{"id":23193,"date":"2024-05-31T13:38:13","date_gmt":"2024-05-31T17:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/?p=23193"},"modified":"2024-05-31T13:38:13","modified_gmt":"2024-05-31T17:38:13","slug":"cultural-immersion-through-cuisine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/2024\/05\/31\/cultural-immersion-through-cuisine\/","title":{"rendered":"Cultural immersion through cuisine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I will never fail to use the term “foodie” to express my identity. While diving deep into the various cultures of Singapore and Malaysia, I had to experience the full immersion by eating my way through the trip. I made sure to ask all the locals what I absolutely needed to try before leaving each country. For Singapore, I was told I needed to try Hainanese chicken, which is a whole cut of chicken, bone in, garnished with a flavorful ginger sauce. Luckily, I had the opportunity to try this dish at our program’s welcome dinner on night two in Singapore. If you love ginger, you will love this dish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Malaysia, our knowledgeable tour guide, Felix, said I had to get blue rice. This Malaysian staple is flavored with aromatic coconut, and gets it beautiful blue color from the butterfly pea flower, which it is soaked in before being served. My overall favorite meal was the final farewell dinner in Malaysia, where we indulged in a variety of meats, seafood, and vegetables, prepared in ways I have never had before. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We visited one of the biggest Hawker Stall locations in Singapore in the city’s China Town. Before the trip, I had anticipated visiting these stalls, as I’ve seen them featured on Anthony Bourdain’s food tours. I had the best soup dumplings, also known as Xiao long bao. They were seriously incomparable to any I have tried in the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I promised myself I would undertake an adventurous style of eating while on this study abroad, because knowing myself, I would indubitably regret not trying something once I returned home. Notably, the most exotic dishes I tried were the century egg and a jellyfish sushi roll. The century egg, which is a Chinese delicacy, is fermented in a tasteful mixture for weeks to months, eventually taking on a dark, black\/brown color and an entirely unique taste. The jellyfish was surprisingly pleasant, crunchy but sweet and not fishy at all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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At first glance, the Singaporean diet didn’t seem to be anything particular healthy. However, I noticed that the population as a whole seemed to be very fit. Although I ate my way through Singapore, I was shocked to return back home and record that I lost 5 pounds on this trip! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I will never fail to use the term “foodie” to express my identity. While diving deep into the various cultures of Singapore and Malaysia, I had to experience the full immersion by eating my way through the trip. I made sure to ask all the locals what I absolutely needed to try before leaving each…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":910,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[418],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-singapore-malaysia-field-study"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/910"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23193"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23200,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23193\/revisions\/23200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}