VOA标准英语2012--With Culture Kitchen, Just Like Grandmother Used to Cook

With Culture Kitchen, Just Like Grandmother Used to Cook

 

You can always check the Internet or a cookbook to learn how to make Vietnamese egg rolls. But Linh Nguyen, who doesn't even own a cookbook, isn't a big fan of those methods.

“In a Vietnamese house, there are no measuring spoons or measuring cups," Nguyen says. "Everything is sort of just done by the handful, or the bowlful. And the recipes are all sort of passed down from one person to another.”

Nguyen teaches that technique for Culture Kitchen, a company which hires first-generation immigrants as cooking instructors¹. The San Francisco company is trying to revive² the lost art of home cooking - which many learned from their mothers or grandmothers - by passing it on to a new generation of students.

Nguyen moved to the United States as a child in the 1980s, and learned to cook from her mother and many aunts. Unlike Nguyen’s family, though, Culture Kitchen teachers do write down recipes.

But they also focus on that person-to-person tradition, showing how a dish should really taste or look when it’s done, and answering all the little questions that come up along the way. 

Jennifer Lopez co-founded Culture Kitchen over a year ago, along with business partner Abby Sturges. The concept started as a graduate school program in product design. Lopez looked for amazing cooks who wouldn’t normally be teaching due to a language barrier or lack of formal training. She also reached out to community groups, but ended up with help from surprising sources.

“A lot of our cooks that we’ve had, it’s not necessarily been them that reached out to us," Lopez says. "It’s their sons or daughters who have emailed us and said, 'My mother or my grandmother makes the best food. She’s a little scared, I told her she needed to do this, this is so important.' And those are the moments that are so special.”

Culture Kitchen holds classes about twice a month, often in a donated kitchen, cooking school or community center. Lopez hopes to get a permanent location soon. 

The cuisines⁴ range from Bengali to Peruvian to Afghani. 

No matter where in the world the dishes come from, they seem to have the recipe for genuine connections between people. Student Laurie Mun came to learn Vietnamese cooking firsthand. She learned her family’s Cantonese recipes through the same sort of one-on-one instruction and is grateful for the opportunity, then and now.

“It’s a way I think for us to connect the generations," Mun says. "Like my mom would say ‘My grandmother, I remember watching her do it this way.’ So even though I didn’t have the relationship with her [my great-grandmother], because I was so much younger, she was in the room.” 

At Culture Kitchen, classes don’t just keep recipes from dying out, they can also change the how the instructors view themselves.

“A lot of the women we work with don’t have that many friends outside of their own culture," Lopez says. "So the opportunity to share their cuisine³ with a larger group of people is huge. It’s been phenomenal watching some of our cooks transform.”

They transform into teachers ready to share an important traditional skill with students who are hungry to learn.

1 instructors   

指导者，教师( instructor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The instructors were slacking on the job. 教员们对工作松松垮垮。
• He was invited to sit on the rostrum as a representative of extramural instructors. 他以校外辅导员身份，被邀请到主席台上。

2 revive   

v.（使）复苏，（使）重振活力，恢复生机，复兴

参考例句：

• These flowers will revive in water.这些花在水中会再活。
• They managed to revive the injured driver with cardiac massage.他们通过心脏按压使受伤的司机苏醒了过来。

3 cuisine   

n.烹调，烹饪法

参考例句：

• This book is the definitive guide to world cuisine.这本书是世界美食的权威指南。
• This restaurant is renowned for its cuisine.这家餐馆以其精美的饭菜而闻名。

4 cuisines   

n.烹饪( cuisine的名词复数 )；菜肴；（通常指昂贵的饭店中的）饭菜；烹饪艺术

参考例句：

• Could you tell me the different features of these cuisines? 能不能告诉我这些不同的烹调流派各自有哪些特点？ 来自地道口语脱口SHOW 高中超越版
• Ice sculptures are used as decorations in some cuisines, especially in Asia. 冰雕在某些菜肴中被当作装饰品，尤其在亚洲。 来自互联网