VOA慢速英语--亚裔美国人的面包店将各种文化融合在一起，创造出新的食品

Asian American Bakeries Mix Together Cultures to Create New Foods

Sunday Bakeshop in Oakland, California, makes foods that mix American and Asian cultures.

The restaurant makes foods that are cooked, or baked, in an oven. Many of them are sweet.

For example, the shop sells something called a dim sum cookie. It looks like a sugar cookie but has sesame seeds on top and sweetened red beans inside. Dim sum is a word for Cantonese foods from southern China.

The dim sum cookie is Elaine Lau's way of honoring her grandmother who would make a food that had a similar taste. Lau's restaurant also makes hojicha chocolate croissants and Chinese White Rabbit candy cookies. Those sweets would not be found in any bakery in Asia but are a mixture of Asian and Western foods.

Lau said she speaks to Asian Americans and others at her store. She said: "We get a lot of comments where they're just like... ‘Oh this took me back several years,' when they were growing up."

She added that it is nice to create good memories and feelings with her pastries¹.

Bakeries that combine the feeling of growing up Asian and American have been opening up more often in recent years. Traditional Asian ingredients are being mixed with European or American pastries into something new. The creations² are a way for young Asian Americans to celebrate their identity.

The experience of being an immigrant child in between two very different cultures is what brought about Third Culture Bakery, also in Oakland. Wenter Shyu and Sam Butarbutar started the bakery. One of their popular baked goods is a mochi muffin. It is influenced by Butarbutar's Indonesian background and is made with mochiko rice flour grown in California.

The bakery also has two stores in Colorado and a second store in the San Francisco area is planned. The bakery sells goods like mochi brownies and butter mochi donuts. Mochi is a soft rice mixture used in some Japanese foods.

Shyu said many non-Asian customers have never tasted some of the ingredients.

"It's a lot of educating. Even when you educate and share where it comes from, people are judging it...It's also very rewarding because then you get to see their reaction trying this new thing they've never had in their life," he said.

Rose Nguyen is a 34-year-old former medical worker. She opened Rose Ave Bakery in Washington, D.C., in March 2020. She makes sweets like strawberry lychee³ rose donuts, ube cake and matcha chocolate cookies.

Nguyen was born in Rhode Island to Vietnamese immigrants. She said it sometimes hurt her feelings when her American friends thought her food from home was strange. So it feels good for her now to use tastes from Vietnamese cooking.

"The business goes hand in hand with who I am," Nguyen said.

Older, traditional Asian bakeries started out to make foods immigrants missed from their home country. The new bakeries celebrate Asian culture and are part of a natural progression, said Robert Ku. He is an Asian American studies professor at Binghamton University in New York state. He also wrote the book Dubious⁴ Gastronomy⁵: The Cultural Politics of Eating Asian in the USA.

Ku said the bakers⁶ are showing that their foods, which mix cultures, are just as American as apple pie.

"It's sort of the artistic⁷ side of Asian American identity that's often ignored," Ku said. "They're instead really trying to fuse⁸ things together — create this mixture."

Words in This Story

cookie — n. a sweet baked food that is usually small flat and round

pastry⁹ — n. a baked good that is made from dough¹⁰: a mixture of four and fat

ingredients — n. (pl.) the materials used to make a food or dish

customer — n. someone who buys goods or services from a business

rewarding — adj. giving you a good feeling that you have done something valuable, important, etc.

fuse — v. to join or combine (different things) together

1 pastries   

n.面粉制的糕点

参考例句：

• He gave a dry laugh, then sat down and started on the pastries. 杜新箨说着干笑一声，坐下去就吃点心。 来自子夜部分
• Mike: So many! I like Xijiang raisins, beef jerky, and local pastries. 麦克：太多了。我最喜欢吃新疆葡萄干、牛肉干和风味点心。

2 creations   

创造( creation的名词复数 )； 创造物； （尤指所述由上帝）创造天地； 宇宙

参考例句：

• This artist's creations are worth collecting. 这个艺术家的作品值得收藏。
• The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. 各民族的精神产品成了公共的财产。 来自英汉非文学 - 共产党宣言

3 lychee   

n.荔枝

参考例句：

• A touch of lychee is also present.还有一点荔枝的味道。
• Lychee is a tropical fruit from southeast China.荔枝是一种源自中国东南部的一种热带水果。

4 dubious   

adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的

参考例句：

• What he said yesterday was dubious.他昨天说的话很含糊。
• He uses some dubious shifts to get money.他用一些可疑的手段去赚钱。

5 gastronomy   

n.美食法；美食学

参考例句：

• He studied gastronomy but cannot make a living as a cook.他学习了烹饪但却无法靠厨艺过活。
• Burgundy has always been considered a major centre of gastronomy.勃艮第大区一向被视为重要的美食中心。

6 bakers   

n.面包师( baker的名词复数 )；面包店；面包店店主；十三

参考例句：

• The Bakers have invited us out for a meal tonight. 贝克一家今晚请我们到外面去吃饭。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The bakers specialize in catering for large parties. 那些面包师专门负责为大型宴会提供食品。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 artistic   

adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的

参考例句：

• The picture on this screen is a good artistic work.这屏风上的画是件很好的艺术品。
• These artistic handicrafts are very popular with foreign friends.外国朋友很喜欢这些美术工艺品。

8 fuse   

n.导火线，引信，保险丝；v.熔，烧断电路

参考例句：

• The metal will fuse at a relatively low temperature.这金属在不太高的温度下熔化。
• This is the right fuse for the refrigerator.这是电冰箱上使用的保险丝。

9 pastry   

n.油酥面团，酥皮糕点

参考例句：

• The cook pricked a few holes in the pastry.厨师在馅饼上戳了几个洞。
• The pastry crust was always underdone.馅饼的壳皮常常烤得不透。

10 dough   

n.生面团；钱，现款

参考例句：

• She formed the dough into squares.她把生面团捏成四方块。
• The baker is kneading dough.那位面包师在揉面。