Brisket from Jūn.
Fusion was once a unclean phrase. For years, it conjured photographs of overreaching cooks tossing unrelated elements onto the identical plate within the title of “creativity.” Calling one thing “fusion,” then, garnered severe side-eye. The time period felt like an insult—a gimmick, a culinary id disaster, possibly even a betrayal of custom. In my years as a meals author, I’d even discover myself pausing earlier than uttering the phrase to a chef, as if it have been a slur. However I’ve tasted my means via locations I’ve lived, and I knew, technically, fusion was all over the place I went. There have been French, African, and Italian flavors in Casablanca, Morocco; Cantonese delicacies, dim sum, but additionally fajitas in Hong Kong; Portuguese-style stuffed Quahog clams in Rhode Island; and American quick meals–impressed creations all over the place. Calling any of it by a single title may show tough.
Instances are altering, although. “Fusion” doesn’t really feel so icky anymore, at the very least not in Houston.
Right here, cultures don’t simply coexist—they collide and reshape each other. It’s within the Viet-Cajun crawfish that bubbled up from our bayous, the cooks who grew up craving pho as an alternative of quick meals, and the unbridled love for Mexican meals that has unsurprisingly made its means into almost each culinary nook and cranny. However it’s not simply in our restaurant scene. It’s in our personal kitchens, too, once we swap ramen for spaghetti or tuck leftover brisket right into a tortilla. It’s in our museums, on metropolis partitions scrawled with graffiti, and golf equipment the place folks line-dance as onerous to rap music as they do nation.
It’s what occurs while you reside in some of the various cities within the nation. Boundaries blur, flavors mingle, and one thing completely new emerges—not a bastardization or appropriation, however an evolution.
In Houston, these overlaps are proof that we’re interconnected and paying consideration to the world round us. When completed proper, fusion could be a nod, an acknowledgment, an I see you—and possibly even an I couldn’t reside with out you. I’ve felt this when consuming menudo, a standard Mexican soup, ready by my mother-in-law, a Black lady with deep roots within the South (nonetheless among the greatest I’ve ever had!), and after I strive my greatest at recreating my favourite restaurant dishes at dwelling. It’s the story of how we share, adapt, and create one thing that feels each unfamiliar (probably new?), however positively, deeply ours.
That’s the center of this fall problem, which I’m proud to name my first as the brand new editor in chief of Houstonia. We’re celebrating the attractive collisions that make Houston what it’s, and whereas some may nonetheless wince at this notorious time period (we perceive! and so do cooks), we’re slowly studying to embrace it. As a result of in Houston, fusion isn’t only a pattern. It’s simply one other one of our many strengths.
So, name it what you need—fusion, evolution, or simply Houston. No matter you name it, know this: It’s ours.
