Special | 26m 4s | Video has closed captioning.
What is America? Chefs Vivian Howard and Marcus Samuelsson set out to better understand how American cuisine is defined by immigrant cultures and foodways.
Aired: 11/26/19
Expired: 01/10/20
♪ MARCUS SAMUELSSON: What is America?
It's color, it's community, it's culture, it's flavor, it's us... all of us.
VIVIAN HOWARD: Our country can't be defined by one thing because it's many things coming together, like the perfect dish.
MARCUS: A little bit of this, a little bit of that.
VIVIAN: One ingredient complementing the other to tell a story of who we are, where we've been, and who we hope to be.
My name is Vivian Howard, chef and host of Somewhere South, a new series coming to PBS.
♪ ♪ MARCUS: And I am Marcus Samuelsson, chef and host of No Passport Required.
♪ ♪ For the past year, we've been exploring cities all around the country in search for what defines American culture through food.
VIVIAN: But first, we're making a quick stop in Los Angeles at one of the most vibrant an d diverse markets in the city, Grand Central Market.
♪ ♪ MARCUS: Come hungry and join us for a sneak peek right here on PBS.
♪ ♪ (Electrical Buzzing) (Street Noise) ♪ ♪ VIVIAN: I've never been to Downtown LA.
MARCUS: Yes.
- And when I think of LA, I think about movie stars and, like, blond hair.
- Yeah.
- And this is so not that.
♪ ♪ MARCUS: You have all these incredible immigrant pockets, places with delicious food stands.
And that's what Downtown LA has.
VIVIAN: It feels like those communities are just really a part of the fabric of LA, in a way that's different than New York or really anywhere else I've been.
MARCUS: Just like Snoop and Dre were very different-- VIVIAN: Yeah, yeah.
--than East Coast, you know, and its tonalities.
Think about all the great sushi, all the great Thai, all the great Mexican food you can get in LA.
♪ ♪ So all this hustle and bustle, does this remind you of your new show?
- No.
(Laughter) You know, we, like, try to focus on smaller communities-- - Yeah.
--that, you know, you may not know about, but where there's really interesting stories, so... - Such as what?
VIVIAN: West Virginia, where they have, like, the Pepperoni Roll Festival.
Way back in the day, all of these Italian immigrants, who had coal mining experience, come to West Virginia to work in the mines.
And so, you know, they would take, in their pail-- - Yeah.
- --down in the mines, like a roll, and sticks of pepperoni.
And so one smart housewife was like, "I'm going to roll this pepperoni up--" - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- "--and then bake it."
The pepperoni roll history runs deep in West Virginia.
Don't believe me?
Here is a clip of their pepperoni roll-eating contest where I was asked to be a referee.
(Cheers) ANNOUNCER: ...championship of the world.
So it is and so it shall be.
Let the contest begin!
- So you'll be at one end, and I'll be at the other?
- You'll be at the other end.
- Okay.
REFERREE: When the girls hand you a plate, it's important that we keep three full plates of buns in front of every eater.
- Okay.
- Do don't grab her plate because they'll break your arm-- - Ah!
--because that's how they-- that's how they count.
AUDIENCE: Five, four, three, two, one!
ANNOUNCER: Begin eating!
Begin eating!
There we go!
Crank it up!
Crank it up, everybody!
Five, four, three, two, one.
(Cheers & Applause) (Announcer announces winner) - Well?
- Oh my god.
(Cheers & Applause) ♪ ♪ MARCUS: You know what I love about this market?
It's so authentic, and it feels like one big Queens in New York.
You know Queens.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MARCUS: Like, it's just like different pockets of people.
VIVIAN: And--and everyone is really distinct.
MARCUS: Yeah.
VIVIAN: But it feels like cohesive.
And you always hear that the West Coast is like a different world, or California is like a different world.
MARCUS: Yeah.
VIVIAN: But, like on this trip, what I've noticed is that like there's so many cultures here, but it feels like really one culture.
♪ ♪ MARCUS: Isn't it funny that our shows now are really reflecting something, like you're really mapping out the South and showing that the South is not monolithic, right?
VIVIAN: Right.
