Common Grain celebrates rice as a universal, unifying, accessible ingredient. Common Grain does this by highlighting how rice has shaped and influenced various cultures around the world. Rice was and is one of the most influential crops of human existence. Many countries and cultures around the world have cultivated rice for thousands of years. Common Grain explores how rice cultivation has sculpted and influenced the history of cultures around the world by examination of cuisine.

Tasting Menu

Onigiri

Risotto

Arroz con Leche

Onigiri

Onigiri is a dish that originated in Japan between 200 BC and 250 AD. It was traditionally eaten as a snack/appetizer by samurai, fishermen, and travelers. The rice type used is sticky rice. The triangular shape that we see today is actually due to the mass production of the food.

Risotto

Glass blowers of southern Italy used saffron as a pigment in glass. Poorer glass blowers used whatever spices they could afford to add to their rice, one of these was saffron. This use of spices led to the creation of what is recognized as risotto. This was a contrast as rice was largely considered food for the high class people, but it became plentiful enough that it became accessible.

Arroz Con Leche

how meso-American flavors perserverd in a new environment of colonialism

Medium Grain white rice was brought to

meso-america by Spanish colonizers in the early 1500s. Spanish colonization destroyed much of the local agriculture creating a dependency on rice.

e

Tasting!

Feedback

• Texture
• Dish Selection
• Good flavor

Thank You

論文說法

Human rights and civil liberties has been an ongoing issue in the South East Asian region since the mid 20th century. The project Wrapped in Rights aims to bring light and raise awareness to conflict in that region through food. The dish created with this project specifically highlights Hong Kong and Taiwan through traditional Chinese cooking; seeking to use food as a symbol of unity, community, and resilience, among individuals and communities who are fighting for their rights in these regions.

頭腦風暴

Mindmaps for brainstorming

Midjourney visualization

ChatGPT and Mermaid for iterative food design

中途探索

粽子

Visual Elements

• Strong Contrast
• Garnish
• Leaf Wrapping

Texture Elements

• Sticky Rice
• Aromatic Texture
• Nutty/Crunchy

It Supports Our Vision Because... The ingredients can differ from cook to cook, allowing creativity and accessibility to the mases.

第一個

菜

Receiving Feedback

Potential Conceptual Growth

Uniqueness vs Consistency

Highlight

Differentiation

Significance Through Explanation

為

什

麼重要

Pineapple Ban - Taiwan

Fishball Revolution - Hong Kong

台灣粽子

Flavor Pairings

Pineapple

Wrapping

Mixture

Zong Zi

香港粽子

Flavor Pairings

Curry

Wrapping

Mixture

Zong Zi

可持續性

Variations

Locally Sourced

視覺的

Zong Zi (Dark, Rich)

Pineapple (Contrast, Yellow)

Chinese Dates (Dark, Contrast)

Fishballs (Bright)

Asymmetrical space

煮東西

Edible America is a commentary on the common trend of taking culturally important dishes and dramatically changing them to better suit the American pallet. The centerpiece of the dish is crispy Arancini made of cauliflower risotto, stuffed with fresh mozzarella, breaded and deep-fried with Panko, drizzled with a rich and creamy cheese sauce. Arancini is traditionally made with a rice-based risotto; however, rice is one of the most water-intensive crops with the entire rice pattie needing to be flooded. In comparison, cauliflower only needs a few cups of water a day, leading to a far more sustainable alternative.

Thesis

Precedent

What are things that come to mind when you talks about nice slightly unhealthy food that you might have at a diner, a restaurant, or even your House?

Are any of those things waffles, French fries or even arenchini? All of those things are americanized. The process of americanization where an American culture takes another country's cultures meal or thing and claims it as their own. waffles are from Belgium and originally Egypt where they were eaten with seisamy seeds and various oils. arenchini is from Italy traditionally filled with a vegetable filling. once arenchini was amaricanised it started to have no vegetable filling and be filled with chese instead or just a whole frice ball with a chese dip on the side. Then finally French fries originating from France and Belgium which were americanized and now are used with ketchup and mayonnaise oddly.

Tasty Map

Recipe

Render

Dino Mold

Freedom Arancini

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)?