#14: Bagels and Chinese Food
Our acceptance of divergent diaspora cooking remains dicey
I was in Budapest, I think, in a solo room in a hostel with a more dated mezzanine level than I had bargained for, when Andrea Long Chu managed to win a Pulitzer prize, essentially for services to professional hating. It was around the same time that a transatlantic dispute emerged about the differences in (North) American Chinese food and the British Chinese takeaway, in response to a trend on TikTok where UK-based creators would plate up their Chinese.
Even the phraseology became fraught. I fancied a Chinese? As opposed to grabbing some takeout? It felt suspicious to some Chinese-American, and non-Chinese-American viewers and responders. But mainly, the critique was with the food itself — green-yellow curry sauce, perfect for a meal accompanied by chips as well as spring rolls.
I’ve got today and tomorrow off work, so I went to Dishoom for breakfast. It’s mildly silly, going to a different branch of a chain restaurant I can see from my desk every day it work, but I fancied it because I’m trying to be unapologetic about enjoying their breakfasts. I like the little buns that go with their akuri. I also now have the cookbook and enjoy making rajma before I run out of the batch of tomato-onion masala in the freezer, a base I make about one a season now. Maybe one day I’ll try to make the buns too. As much as I like The White Pube’s output, and indeed enjoy lots about the essay ‘I Hate Dishoom’ itself, I don’t entirely agree with Zarina’s assessment of the chain, or rather Zarina’s readers’ assessment of the chain. It’s quite amusing for it to be criticised for not being authentic, or catering to white people, when every time I go there, there are middle and upper middle class people of South Asian heritage also dining. Something which feels quite different to going past Silk Road on Church Street in Camberwell, a restaurant I heard much about but never visited, in the couple of years before its closure.
While Brits got defensive of the right for diasporic Chinese migrants to make and sell different types of food in different regions of the world after the ‘plating up’ trend got the old school Buzzfeed treatment in the form of the comedy explainer article, there’s another type of food than I think these shores does feel a sense of inferiority about compared to our North American counterparts. The bagel.
Taking advantage of my newly regained core strength and the ability to get to Primrose Hill mid-morning during the week, I visited the newly opened, and virally popular ‘It’s Bagels’ which is bringing New York-style bagels to London. Papo’s Bagels in Dalston has also brought New York-style bagels to the capital before it, and the Good Egg favours a Montreal-style that feels exciting simply because hardly anything is actively Canadian, culture export wise? Other than Schitt’s Creek, Nickleback and Avril Lavigne. I’ve had a nice time with the breads of all three establishments, though I resent the tone that their frequenters sometimes adopt around the city ‘needing’ ‘proper’ bagels. I am not talking about the in-house bakery nonsense you get at a medium-to-large Sainsbury’s, of course but: this country does have ‘proper’ bagels. They’re just different to the ones you might encounter on the other side of the Atlantic. And it feels really weird to see signs that say ‘beigel’ on Brick Lane and expect the identical mouthfeel and texture as a bagel you might find in Brooklyn. Ashkenazi food will present itself in different ways across different places because that really is how migration be sometimes. I have had to question myself as to why I’ve previously had an inferiority complex about our bagels — which is separate to having a taste preference — and I suppose it’s because New Yorkers and Americans in general feel more put together, more married to the job and more sophisticated taste wise than us over here.
I am thinking a lot about food at the moment because it is Christmas and I don’t believe I will be hosting this year which takes off a certain amount of pressure. Mainly though, it’s because I am gearing up to host a supper club for Broccoli, the production company I set up almost five years ago, and now run by Eve Allin who is taking Sophia Chetin-Leuner’s play, This Might Not Be It, to the Bush in the new year. When my surgery got scheduled, we had to postpone the date and I firmly believe a January menu should be more comfort-led than an October one. So, for the rest of my day off, I am going to recipe test an idea I have for my ‘ultimate’ lasagne: creamy, mustardy leeks in lieu of a béchamel (a sauce I’ve never been a huge fan of), set against an almost piquant aubergine-tomato red sauce. Let’s see how it goes!
If you want to come you can book (for Friday 19th at the Barn at Brockwell Park Community Greenhouse) here. I would apologise for the plug but we all know by now how difficult it is to raise money for the arts in the present climate. That and I am genuinely looking forward to, and am terrified by, the prospect of cooking for 40. There will be a team of us, though, so I know it will be fine.