TADIOTO

A silly essay I wrote just after the U.S. invaded Iraq.

It’s been a while now since I stopped worrying about what people think of the food that I eat. 
“What’s that,” people used to ask in my first years in America. 
It was hard to say “fish sauce.”  
People would make a face.  I learned to say “Vietnamese seasoning,” but words couldn’t disguise the strong smell or the strangeness of the sauce that accompanies every Vietnamese meal. 
These days, however, people ask for the sauce, and they actually call it by its Vietnamese name, nuoc mam. 
My friends use it to cook, and they serve it at dinner.  And a lot of people know what a bowl of pho is. 
Beef noodle soup, like many other Vietnamese dishes, has become a part of the diverse culinary pleasures of people from New York to California.
It’s comforting to know that people are learning about your culture—and usually, that happens through the stomach.
America celebrates diversity by enjoying the abundance of ethnic food.  Food from various countries is served in many celebrations: I am still hoping that from food, people will graduate to cultural customs, or songs and novels and poems. 
That way, hopefully, they can learn a bit more about where we come from, our history, how we think, and why we’re here in America. But it seems many are stuck in World Culture 101: it is still sushi or kim chi that teaches. 
But then, why not?  At the root of fashionable ethnic food in America is a sad truth.  When you think about it, it becomes obvious that food comes to America through war and poverty. 
Surely, and oddly, it was the people escaping poverty and hunger in China who brought noodle and cha-siu pork buns to Main Street, U.S.A.  The Italians who were escaping the Second World War surely started more Italian spaghetti joints here.  Similarly, kim chi and Korean barbecue became more widespread here after 1952 when a war ended.  And sushi?  1945, after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 
Pho, the Vietnamese noodle soup, and nuoc mam are now popular in many cities.  These were packed in the memory of refugees who came across the Pacific after twenty years of warfare in their homeland.  “Comfort food” actually means real solace for people with such a terrible past.  Uprooted from their homeland, the familiar comes back in the taste of lemongrass and mint leaves, or nuoc mam. 
I suspect Palestinian, Ethiopian or Somali refugees too carried their eating habits from their homes to all sorts of places in America.  Once resettled here, their food slowly ventures beyond their kitchens into the American diet.  Perhaps they will teach America about the customs and peoples of the world.
As I look forward to tasting Afghan and Iraqi delicacies, I fear food isn’t so much a way to look at someone else, but a mirror to look at America’s involvement with the world. 
First, through wars and bombings, and then through refugees and their food.