Making a Difficult Fusion Dish | Chris

Johnson and Wales University

I’m kind of just finishing up finals. I’m a first year, I’m a transfer. I’m from Texas, so I just want to get done so I can get home faster. I wasn’t able to go back over the break for Thanksgiving, so getting back to my family and my dog would be great. I’m a culinary student here at JWU, so almost anything to get all my recipes done. Take care of small, little assignments, and stuff of my own to get my business and everything going.

Right now, I’m trying to combine Southern chili and Creole, American gumbo, which is a pretty difficult fusion dish. If you know anything about the two dishes themselves, one of them, the thickening base, is tomato paste. And the other one is more of a roux, which for anyone who doesn’t know, is just flour and butter. The thing is that they thicken the same, but they’re two different flavors, they’re different flavor profiles. And the texture of the thickeners are different. One can be categorized as a thinner soup, but the other one is a thicker soup. So to combine the flavors without clashing or stepping on toes of two of the cultures is kind of difficult.

I’m looking forward to hanging out with my friends from back home during winter break. They’re all waiting for me to get back. I’m the chef of the friend group. They’re all like, ‘we want barbecue, we want food.’ Drinks and everything. ‘We want stuff to eat and drink.’