And, you know, on our show, we emphasize so much on immigrants and the cultures that-- the gifts that they brought with them to America, and become American, you know?
- Right, right.
- I mean, we're really lucky.
- Absolutely.
- And that's America, right?
- That's America, yes.
♪ ♪ MARCUS: In this episode of No Passport Required, I travel to Boston to learn about Brazilian cuisine from Fafa Langa, chef and owner of a little restaurant called Muqueca.
FAFA LANGA: Today, we're going to make Moqueca.
- Moqueca.
- This is very important in our moqueca cooking.
This is urucum.
- Urucum.
FAFA: The Indian way.
MARCUS: Yeah.
FAFA: So we take the color from the seeds.
I already have prepared with olive oil.
You can put a little bit more.
MARCUS: Little bit more?
FAFA: Uh-huh.
MARCUS: Beautiful.
So we're starting with onion and garlic.
FAFA: Yeah, just a little bit of garlic.
MARCUS: I can put the tomato in now?
FAFA: Yeah, and the cilantro.
MARCUS: And the cilantro.
FAFA: Just put this layer here, just with the fish.
MARCUS: This is like a cod or-- FAFA: This is haddock.
MARCUS: Haddock, okay.
- Now we're going to cover it to finish.
MARCUS: I love this clay pot.
FAFA: This pot keeps the heat and the flavor.
MARCUS: So, like, someone that has never had Brazilian food, the dishes, like Moqueca, is definitely one that we should make, right?
- Right.
Well, I've heard about this dish called feijoada.
- Everyone knows feijoada because feijoada we have all over Brazil.
Feijoada is different from moqueca that comes from the Indians.
- Yeah.
- Feijoada is from Africa.
- Yes.
- The slaves brought the feijoada to our, you know, culinary things.
- So these are beautiful, sort of like black beans, right?
- Yeah.
So here we're going to put all the meat.
MARCUS: And it's-- it's beef, right?
FAFA: Beef, we have pork.
MARCUS: Mm, and sausage?
FAFA: Sausage.
In Brazil, they used to put the pieces of the meat that the señor, the doñas, didn't eat.
They throw it away.
MARCUS: Throw it away.
FAFA: The slaves get that, mix with the beans and cook for themselves.
MARCUS: Oh, so it's all the leftovers goes in, simmered together.
FAFA: The moqueca is ready.
- Ooh, this is going to beautiful.
- See?
- Should we add in some shrimp, or no?
FAFA: Yeah, I like everything well decorated.
MARCUS: Yes.
FAFA: Yes.
The color on top.
MARCUS: Oh, my god, it smells good.
FAFA: This is-- MARCUS: Should I take this out?
FAFA: Yeah, let's--because everything is done, yeah.
MARCUS: Ooh.
VIVIAN: Back in LA, we met Sarita and Paul, a mother and son who run a Salvadorian pupuseria here at Grand Central Market since 1998.
MARCUS: A pupusa is a flat bread, typically stuffed with beans, cheese, and pork, and finished off with a vibrant acidic slaw on top.
Sounds delicious, right?
I mean, it's the perfect, like, late night food.
VIVIAN: My inclination would be to put some of everything, but I know-- I know better.
PAUL: You can put more of the jalapenos, spinach, mushrooms in the back.
How long have you and your mom had this store?
PAUL SERRANO: '98.
She opened this place in '98.
- Wow.
- Yes.
- When did you come to America?
- 1980.
- 1980.
SARITA: Si.
- Nice.
(Sarita speaking Spanish) - They had political problems in Salvador, civil war.
- Yeah.
(Sarita speaking Spanish) - She was in university.
She was working.
She left everything.
- In San Salvador?
- Yeah, San Salvador, yes.
- San Salvador?
VIVIAN: This is my first pupusa ever.
- Top one is a pork, bean, and cheese, and the bottom is cactus and cheese.
♪ ♪ MARCUS: The relish on top, it's really, really nice.
What do you call this?
- It's called cortido.
- Cortido.
- Yeah and it cleans out the palate really nice.
VIVIAN: Yes, yes.
On the new show that we do, we do a pickle episode.
And, you know, you have either fermented pickles or vinegar pickles.
