Jan Wong: Making the Most of Travel, Food and Family

Travelling to an unknown place and trying out a new cuisine is the utmost leisure that everyone dreams of. And to be able to do that with your family would be a cherry on the cake. A combination of these three factors most often results in an unforgettable journey whose aftereffects either completely change the way you look at life or it remains with you life-long as memories. And this is exactly how things worked out for an award-winning journalist and Canadian author.

Colorful Boat Ride

Italian Street

Jan Wong, along with her 22 year old son and an aspiring chef, Sam, after making endless attempts to convince him and closing the deal by making everything free of cost to him, set out for a three month journey through France, Italy and China to discover how globalisation has affected the local food and home-style cooking techniques. As said by Rumi, “Travel brings power and love back into your life”, she wanted to rejuvenate their mother-son bond which according to her is quite different than a mother-daughter or a father-son relation and was soon going to change according to priorities once her son starts his own family. Therefore the trip was also meant to remove the fear of separation of a mother from her child by spending some quality time with him.

In the book, Apron Strings- Navigating Food and Family in France, Italy and China, Jan Wong describes how much she is interested in food culture and got to know the way life of people and their work revolves around food, even at a global level as she somehow ensured to stay with the families instead of hotels and cooked with them. She penned down food tips learnt from the locals which are surely beneficial for finessing foodies.

Pasta Pesto

Caprese

She talks about how people in Italy admire their food culture that even adult children come home for meals and the entire family sits together. She says she loves Italy and calls it as a cuisine of poor as one can easily cook it out of nothing, is very simple than being fancy and is still delicious. She was also a keen observer of their cooking techniques and that she mentions how they cut their raw veggies directly into the pot which reminds of old methods. At France, she lived with a family which helped refugees and immigrants with no proper documents, so she could see how the people were dealing with globalization. Since she was familiar with China and had worked there as a correspondent, she could easily make out the differences between the earlier and modern China, she could realise the class difference between newly rich families and their maids. But along with this, her entire journey covers 267 extensive meals.

Jan Wong’s book is a perfect amalgam of food and travel. It talks about several tiny tactics of food preparation which one may not find in a multi-star restaurant. While she dwells between traditional and modern food cultures, she also tells why it is necessary to prioritise family over work sometimes.