BY JOCELYN ZHOU ’22
Food has the power to invoke memories. For Yehee Lee ’20, an international student from South Korea, her favorite Korean food, tteokbokk, reminds her of her hometown.
“[Tteokbokk] is a dish made of fish cake and rice cake covered with gochujang based spicy sauce,” Lee said. “Although spiciness is the base of the dish, it is mostly sweet.”
The easiest way to find tteokbokk is to roam the streets of any city in South Korea, as it is a street snack. Lee used to eat the food with her friends after class. When she was an elementary school student, she would go through the door of her school and find the tteokbokki truck waiting for her.
“There are a lot of tteokbokki stores near middle and high schools in Korea, so it has especially been loved by many students,” Lee said.
Having tteokbokki gave her the opportunity to maintain her relationships with friends and family.
“My friends and I would have various conversations eating the dish on good days and bad,” Lee said. “I also remember my mother occasionally making the dish for me at home.”
“If you ever go to Korea, stop in any restaurant [serving street food] and you would be able to find tteokbokk,” Lee said.
Thien-An Dang Nguyen ’22, a student from Vietnam, says that bún thang reminds her of her homeland.
According to Nguyen, bún thang consists of bún (rice noodles), shredded chicken, shredded eggs, chopped mushrooms, and gio, a Vietnamese type of ham. The essence of the dish is the clear broth, which requires a lot of effort to make. Nguyen loves adding shrimp paste to it.
Leen Rhazi ’22, a student from Dubai, shared her favorite dish, maqluba, along with her family memories.
“When translated to Arabic, maqluba means ‘upside down.’ The dish consists of meat, rice and fried vegetables, which are tossed in a pot and then flipped upside down by the server,” Rhazi said.
Growing up in a Palestinian family, she would help her grandmother make maqluba every Friday, which helped her connect to her family’s culinary roots.
“Maqluba’s rich history and sense of tradition allows Palestinians who live out of Palestine to feel connected to their roots,” Rhazi said. “My mother has lived in America for the majority of her life, and still cooks maqluba to keep Palestinian traditions alive in our family.”