The fusion conclusion

Is there a word in gastronomy which provokes such extreme reactions as the loaded label "fusion"? The fusion dining experience has become trendy in recent decades, but it's an ancient tradition. People have mixed cuisines since time began, sometimes by accident, sometimes by necessity, in attempts at making foreign flavours more palatable or by substituting unavailable ingredients for local ones.

Some of the results are storming successes; regional fusions like Tex-Mex describe whole canons of popular cooking born of cultures living side by side. Other dishes come about through convenience and circumstance and become popular simply because they taste good, such as the German street-food favourite currywurst which combines local pork sausage with American ketchup and spicy British Worcester sauce and curry powder.

Perhaps it is the former Portuguese colony Macau which best epitomises the edible melting pot with its blend of Portuguese Chinese, Indian, Malaysian and African influences. Bacalhau (salt cod) and chouriao (chorizo-like sausage) sit alongside satays and sweet and sour flavours on menus. From elsewhere in Asia, there's the banh mi (Vietnamese fillings stuffed into airy French baguettes), and various gems emanating from the association of Britain and India, like coronation chicken and kedgeree.

In the American south, Louisiana's diverse cultural history has nurtured a rich Creole cuisine: French aristocrats brought classic European techniques to the kitchens of the plantations they governed which were then embellished by the African, Caribbean and Indian staff in the kitchens. The étouffée is a fine example, using a French roux base with classic Caribbean ingredients: crawfish, cayenne pepper, and sometimes yams. Indeed, the US is a cultural cauldron marrying various cuisines together, for example adopting Jewish immigrants' bagels and chicken soup into the American Food canon. Same with pizza.

Another strain of fusion cooking takes a form from one cuisine and uses ingredients and flavours from another; the pizza lends itself readily to this treatment. This third way is the one which allows chefs to give free rein to their creativity, and as a consequence sometimes spawns such horrors as foie gras sushi. This is the kind of dish that has made many people wary of hybrid food, but the bad rap isn't always deserved.

Yotam Ottolenghi has infused the dishes of his Israeli upbringing with flavours from the Islamic world, South-East Asia, India and Italy with delicious results for his restaurant diners and the Guardian readership. For evidence see his recent sabih recipe, an Israeli take on a recipe introduced by Iraqi immigrants in the 1950s, or his Irish oat porridge with banana, mango and coconut milk. Jay Rayner was clearly suspicious of Clerkenwell's fusion restaurant The Modern Pantry before his recent visit, but conceded that chef Anna Hansen was up to the job. Dishes like grilled onglet marinated in miso and tamarind accompanied by aioli and cassava chips suggest a cultural identity crisis yet, in Jay's words, make "a twisted kind of sense."

Asian fusion still seems to rule the day when it comes to hybrid food. Pan-Asian restaurants are ubiquitous, more interesting are those blending Japanese cuisine with those of Latin America. Nobu's Japanese Ceviche adds yuzu, soy and ginger to the Peruvian raw fish recipe, while small US chain, SUSHISAMBA throws together beef soaked in guava ponzu and, perhaps inevitably, sushi on the same menu.

And at home, fusion cooking often happens by default. My father douses every meal - regardless of what it is - in soy sauce, Tabasco or Lea & Perrins. I'm sure many do the same. I throw Spanish pimenton into everything, and my food sings of Iberia regardless of what it is. How do you cross-breed your food?