Fusion Cuisine: Exploring Food and Flavor

Miso-cilantro vinaigrette? Cream cheese and tomato sushi? Garden salad with crispy seaweed? Believe it or not, these foods exist! They are examples of fusion cuisine, which is known for combining characteristics from several different cultural traditions. Fusion cuisine (also called California cuisine) is popular in large metropolitan areas like Los Angeles, Miami, and New York City -- where the immigration and the merging of cultures have created unprecedented exposure to esoteric ingredients and alternate preparation methods.

Celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck was one of the earliest proponents of fusion cuisine in the 1970s - he originates from Austria but also spent time in Asia before settling in The United States -- he has had influences from all over that only naturally manifest themselves in his culinary creations.

But how do chefs come up with the ideas? Any number of ways - most chefs rely on their experience and training, and work by trial and error in order to create new and tantalizing recipes -- perhaps starting with the hunch that Ancho chiles and cilantro might have an interesting effect on an otherwise mild Japanese dish, or that a lemongrass-curry mixture might make a refreshing new pasta sauce. The beauty of fusion cuisine is that there are no hard and fast rules -- it is a niche market that encourages experimentation and allows for endless creativity. Fusion cuisine aspires to take the best parts of a particular cultural tradition (from the Japanese, use the fresh and exotic fish; from the Middle East, use high-quality ground spices; from California, use organic vegetables and produce.) While it takes risks, fusion cuisine still has roots in traditional cooking, relying on combinations like sweet/salty, spicy/sweet, crunchy/soft, among others.

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