First we wanted to make a dish for vegetarian's but we notice that had been done a lot before so we decided to change. After brainstorming a bit we tried to make a dish from a certain culture be made by another culture. However, we didn't have a main reason why we were doing this concept. Finally, we decided that the concept of togetherness and the feeling of cooking and being together was a great experience. This brought us to our final concept.

Process of the Concept

Our dish allows families to come together to cook a meal. The base of the dish, Roti, can be paired with many different cuisines and flavors. Because of this, the dish is versatile and extremely customizable. Furthermore, Roti can be made with multiple people; especially during the rolling steps. Each student decided to pair the Roti with a different dip which corresponds to the student’s culture. The final dips draw on French, Swedish, Canadian, Mexican and American cuisine. This would allow each member of a family to lend a hand and provide their input, creating a unique dish specific to the family’s culture and preferences.

Final Thesis

Sustanability

The "dips" of this dish are intended to be made with leftover / otherwise discarded ingredients.

The creation of roti is a family-oriented activity. Roti itself is a laminated unleavened flatbread, made through a lengthy process of kneading, rolling, laminating, rolling, rolling, extending, cutting, rolling, and pan-cooking. The third rolling results in a long "log" being made, making rolling a full-sized batch difficult without >2 other people.

Why we chose roti

Dip 1: Lingonberry Cream

Dip 2: Apple Salted Carmel

Dip 3: Maple Butter

Dip 4: Coffee Vanilla Cream

Flavors:

• Exaggerate sweetness with coffee flavor

Cuisine:

• A lot of cultures use coffee, however vanilla is traditionally Mexican

Dip 5: Molasses Ginger

Flavors:

• Increase thickness
• Spice

Cuisine:

• European

Render Process

Presentation of the Dish

The way the dish was rendered and the way it is shown is to represent togetherness. We have all the dips and roti together in the same shape conveying the feeling of being with family or friends.

Final Dish

Final Tasting

Tasting feedback

• The colors are bland, incorporate colorful "ingredients"
• The roti was too dense

Concept

Often times, when foods are "vegetarianized" in American cuisine, they do so without paying attention to the types of flavors that would be used in that culture. Our project aims to fix this issue with culturally-relevant vegetarian alternatives.

This dish combines a flaky Cape Malay Roti with a marinated garlic-chickpea patty to stand in for meat. This dish aims to evoke flavors used often in South African home cooking without the addition of meat, which is nearly a guarantee in some South African cuisines.

Dish One: Garlic-Chickpea Cape Curry

Dish Two: General Tso's Chiken

This dish comes from Taiwan and it was made by Chef Ping for a welcoming banquet for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

We want to make it so that someone who is vegetarian can have it. To do this we are thinking of switching out the chicken for tofu

Dish Three: Chicken Soup

The Chinese made the first chicken noodle soup and called it noodles in broth rather than soup.

We want to find something to replace the chicken in the soup so that vegetarians can eat it. Additionally, we want to change the broth because it is sometimes soaked in animal meat.

We want to replace the chicken with Tempeh and we want to find a broth that has soaked in tofu.

Questions

Do you have any suggestions for other dishes/meat alternatives in a culture you are personally familiar with (or if it's one of the cultures we chose)?