Asian studies blog by Elijah

 In this edition we look at two different dishes, with the same name: Adobo. If you are Latin-X then you likely have had a form of adobo including  chilies and tomatoes cooked to what tastes like perfection. It is worth noting that Mexican adobo and Cuban adobo are not exactly the same but could be called siblings, with small variants by region, city and even individual families. However, many people are still surprised to find out that the Caribbean-Central American adobo, is not the only adobo. In fact Filipino adobo in all of its tangy salty glory is basically the national dish of the Philippines. So here we will break them down, looking for similarities and differences. First before we discuss either, we have to acknowledge that both dishes come from the same origin, Spain. Spain historically held and heavily influenced both Mexico and the Philippines, in all aspects of life. In its simplest form, the word “adobo” comes from the verb “adovar,” which means “to marina...

In the last version of this we compared the Franco-Cornish pasty and with India's beloved samosa, with the samosa being the clear winner. Mainly due to the fact that the two foods are so similar, and samosas are just better seasoned/ spiced. This time, we have a much harder comparison: Fried Chicken. This time the comparison involves three different versions, (Modern) Korean fried Chicken, Japanese fried chicken, and Southern-American fried chicken. In truth, almost every culture on earth has a version of a fried chicken, as it just seems that all of our ancestors simply saw a chicken and had the same thought, "well that looks like food." This was written with the understanding that within each of the cultures mentioned there are a wide variety of methods and recipes that fry chicken. Japanese fried chicken (Karaage style) Karaage is actually a style of cooking meat and vegetables, the process involves lightly coating small pieces of the meat or fish with flour and ...

Not sure this will be the format for all my blogs, but thought I would start with something fun. Comparing foods found in Asian cultures with food from around the world. In this iteration we are looking at the dangerously delicious, salty, crunchy,spicy, and beautiful: Samosa (A recipe can be found  here ). According to Wikipedia Samosas originated in the Middle East and arrived in India alongside the spread of Islam around the 7th-8th century. Cookbooks written in Arabic containing a samosa recipe can be found from the 10th century to present. Samosas can be baked or more often fried, they can be filled with meat, but most always contain potato,onion, carrots, peas and spices. We are comparing the Samosa with a food that is more familiar to the Island of Britain, than the former crown jewel of the English Empire. The Pasty has been found in French cookbooks dating back to the early thirteenth century. The flaky buttery crust often holds many of the same ingridients a samosa wo...