And, you know, they always kind of are the-- the texture and the palate-cleansing note.
And it's like, for me, it makes it.
And I love this cactus one, too.
MARCUS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(Paul Speaking Spanish) ♪ ♪ VIVIAN: On the subject of pickling, while traveling around North Carolina, I met with Chef Mike Lee and his family to learn how to ferment kimchi, a staple in Korean cuisine.
So you told me that you have a whole separate refrigerator for your kimchi, because you don't want to stink up the house.
MIKE LEE: Exactly.
It's out in the garage.
(Chuckling) And you can do it old-school style where you dig up the ground and stick it in there.
- I read that's traditional, that people would bury it.
- Yeah.
The underground, the temperature is always constant.
So, you know, back in the days, you know, we didn't have a refrigerator, so that's how they kept a consistent temperature for it to age.
Because if it got too hot and too cold, it would freeze, or if it was too warm, it would ferment too fast.
- In east North Carolina, they make collard kraut, and they do it right around thanksgiving.
- Mm-hmm.
- It's very much the same.
It's fermented.
And they make it outside.
It smells awful.
- The time to make kimchi was around winter, like right now.
And you would make enough for the rest of the year.
They gather multiple families and sit around in big circles and make kimchi.
- So this is Napa cabbage that you've quartered.
- Yep, quartered, heavily salted.
So you want them to wilt down, like this, so it's nice and pliable.
So when we actually make the kimchi, you know, it's easier to put the seasoning between each layer.
- Okay.
- We julienne the daikon, and we mix it with the sauce, a little bit at a time, and we would stuff it in between.
- Oh, so you stuff the daikon-- - Mm-hmm.
- --inside of the cabbage with the sauce.
- Mm-hmm, yeah.
Foundation or the base of the sauce, pepper powder, some rice, and you cook it, and you mix it, so it's like a milky porridge kind of thing.
- Okay - So we'll put some gloves on so we don't accidentally rub our eyes.
- Where do we go?
- On the floor.
- Oh.
- That's traditionally how we do it.
- Really?
Oh.
- I can get you a baby chair.
- I'm down here; now we have to do this.
- She said you cut it too thick.
(Laughter) - I did, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
- No, no, no.
Perfect square.
- It's just too big.
I'm so sorry.
(Mike speaking Korean) So, basically, the way you do it is you actually mix a little bit of the paste.
(Female Speaking Korean) MIKE: So you take one, and you start from the bottom, right?
Make sure you concentrate more flavor in the inside.
- Okay.
Because that is the thickest part, you've got to make sure that is heavily seasoned, more than the rest of it.
So, that's kind of like the art of making kimchi.
- And that's why it's so laborious.
- Yeah, yeah.
MARCUS: What I love about Grand Central Market, it's really a true intersection of old and new, both through its people, and through its diversity of its food.
That's why Vivian and I had to meet Margarita Manzke, a James Beard award nominated chef and co-owner of Sari Sari Store, and try a modern take on Filipino rice bowls.
I think, like, I learned a ton when we did the Filipino episode in Seattle, right?
So it's like Chinese is the base, Japanese influences, Spanish influences, and then a little bit, even like, almost like Mexican.
So it's all of that, shake, shake, shake, Filipino food... with vinegar on top.
I did a bad job trying to explain Filipino food-- - Okay.
- --and Filipino culture.
Help us.
Um, well, I think Filipino food is a little bit of a melting pot as well.
- Yeah.
There's Chinese influence-- - Yes.
- --there's Malaysian influence, there's a lot of Spanish influence, as we were colonized for almost 400 years.
VIVIAN: Are you from the Philippines?
- I am from the Philippines, yeah.
I was born there, immigrated here when I was, like, about 24 years old, so... - So, last week.
(Laughter) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Yeah.
- Oh, my god.
- Ha-ha, that's awesome.
♪ ♪ MARCUS: Did you know that the-- one of the biggest hubs of Filipinos is in Seattle, right?
I didn't know that before.
- I didn't know that.
- Really?
- And the food there is like such a vibrant food scene.
And the Filipino-- you know, you go from a lady that has been in a market, the big Seattle market, for over 40 years to a young couple that is opening this fine dining Filipino cuisine.
