Importance of a “melting pot”

I live in a four story dormitory with students from all across the world. My roommate, Ulga, is from Russia. There are other students from not only Asia, but Europe and Latin America. The majority of the foreign exchange students are from the United States. I meet people from all over our country, from Florida to Ohio to California, and even one from Hawaii.

We all speak English as either a first or second language fluently, and so communication is easy. It may not be the Japanese practice that other students crave, but there is something very special about sharing your space in one giant melting pot. What I mean by the term “melting pot” is both a literal and metaphorical sense.

At the Kansai Gaidai University we do not have meal plans like we do back home. There is a cafeteria on campus, but in the morning and in the evening we use the single kitchen in our dormitory. There we are expected to fend for ourselves, at times squeezing as many as twenty people at a time around the multiple sinks, stove tops, microwaves, and rice cookers.

Each of us has our own kitchen box and a key to lock up our utensils, bowls and un-refrigerated food. Anything that requires a refrigerator we stuff into refrigerators labeled by room number. Without a pen to mark my milk and eggs, I am already having difficulty remember what belongs to whom.

Around five o’clock every evening we filter into the kitchen, as we are all on the exact same eating schedule. By now we know everyone’s face, and so we exchange pleasant conversation while we wash rice or prepare yakisoba or chop vegetables.
The majority of us buy groceries from a store down the street—about a ten minute walk from where we are. Some of us know Japanese well enough to get by, grocery shopping resembles more along the lines of a guessing game. What looks and feels to me like a potato is usually a potato, while mysterious boxed-food can appear to be kidney beans and somehow turn into sweetened red bean paste.

We are learning to shop by smell and what little we know of cooking at home. There is no relying on easy solution mac n’ cheese. Most of us are experimenting, popping whatever sounds good into a pot and hoping it turns out edible. Personally, I am 3-2, and barely winning against the mysterious Japanese food.

Still, I feel like a real cook. I am adding spices, washing and cutting fresh vegetables, using my imagination when usually I only had to open a box and press a microwave timer. My mother would be proud of how far I’ve come in only two weeks.

More importantly than eating (and food is extremely important), I am finding that the kitchen is one of my favorite places to learn from other cultures. We are comparing recipes, sharing stories, and genuinely talking to each other. Rice takes at least 30 minutes to cook, and so really we have no choice but to pass the time.

People I barely know are asking me about my homework and complimenting how I look that day. I am being offered delicious curry when my newest experimentation finds its way into the trash. We are forming a global community within our dormitory.

Perhaps this is an example the entire world should consider: the way to a culture’s heart is through its stomach. People have different ways of cooking and it may not be to your liking, but you at least have to respect them for feeding themselves. That alone is impressive, especially when you consider how easy it is to ruin perfectly good rice with just a tad too much salt. Maybe tomorrow’s experiment will turn out a little better.

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Curry Recipe

Ingredients: ½ onion, ½ bunch broccoli, 1 large carrot, 1 potato, ½ lb. chicken, ½ cup milk, salt, curry bars (ranges from mild to spicy), 1 cup rice

Instructions: Cook 1 cup of rice with 1 cup of water in a rice cooker, and let cook 30-45 minutes. Cut up each vegetable separately and mix with desired amount of salt so that they are covered, but not heavily*. Boil these in a covered pot on the stove. Meanwhile, soak chicken in milk before draining and cooking in a skillet. When fully cooked, add to the boiling vegetables. Leaving water in the pot, add desired amount of curry. Keep in mind that left-over curry will become thicker and spicier, so be careful not to add too much curry in the first batch. Let this cook until it turns into a soup consistency. Pour over your bowl of rice and enjoy!

*You can also try adding ½ of a grated apple to give the curry a sweeter taste.