"Foodies are very curious about exotic ingredients," says Andrea Nguyen. "They’re more open to venturing into Asian markets to get the ‘authentic’ ingredients. They’re wanting to explore jujubes, mangosteens, green papaya. Ethnic markets, particularly chains like 99 Ranch and Mi Pueblo, are leading the effort to make things easier for everyone. They offer a wide variety of products. But check the aisle carefully; there are often Hispanic ingredients, too, at Asian markets, like tortillas."

Take the sign that hangs on the Sun Hop Fat 1 Supermarket on East 12th Street, a few blocks south of Lake Merritt in Oakland. It says, "American- Mexican-Chinese-Vietnamese-Thailand- Cambodia-Laos-Filipino-Oriental Food." Some might see it as evidence of diversity gone bad, a multicultural mess—that is, too much mixing makes things unpalatable, all the colors blended inevitably produce an uncomely brown. I, on the other hand, see all those hyphens as complex bridges and crossroads that seek to marry otherwise far-flung ideas, tastes, and styles. After all, creativity is fertile when nourished in the loam of cultural diversity and cultivated with openness and a disposition for experimentation. With food, it results in an explosion of tasty concoctions. Consider some of today’s daring experiments: tofu burrito, hummus guacamole, spring rolls with salsa dipping sauce, lamb in tamarind sauce, lemongrass martini, wasabi Bloody Mary, crab cakes in mango sauce, french fries dipped in mint and cilantro chutney. You see the point: the variety is endless.

Seth bowden, co-executive chef at Cortez restaurant in San Francisco, known for its creative modern-European cuisine with bold flavors (try the baked Monterey squid salad with coco vert beans, and the cod with celery–olive oil mousseline), sums it up this way: "When I think of California cuisine, I think of seasonality, Alice Waters, local and extremely fresh ingredients, a freedom from the confines of any one food tradition, and the influence of all the different cultures that make up California’s population. And a whole lot of fruits, vegetables, and herbs that are fairly unavailable in the rest of the country. And I think of it pretty much in that order."

I think of it, in some ways, as parallels to my own transnational biography. I grew up a patriotic South Vietnamese living in Vietnam during the war. But then the war ended and I, along with my family (and eventually a couple of million other Vietnamese), betrayed our agrarian ethos and land-bound sentiments by fleeing to California to lead a very different life. Yesterday, my inheritance was simple—the sacred rice fields and rivers that defined who I was. Today, Paris and Hanoi and New York are no longer fantasies but my larger community, places to which I feel a strong sense of connection due to familial relationships and friendships and personal ambitions. Once great, the distances are no longer daunting but simply a matter of rescheduling. It is not an exaggeration then to say that my tastes have become similarly complicated, taking their reference points from many different continents. Over the years, I’ve developed a nose for wine, and made it a habit of pairing with the various foods that I prepare for friends and family. I’ve developed a propensity for Bordeaux from the Margaux and Haut- Médoc regions, and I’ve learned to distinguish the nuance between cabernet sauvignon grapes grown upslope in the Napa Valley and those grown near Oakville on the valley floor.

In my lifetime here I have watched the pressure to move toward some generic, standardized melting-pot center deflate—transpose, in fact—to something quite its opposite, as the demography shifts toward a society in which there’s no discernible majority, no clear single center. Instead, the story I often see is one where one crosses, by various degrees, from ethnic to cosmopolitan by traversing those various hyphens that hang over the Hop Fat supermarket. One lives in an age of enormous options in an astounding, diverse, and fertile region where human restlessness and fabulous alchemical commingling are becoming increasingly the norm. One can’t help but learn to refine one’s taste buds accordingly to reconcile with the nuances of the world.

How much are food and cooking part of my California lifestyle?

I didn’t really know the answer until I spent a week at a retreat in Bali last October, fasting. For six days straight I practiced yoga and ate nothing. It was supposed to be a spiritual experience. But it was tough going, with only a few fruit drinks as my meals.

Hunger, they say, is a good cook. Each night I tossed and turned and had strangely vivid dreams. Practically all of them were about cooking and eating. I seared scallops and fried prawns and tossed arugula salads and shaved Asiago cheese. I would wake each morning slightly disappointed at failing in my spiritual quest.

But then near the end of my fast, I had a dream so lucid and real it felt as if I were not dreaming at all: I was back in California, shopping at a local market. I could smell fresh basil. I could touch the heirloom tomatoes. Then I made this dish that I had never made before, a Vietnamese beef stew with a French influence—in which fish sauce and red wine are mixed, and spiced with cinnamon, ginger, and star anise. My friends gathered around a table, waiting for me to serve it. Laughter and cheers rang in the air and there was clinking of glasses. And before we ate, we toasted. And the toast was to the spirit of being at home.

Andrew Lam ’86 is an editor for New America Media and a regular contributor to California magazine. Perfume Dreams, his book of essays on the Vietnamese Diaspora, won the 2006 PEN/Beyond Margins Award for authors of ethnic diversity. His essay "Letters to My Young Self " appeared in the November/December issue of this magazine.

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