To really like be able to taste everything in between was amazing.
♪ ♪ AUNT LEILA: Hi, how are you?
MARCUS: How are you?
What are we serving today?
What do you we got today?
- Oh, my gosh, everything.
This is our famous salmon collar soup, sinigang.
- It looks good.
- Well, why don't you come over here and help me, then?
- Okay.
Aunt Leila is running this one-lady cooking counter with delicious Filipino food.
Everyone knows Aunt Leila.
How long have you been at the market?
- 47 years.
- And the market is 47 years, maybe.
(Laughter) ♪ ♪ AUNT LEILA: And the jalapenos.
- Yep.
With seeds or without seeds?
- Oh, no, we don't chop that.
Put the whole thing in there.
- So, the whole thing in.
- Yes.
Chop the onion, and then I'm going to have you do tomatoes.
- Hey, you're pretty good at that.
- You know what?
I cook in a kitchen every now and then, but not in a kitchen like this.
- What's wrong with my kitchen?
- No, I love this kitchen, I love it.
You have signs for everything.
♪ ♪ How did you end up in the market?
Like, how did this happen?
- Well, my mom started this in 1971.
This was all groceries and baskets.
Back then, Filipino food was not known.
And she said, "Do you want to open a little eatery back there where you could demonstrate some of our ingredients?"
But my mom doesn't cook.
So everybody thinks my mom taught me how to cook.
- Ha-ha-ha-ha.
- It was self-taught.
- Self-taught, wow.
- I taught myself.
Since you're standing on that side-- - Yeah.
- --can you mix my-- - Sausage?
- Yes.
- Sure.
- I have to call the fish market.
(Phone ringing) Hey, Ian, can you send my fish, please?
Right now, bye-bye.
- Oh, he heard that.
He's like, "Send me the damn fish, please."
- Yes.
They don't sell that to anybody else but me.
- Oh.
Is the market open every day?
- I work every day except December.
Oh, wow, okay.
(Jason speaking Tagalog) MARCUS: (Tagalog) I love that.
Thank you, Jason.
You cook from the market.
Like, truly, you like the market.
- I do.
I'm everybody's auntie.
- Yeah.
- And everybody comes over here, you know, and says, "Hey, what special stuff do you have back there?"
Sometimes I have the special in the back.
♪ ♪ VIVIAN: Back at the market in LA, we continue to learn from Chef Margarita Manzke and her crew about cooking Filipino food.
♪ ♪ - We make everything in house.
These chickens actually come whole.
We butcher it ourselves, breast for this dish.
We start off with some oil, little bit of garlic to sweat.
- I love the fried garlic on there.
- It's nice, right?
What I love about Filipino food is also, you-- we kind of understand flavor wise, but there's always a left turn that's a little bit different.
That coconut vinegar, that banana ketchup, the adobo.
VIVIAN: Look at that egg.
- Nice.
- That was a healthy chicken that laid that egg.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What--what sauce are we--are we putting a little vinegar on top?
What are we doing?
- Um, If you want a little chili in it, like hot sauce to make it a little spicy-- - We're going to eat it the way you-- --if not--nothing, we don't put anything on.
- The egg will be our sauce.
- Yeah, the egg will be the sauce.
♪ ♪ MARGARITA: Our next dish is going to be something like congee.
- Thai congee.
VIVIAN: Really?
- It's inspired from congee.
- Yeah.
- It's like a-- it's called arroz caldo.
Although it has a Spanish name, the influence is from the Chinese.
- Chinese.
- Oh, wow.
- Yeah, so, it's a rice porridge with chicken.
And it's what your mom makes for you when you're sick.
VIVIAN: Every culture has a porridge-- MARGARITA: Yeah.
VIVIAN: --for nursing a broken heart, or-- MARCUS: Yeah.
- --hangover or... hangover food.
MARCUS: That's beautiful.
MARGARITA: Yeah, that's it.
♪ ♪ VIVIAN: In Savannah, I met my friend, chef Mashama Bailey.
She runs The Grey, a restaurant housed in a former Greyhound Bus terminal from the 1930s.
