Please the palate, open the mind

In celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, the Asians at Microsoft Employee Resource Group (#MicrosoftLife) asked me to share my food story as it relates to being an Asian American and growing up at the intersection of Cantonese culture and a vibrant Italian town. Food was and still is a huge part of my culture, from spinning a turntable during dim sum to grabbing another piece of siu mai or radish cake to stopping at a Chinese bakery to grab some pineapple buns or egg tarts to learning how to make a sweet taro tapioca dessert from my mom; those are just some of my favorite food memories. Even though I loved pizza as much as any other kid in my mostly Italian town, I always thought it was awesome to bring something like a lychee or pandan agar agar jelly to lunch to shock and awe my friends, who had never tried those flavors before. Luckily, the kids in my school were supportive and thought it was cool to try these different things, which made me realize that once someone is introduced to an unfamiliar flavor by a familiar face, it's a lot easier to keep them curious and open-minded.  

Fast-forward to now, I still love introducing people who are less familiar with these different flavors, fruits, dim sum and bakery traditions. For example, every year for my Microsoft work anniversary and my birthday, I bring in a huge cake that is always made up of different Asian-inspired flavors, such as my latest one, which was black sesame and persimmon marbled cake with salted egg yolk buttercream frosting. I figured that I'd introduce these new unfamiliar Asian flavors (persimmon, black sesame, salted egg yolk) in a familiar way (cake!), kind of a reverse fusion.  

The awesome reactions that colleagues had to my cakes, many who have never even heard of these flavors before, inspired me to work on self-publishing a cookbook as a side project! While I'm still working on this cookbook that will be full of Asian-inspired recipes and unique flavors, I recently started sharing some of these original recipes of mine on my food blog, Jen's Food Lab and on Instagram.  

For #AsianPacificAmericanHeritageMonth, I'd love to share this recipe for my favorite dim sum dessert, Chinese Egg Tarts! Keeping in the spirit of introducing flavors to those who may be unfamiliar, I decided to make them three ways: Classic Cantonese-style, ube (delicious purple sweet potato), and pandan (a sweet fragrant leaf) flavored. 

By sharing my cooking and baking with the greater community, I hope to empower others to go ahead and buy that unfamiliar fruit at the grocery store or stop into a Chinese bakery to support a Asian business next time they're in their local Chinatown. To me, the best way to open a mind is to pleasantly surprise the palate. 

Check out the recipe for my Chinese Egg Tarts (Classic, Pandan, and Ube Flavored) here: https://jensfoodlab.com/2020/05/14/chinese-egg-tarts-classic-pandan-and-ube-flavored/

Here are the links to my food blog and Instagram:

• https://jensfoodlab.com/
• https://www.instagram.com/jensfoodlab/