The History of Fusion Cuisine

ChiliCrabSpaghetti
Chili Crab Spaghetti Sauce

Fusion Cuisine is actually not new. It has been around for a couple of decades. Chefs started to merge cuisines around the ’70s. Culinary legends like Wolfgang Puck among others introduced this concept. He actually laid down the foundation for this technique. He is the brains behind the common culinary fusions and pairings. An example of which is the fusion of European cuisine with Asian cuisine, commonly referred to as Eurasian cuisine. This was easy for Chef Puck because of his knowledge of both cuisines. He was originally trained in Europe, but he is thoroughly familiar with the Asian dishes. Eurasian basically combines two cooking techniques and dishes, so you can end up with poached tofu, for example, which generally mixes European and Asian method of poaching.

Over the years, fusion cuisine restaurants emerged all over Europe. Many of these restaurants were established in urban areas. In fact, you would likely find these restaurants still offering the same mixed cuisines. Urban areas are actually prime spots for fusion cuisine restaurants since these are also the areas where cultural integration is more predominant. Thus, people are more acceptable of the combined culinary dishes.

Of course, this form of cooking is not limited to Eurasian cuisines. Asian foods are also combined. You can find dishes that combine Thai food with Malaysian food or Malaysian cuisines with Vietnamese dishes. Combining cuisines of countries from the same region, however, is less challenging. It is actually easier to combine ingredients from the same region because these countries have, more or less, influenced each other in their cooking.

See Angel Hair Pasta with Chili, Crab and Tomato Sauce Recipe

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