And just like Marge from Sari Sari, grew up with rice porridge, Mashama and I grew up with our own version of porridge, grits.
MASHAMA: I just think the whole discovering of the food wave of Savannah is unlocked.
- Yeah, I don't know anything about-- - Yeah.
- I mean, we know about Charleston.
- We associate shrimp and grits with Charleston.
- Right.
- And we know about Appalachia.
- Right, right.
- We even know a fair amount about the panhandle of Florida.
- Right, right.
- And-- - But nothing about Savannah.
And it's so similar.
So it's not low country, it's the Golden Coast.
- Oh, is that what it's called?
- Oh, thanks, Charlotte.
All right, so these are some of the porridges that we use here.
- So this looks like traditional corn grits.
- Those are traditional yellow corn grits.
And we cook them with cream and butter.
- I can see the cream.
(Laughter) I can see that.
(Laughter) - We only use a little bit of cream.
- There's-- - We only use a little bit of water.
- You only use a little bit of grits is what you use a little bit of.
(Laughter) - Yeah, that's very true.
So--and then we have the nerve to put a piece of foie gras on top of it.
- And what's interesting is that porridge is, I think, you know, the most humble thing you can make.
- Mm-hmm.
- And you're pairing it with-- - The most expensive, over-privileged thing-- - Yes, exactly.
- --that you can possibly have.
- Exactly.
It's like a marriage of the highest and the lowest.
- And these are rice grits.
And we just got some first-season rose shrimp in.
- What would be the porridge of this region?
- Grits.
- Like corn grits?
- Corn grits.
- And it would be for breakfast, generally.
- Definitely.
So I'm--I didn't put grits on for a long time because we ate grits for breakfast when we grew up.
We never ate it for dinner.
- So you ate grits in-- - New York City.
- --in the Bronx.
- In the Bronx, uh-huh.
And in Queens, we ate grits for breakfast.
VIVIAN: So you know this mole place.
MARCUS: I do, and I love this place!
♪ ♪ We want to buy some mole.
Like tell us what-- what's a good mole?
How do we know the definition, what's a bad mole?
CLAUDIA ARMENDARIZ: All right, yeah, so-- VIVIAN: What is it?
CLAUDIA: Mole is a mixture of ingredients.
It's exactly what it means.
And there's chilies, there's nuts, seeds, different spices.
- Mm.
- And we have from three different regions.
- Puebla.
- Puebla, Oaxaca, and Guerrero.
- But mole's also, like, one of the most complex things you can do.
It takes time, like, you've got to pound the-- the seeds, you've got to pound the chilies, like-- - Yes.
- --it could be up to, what, 20 ingredients in a mole?
- Oh, yeah.
I've made mole before with my grandmother, and it's definitely a very long process.
- Wow.
- But it's a lot of fun because you get to play with it.
- Yeah.
- You be creative.
You can add whatever you want to it.
You can't go wrong with mole.
VIVIAN: Is it traditionally like a celebration sauce because it takes so much work to make?
- Yes... yes.
For my grandfather's birthday, every year, we would make mole because-- MARCUS: Nice.
- --it was such a big deal.
- Yeah.
- And that's probably the only time out of the year that we made mole.
- Yeah.
VIVIAN: What kind would he prefer?
- His favorite was the poblano.
- Okay, well, bring it.
We want to taste that.
- All right.
- This is grandpa's favorite, by the way, so be nice.
VIVIAN: Okay, Papa's.
MARCUS: We can't forget where we come from.
So much of immigrant culture here in America stems from the knowledge and the stories passed down from our parents and grandparents.
In the upcoming season of No Passport Required, I visit Philadelphia to make pasta by hand, pasta fatta a mano, with one of the most celebrated Italian American chefs, Mark Vetri, and his father, Sal.
MARK: My grandparents, they were from Sicily.
And they moved over here when my grandfather was 19, back in, like, 1920 or something.
It's a similar story from everybody, like there was no money to be made, so he stowed away, and he made it here.
And then they nailed him, and they sent him home.
And then he stowed away again, and then he made it here.
- Oh, they sent him back first?
- Oh, yeah.
- Oh, wow.
- They sent him back first, yeah.
