sonja Mason-Briscoe]

I did not realize just how important the Bento box was to Japanese culture. I just saw it as an easy way to offer a little of this and a little of that in an organized box.

After the lecture and the readings I recognize how the bento box or obento box plays an important role in the family dynamics.

This sparked my interest and now I have identified other same food set up in other Asian cultures such as India.

[Sonja Mason-Briscoe]

Once again, we are learning just how influential Los Angeles is in Asian cuisine. I would not have expected Los Angeles to have been such a trendsetter for sushi or a form thereof. As the readings stated "Sushi scholars trace its origins to Los
Angeles’s Little Tokyo, but disagree on when it was invented suggesting dates between 1962
to 1971.20 Urban legend combined with the fact that the first mention of a California Roll in
a newspaper article dates to 1979 means that the identity of the inventor of the iconic roll,
if there was such a person, will likely remain a mystery.21 Today, the California Roll fights for
attention with other rolls stuffed with all sorts of ingredients and topped with a variety of spicy foods.."

I know that I shouldn't be so surprised since Los Angeles especially in the neighborhood of Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw had a huge community of Japanese in the late 60's. The neighborhood I grew up in has little remnants of their presence. Mostly in the landscape and architecture of some commercial properties. But there was a time when the high school I graduated from and now teach it was predominantly attended by Japanese persons or direct descendants.

As time went on Japanese food was almost a staple in the neighborhood and as interracial relationships blossomed so did the fusion of foods. A few local cafes offered soul food and Japanese food. I can only assume this is how the California roll came to be. Avocado as an ingredient had to be a fusion of Latino Angelina's cuisine and Japanese food. Such an interesting concept..

[Sonja Mason-Briscoe]

Fred was so knowledgeable about the manufacturing side of China. I was impressed with his findings. He didn't just focus on Chinese food as a culture but China's food production as a country. I appreciated that Fred also had first hand experience from living in China.

With the controversy of US and China elevated by the previous US president, there seems to be a big disconnect right now in production from China and export. I have noticed that at several Asian specialty grocery stores I shop at many ingredients are out of stock. I do realize that the pandemic has contributed but as Fred discussed there are a lot of other factors like politics responsible for this problem.

[Sonja Mason-Briscoe]

I didn't expect to learn that China will be the leaders in meat production by 2030. As we discussed in the article, China suffers from not having enough land for grazing, etc. So I ask , how will they lead in the production of "pork, beef/mutton and chicken" by 2030 with limited space. I am both curious and concerned how safe will these meats be. Despite the so called sanitation and production/distribution protocols that have been put in place, I don't feel their rapid and mass production will be sensitive to human counter reaction.

[Sonja Mason-Briscoe]

I am so surprised by the possibility of Fortune Cookies. I too appreciate the tenacity Ms. Lee has had in researching the truth.

One part that really resonated with me was the possibility of Fortune cookies not only being introduced by the Japanese but that the US made them popular. Moreover it appears that right in Los Angeles this craze for the Fortune cookie was born.

"But prior to World War II, the history is murky. A number of immigrant families in
California, mostly Japanese, have laid claim to introducing or popularizing the fortune
cookie. Among them are the descendants of Makoto Hagiwara, a Japanese immigrant who
oversaw the Japanese Tea Garden built in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park in the 1890s.
Visitors to the garden were served fortune cookies made by a San Francisco bakery,
Benkyodo.
A few Los Angeles-based businesses also made fortune cookies in the same era: Fugetsudo,
a family bakery that has operated in Japantown for over a century, except during World War
II; Umeya, one of the earliest mass-producers of fortune cookies in Southern California, and
the Hong Kong Noodle company, a Chinese-owned business. Fugetsudo and Benkyodo both
have discovered their original "kata" black iron grills, almost identical to the ones that are
used today in the Kyoto bakery."

This is completely fascinating.

[Sonja Mason-Briscoe]

I really enjoyed this seminar. I have had the pleasure of eating Chinese food in many of the cities Ms. Lee talked about. I have experienced awesome Chinese food in Los Angeles, New York, Seattle and San Francisco and even in Canada I would definitely agree that in each of these cities the food is a bit different and they seem to have their favorite seasonings and different styles like Cantonese or Szechwan. I hope to experience Chinese food in some of the other major cities Ms.Lee discussed to see if the food options are based on the regions the Chinese who migrated there were originally from. It such a fascinating topic.

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