WHAT IS MODERN FUSION CUISINE? A HISTORY OF HOW FUSION CUISINE HAS EVOLVED TO TODAY





5/19/23



Fusion cuisine blends food from two distinct cultures together, creating unique and creative dishes never seen before. Today, fusion food exists all around us: whether it be breakfast burritos, Caribbean hot-pot, or Asian egg-crepes, we enjoy these delicious yet strange cultural mashups daily. So, how did fusion cuisine become so popular? Who created the eccentric fusion dishes we've now come to enjoy?





A falafel taco made from falafel, pico de gallo, and tahini sauce on pita bread, mixing elements of Israeli and Mexican cuisine together.





FUSION CUISINE: A BRIEF HISTORY



Fusion cuisine has been around for longer than humans can remember. Since the first contact between two different civilizations, humans have been exchanging ideas, and also exchanging food. As Corinne Trang, author of Food Lovers Vietnamese: A Culinary Journey of Discovery puts it, "When cultures mix, fusion is inevitable."



Despite its ancient origins, fusion cuisine became popularized relatively recently in the 1970's. One example is when French chefs began adding Chinese and Vietnamese foods to their traditional French cooking, creating new French-Asian fusion foods, such as the

Bánh Mì: a Vietnamese sandwich, usually made with French pate, chillies, cilantro, and other pickled vegetables, and served on a French baguette. This new style of fusion food stuck, shown by the popularity of the Banh Mi today, and began spreading to other European cities and to the coasts of America.





Banh Mi with roasted pork, shredded carrots and radish, cucumbers, pate, and cilantro on a French roll. Image courtesy of allrecipes.com.





TEX-MEX CUISINE



Another famous example of fusion cuisine is Tex-Mex, a combination of American Texas and Mexican cuisine. Texas, which used to be a Mexican territory, has always been a mingling ground for White Americans and Mexicans. In the late 1800s, White Americans began to settle in Texas, which eventually became an American state. Throughout this process, many Mexicans just decided to stay, or immigrated to Texas due to the demand for cheap labor. This created the perfect environment for the growth of fusion cuisine, which produced Tex-Mex cuisine.





A table of popular Tex-Mex food, including loaded nachos and street corn salad. Image courtesy of Taste of Home.



Tex-Mex is usually characterized by heavy use of cheese, beans, beef, pork, chicken, spices, and a tortilla. Tex-Mex usually uses much more cheese than regular Mexican cuisine does, and is now popular in many restaurants around the United States (think: Taco Bell, Moe's Southwest Grill, Chipotle). In fact, much of the "Mexican" food you eat today is actually derived from Tex-Mex cuisine instead.





MODERN TEX-MEX CUISINE



Modern fusion cuisine still features a mashup between two cultures, but now takes on many more shapes and sizes. Some new examples include: Chino-Latino, Cajun, and Malay-Chinese. We at Falafel Taco also provide a one-of-a-kind, modern twist on fusion cuisine, combining Mexican and Israeli food, which we call our "Mex-Raeli" cuisine. If you are interested and want to learn more, check out the Home page of our website for more information and a link to order online.