- He was determined, he's like, "No, I'm not going back."
- He was determined, yeah.
So we used to have, like, the big family meals down there.
- Nice.
- You know, the old school, like south Philly meatballs-- - Yes.
- --lasagna and all that stuff.
- Making pasta from scratch, it's a lot of flour, and it can be quite messy.
So after a quick wardrobe change, we're back making meatballs and pasta with Mark's dad, Sal.
A lot of what Mark does today is rooted in his sense of tradition.
He remembers eating with his families, having these bigger meals.
This is kind of the glue to the Italian-American culture.
- Make some old-school meatballs.
- Okay.
So I can roll meatballs for you, then.
- Yeah.
SAL: You got it, here, roll it.
- A little bit of flour.
- So you come back and do staff meal every now and then, huh?
- Yeah, on Mondays, usually.
- What a treat.
Did you ever take Mark back to Italy?
Did you guys ever go back home?
- Yep.
- And where is home?
- Enna.
- Ooh.
That's a small town, right?
- Yes, right on top of the mountain.
- Right.
- It's the center point of Sicily.
- Yep.
And how was that?
MARK: I was 15, yeah.
- Yeah?
- It was, you know, pretty emotional, you know?
- Yeah.
- Because that was the first time you'd been back.
And that's the first time you saw like what your father was like-- - Sure.
- --running away from, you know?
You know, how he lived.
They had the-- - No hot water.
- No hot water.
They--nothing.
- Pretty humble, huh?
- Yeah, it was very humble.
- Well, they didn't-- didn't they live underneath, in like the-- - They lived in a cave.
- --the cave, basically.
- Wow.
That's amazing.
(Meatballs sizzling) ♪ ♪ VIVIAN: Whenever I go to a city or small town, I try to figure out like what is the dish that people immediately associate with that place.
- Yeah.
And, like, I was trying to think about LA, and, it's tacos, no?
- Well, it used to be salad with vinaigrette on the side.
- Right, right.
- But I would say tacos, definitely.
It's funny, like, we just had Filipino food, and you think about the chicken adobo in a taco would work perfectly.
- It would be great with that vinegar.
- Yeah.
- The tortilla's just such a perfect little cradle vessel for just about anything.
♪ ♪ MARCUS: What's up?
JUAN VALLE: Good, good, how are you?
VIVIAN: Oh, my gosh, Look at all the meat in it.
MARCUS: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
What is this?
What is this?
JUAN: We brought an assortment.
These are like some of the house favorites.
Well, we brought one how eat it, and then three that are, like, house favorites.
VIVIAN: How do you eat it?
You eat it like that?
- The one that we eat is this one, which is maciza buche.
MARCUS: So this is what we just ate?
- And chicharone, right here, this one.
VIVIAN: That's what I like, the crunchy.
- Yeah.
So, yeah, but we like--so this is what we make for lunch.
MARCUS: Where did you learn this?
(Juan speaking Spanish) - Michoacan.
- So this is from Michoacan.
We make it a little more special from other-- you know, you can find carnitas almost anywhere else.
This is actually the grandma's recipe from the owner.
It's about, like, some 80-years old, so it's been passed down from at least two generations.
And then they brought it over here, and they didn't switch a thing about it.
VIVIAN: Oh, really.
JUAN: Yeah, so it's almost like confit, so it's like-- you know, they-- - Yeah.
- --confit that cooks in its own fat.
So some people here, they make it, they'll use water or, like, water it down.
VIVIAN: Where I come from, we make--we call them pork cracklings, but basically, we take all the skin and little bits-- - Yeah.
- --and cook it really slowly-- - Yeah.
--in a pot outside.
And, yeah, it's like duck cracklings and duck confit.
I mean, this is so good.
♪ ♪ MARCUS: From taco stands amongst glitz and glamour of Los Angeles... to the rice plantations of the South, rooted in American history.
This country is the juxtaposition of so many cultures coming together to tell their own American story.
VIVIAN: Join us for the ride as we uncover these stories on Marcus' upcoming season of No Passport Required, and my brand-new show, Somewhere South.
MARCUS: Right here on PBS.
♪ ♪ ♪ ♪
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