Hi, welcome back to Eat Your Crust Podcast. I'm Crystal.
I'm Jisoo. And I'm Sunny.
I don't know if it comes across very obviously, but actually on this podcast, we are huge food lovers.
And so this week's episode, we wanted to talk more about food.
We thought it would be really fun to talk about kind of like our relationship with food in the household versus we've talked about eating out before and like our experiences with that.
But I think there's a whole different world of how you interact with food or like what kind of food you eat, what you cook, etc. when you look inside the household.
So I guess a question to start us off would be what What kind of food did you grow up eating a lot of?
Maybe the main cuisine or what was like your favorite dish maybe that your parents made for you?
So I grew up eating a lot of Korean food at home.
I would say that it was the main cuisine that we ate.
A Korean traditional like dinner plate in our household would look like a bowl of rice, usually white rice, a lot of different side dishes.
So we always had at least like two pickled side dishes on the table.
And then there would be like a meat dish and maybe some sort of like vegetable dish steamed or something like that.
But I do distinctively remember we would have themed nights.
You know how like a lot of American people have like Taco Tuesday or something.
So like for us, one of our special meals would be like baked potato night.
Oh my God. So then my mom would bake a bunch of like russet potatoes and then we would put sour cream and cheese, butter, green onions and like bacon bits on it.
And then another themed dinner would be like spaghetti.
spaghetti so my mom would put you know like store -bought marinara sauce onto spaghetti and then we would put like American cheese slices on it oh my god that's so American of you right and then I guess occasionally we would have steak too non -Korean cuisine was like the specialty or like an exciting night and Korean was like the default that's funny because I feel like our household was kind of the same I would say at home on weekdays we usually had Chinese dishes is paired with rice.
Everyone would have their own bowl of rice and then we would share like three main dishes of either meats or veggies.
But we would also occasionally have like random, more Americanized, I would say meals mixed in.
One of my mom's specialties I feel like was baby back ribs.
So randomly we would have that for dinner or like maybe a weekend lunch. And then then we would also sometimes have like pasta or salad and things like that so it was very interesting but i would say primarily raised eating like chinese food at home yeah i think i'm very similar to you all as well bowl of rice shared veggies slash like meat or fish dishes or soups occasionally we would have like spaghetti i think that was just the easiest american dish like to learn to cook you know all of that it's not fancy like italian style it's just american style you know it was always exciting to eat american food
because sometimes it was like oh this is what other people eat or it was just like very different a nice break from what we're so used to and i think also it's just maybe like more palatable for kids you know how kids love of like chicken nuggets and like like easy to eat stuff so I think that was another part of it also we would sometimes eat like craft dinner the mac and cheese oh yeah dang I'm trying to remember if my parents liked mac and cheese I think for us the instant food go -to is always like Korean ramen my mom would make a bunch in a pot I still don't know how she does it but she makes
their ramen really al dente so then it tastes really good like the mouthfeel is really good and I try to recreate it to this day and I have no idea how she does it it's funny that Sunny you said that your mom had specialties and that's kind of how I see my parents cooking too like my dad's specialty is brunch he can do like french toast and like scrambled eggs and omelets and stuff but I've never seen him make any dish outside of like brunch breakfast I'm like dude dude, you do this so well.
Like maybe you should venture out into other food.
Crystal, when you brought up eating more American dishes and feeling like you're eating stuff that other kids were eating, that reminded me of school lunch and also the few times we would go out to our regular rotation of restaurants.
I think one of the household staples was this restaurant called Sweet Tomatoes that no longer exists, sadly.
But I think if If you're raised on the West Coast, specifically in like California, I feel like this was a very common place for people to bring their families because it was super affordable and it was kind of like buffet style focused on salads and soups.
And I feel like it was such a treat for us to go and the kids would just get the same few things.
Like you would get like no salad, just get a bunch of soup, which was usually like chicken noodle soup or clam chowder.
And then I would always always love their blueberry muffins and I would like peel the top off and just eat like the crispy bit and then they also always had like three pastas on rotation I feel like the other kids loved mac and cheese and I would usually eat like the spaghetti or something and then just like finish off with ice cream and I feel like that was such a treat for us and it was like very similar to the chicken nuggets or like pizza nachos and whatever else they serve in elementary school and those were like the occasional meals that I would only ever get outside of home yeah yeah maybe
that's why like it always felt so special because it was like oh this is out of the norm this is not the easiest thing to get not that it was like hard to obtain but it's just that like it's not what our parents are comfortable making maybe yeah yeah and I feel like eating out with family felt so special I mean it's still like is a very nice and fun activity to do but I feel like as an adult making my own money if I want to go out and eat out I can and I will but as a kid you're kind of like subject to what your parents want to do that day in the area that I grew up there used to be this restaurant
called elephant bar and that was like you know to me it felt very like luxurious like we're rich we're spending money today we would go and get like deep fried chili shrimp and you know other like Asian fusion dishes and I would be like this is like the best day ever dude we had elephant bar too yes I remember sometimes people would have their birthdays there and we were like wow this is like so fancy like what a grandiose meal right dude did that place disappear is it gone now ours is gone ours is definitely gone I do want to ask you guys about I guess the nutritional aspect of eating with your
family because now that I am trying to observe my health I feel like I care a lot about like oh how much protein does this thing have or like is this thing high in carbs or you know just like checking general macro levels even if it's not in depth knowing like okay these foods are kind of healthy these foods are not and looking back at the meals that you would have with your family how would you rate them on like a nutritional scale?
