Fusion Food “Fusion at its best allows ingredients from all over the globe to be marinated, cooked and served together harmony on the same plate.” Peter Gordon. The Sugar Club.

Fusion Food Diners' tastes and expectations are changing rapidly. Cheap air travel means that more people are travelling to exotic parts of the world where they can experience the 'global store cupboard' for themselves. They enjoy experiencing these flavours again when they return to home shores. Fusion food is about combining different ingredients and cooking methods from different countries around the world to create a new dish. The fusion food concept encourages the idea of mixing different cultures, values and beliefs from around the world and therefore encouraging our cultures to live in harmony

Definition of Fusion Food Fusion food is widely misunderstood. The simplest definition is to describe it as any dish that combines ingredients or techniques from distinct cuisines but this does not tell the whole story. No cuisine exists in isolation and throughout history every culture has adapted itself to the arrival of new ingredients and new styles. This exchange of culinary knowledge is different from what we now think of as fusion food because historically, cuisines simply reacted to the introduction of novelty, fitting new things into their existing food culture. Modern fusion starts from the position of having every style and ingredient available and selects them in deliberate combination that does not necessarily owe anything to regional traditions. The proliferation of fusion cuisine is a consequence of increasing globalization, as virtually any ingredient can now be transported anywhere in the world while still fresh. Likewise, the worldwide dissemination of recipes and techniques through modern communications has meant that previously exotic and mysterious cooking practices have now become commonplace.

History of Fusion Food Fusion cuisine as it is recognised today began to emerge in the 1970s in the kitchens of California and the subsequent explosion in demand for this exciting new form led to a multitude of badly conceived and poorly executed dishes appearing in gimmicky experimental restaurants. This earned fusion food a bad reputation that still clings to it today. A huge volume of culinary snobbery has been directed at this hybrid form, some deservedly, some not. Complaints that it pollutes the authenticity of traditional cuisines and shows no respect for the long-standing recipes that it breaks down and reconstructs are fundamentally baseless. French cuisine is not going to disappear because a chef somewhere adds soy sauce to a beurre blanc. It is undeniable however, that experiments in fusion cooking have resulted in some truly awful creations. Resistance to fusion cuisine has been strongest where there is a well-established culinary heritage already in place. The reverse is also true, fusion food has been most enthusiastically embraced in places where there is little or no indigenous culinary tradition to draw on, especially where immigrants from various backgrounds have come together. Modern Australian cuisine is a great example of this process in action, taking European ideas about the composition and presentation of food and using locally sourced ingredients such as macadamia nuts and barramundi to create unique dishes. Much of the best of modern American cuisine is also based on the same principle.

Example Fusion Food Dishes Stuffed tomatoes with parmesan & chorizo • Warm goats cheese with butternut squash, apple and beetroot Chinese Pizza

Fusion Food “ Fusion food involves the joining together of different culinary traditions” www.joyofcooking.co.uk

Fusion Food Design Brief Your task is to “design and make a fusion “Burger” main course dish of your own creation that would be suitable to serve at a Rock Star’s annual garden party”. Your design must celebrate the joining together of different cultural beliefs in our modern day backyard .