Exotic Flavors From the East Slowly Assimilated Into American Culture

By Andaleeb Ahmed Asian foods represent a broad spectrum of flavors and textures created by a wide variety of spices, seasonings and sauces. Exotic flavors from the east is slowly getting assimilated into American culture opening new options for consumers to enjoy. Fortunately, cooking these wonderful recipes is now possible due to the availability of required ingredients in Asian as well as local grocery shelves. Growing Asian population has led to the availability of ingredients easily accessible to restaurant owners who are always looking to create authentic recipes to satisfy consumer appetite. Growing popularity of Asian Foods is evident from the opening of so many Asian restaurants and grocery stores across North America. Burgeoning popularity of Asian Cooking has opened a new era of innovation for culinary chefs and food manufacturers. Diverse demographics have led to popularity of cross-cultural meals as evident from niche marketing opportunities for restaurant operators to invest. We see more and more restaurants and grocery stores opening up across the US. Art of Asian cooking that involves distinct cooking techniques along with an extensive line of ingredients such as ginger, curry, Kaffir lime leaves, basil, coconut paste, chili etc are now driving more Americans to Asian restaurants. Asian cooking involves an array of spices, herbs and condiments to create taste, texture and color to make the food simply irresistible. American who were earlier more familiar with Chinese food are now learning about the exciting flavors and notes created by a myriad of ingredients including lemon grass, peanuts, wasabi, ginger, sesame, fish sauce and tamarind paste etc. Slow cooking techniques from Asia, such as sautéing, grilling and simmering all generate taste and aroma. These techniques are better then deep-frying as cut down the fat intake thus cooking low fat food. European and Asian chefs are also getting influenced from each other, as there seems to be a rising use of Asian ingredients in European cooking. Not only exchange of recipes is going on but also techniques are being followed to generate a new era of Euro-Asian Fusion cooking. One thing for sure is this thriving segment of Fusion cooking is here to stay as change is good. Mergers of cultures and customs will keep on influencing our eating habits.