Do you think they were very healthy or are you kind of like, we didn't eat much protein back then?
Surprisingly, I would say I grew up with a borderline almond mom.
Like she was very into just like nutritional meals and being like fairly health conscious.
So I feel like I was always raised to eat a lot of different types of foods, especially like meats and veggies, like be kind open -minded there.
And I think she cooked a pretty wide variety of vegetables.
There were definitely certain limitations in the house.
I think they loosened up the older I got.
But definitely when I was really young, I remember in early elementary school, a common breakfast item was cereal, milk and cereal.
And I feel like all of my classmates and what I would see on the shelves were like lucky charms cookie crisps cinnamon toast crunch and I remember my parents never buying that for our household we would usually buy like low sugar or no sugar cereal so like corn flakes or Cheerios so I feel like I was raised with like that kind of level of awareness that like oh you shouldn't really have these but I think I like the way that they like slowly slowly introduced them as I got older.
So I knew, like, you can have them within reason, but try to have more of a balanced diet and more of a balanced approach to eating.
And I think one thing that they cared more about was just, like, not having a ton of food waste.
The concept of leftovers was, like, very much ingrained.
Like, if we didn't finish a certain dish, we'd probably see it the next day.
So it was very common in our household to, like, keep the dish in the fridge, reheat it the next day if it wasn't finished so I think that's a habit that I've definitely carried over into adulthood too dude did you ever get honey bunches of oats for cereal I feel like that was such a treat I think my parents only bought that like once or twice dang I feel like that was like a childhood favorite for so many people dude yeah my parents I think they were still figuring out like what cereal would be like not overly sugary but like you know not too plain I guess to the point where we would complain so at some
point they ended up on honey bunches of oats and then me and my brother loved it we're like dude this cereal is so good it is good objectively how are you crystal how would you rate your parents meals growing up honestly they're like pretty balanced i've noticed as i've gotten older and like helped more in the kitchen or just like observed my mom cook more that she's always thinking like oh we need to have at least one like veggie dish and one like protein dish you know just to make sure we're getting whatever we need our energy and stuff but yeah i think she doesn't think of it too too complicated,
is pretty much that, like, veggies, protein, and some rice, if anyone wants.
There was this other meal that I loved to have when I was a kid, which is just, like, ramen, honestly.
Me and my brother, I remember we would, like, chant when my mom was, like, when she's like, oh, today, like, I'm tired, we're just gonna eat ramen.
And then my brother were like dude ramen yes like that was your chant no it was it was like in Chinese it's called like so we'd be like something like that so cute but like my mom hated serving that to us because she felt like it was pretty lazy and like not the healthiest meal and she knew that we loved it so she was like if I serve it to them too much they'll always want it and it's just like unhealthy healthy to always eat that.
Unfortunately, that meant more work for her to like, you know, keep cooking these relatively healthy meals.
It's sort of interesting for me when I look back at the meals that I used to eat with my family, because in the way that I think of health and like meals and nutrition as an American, I think it's kind of a different approach than like how like an older generation or, you know, parents who immigrated from Asia would view nutrition and because I would think okay protein veggie kind of like what you were saying crystal try to like think of the general like holistic view but then if I think back to the things that my parents would say about food it would be like oh let's eat fish it's healthy because it's
really high in like omega -3s and like dha and you know like very specific and like niche things that make food healthy and not just like the general categories that it lives in so I do think that I grew up eating a balanced diet and my parents were pretty lax about like if we crave something one day let's eat it but in like the total view I felt like the foods that they were choosing to make were always healthy just not in the ways that I would like think of it or define it today now that I think about it though there was probably some sacrifice that our parents made because I think low -key my
because like then no one has to cook everyone's gonna enjoy the meal and it's like pretty quick and easy but deep down my parents knew it wasn't the healthiest meal it wasn't a regular thing like my dad loves big macs so like going to get mcdonald's is always very exciting but of course they kept in mind it was like oh we have like growing children we can't always give in to every single craving but you know once in a while is nice kind of like what you said jisoo do dude speaking of growing children did your parents like forced dairy upon you when you were young absolutely i drank a glass of milk
every day growing up which is probably why i'm tall i mean it could also be many other reasons like genetics but i didn't realize like that wasn't a thing for everyone because i also have a lot of friends who grew up drinking milk every day and I feel like it was just such a common thing for our generation and I think I only stopped doing that maybe in like high school kind of crazy we even got milk for like our lunches didn't we yes yeah I don't know if you guys had this but in elementary school instead of like getting school lunches everyone had to to bring their own lunch but we could put in a milk
order so it was like every day you get milk oh it's so interesting and you pay like 100 bucks for the quarter or something or i mean that seems expensive so it was probably cheaper than that but yeah it was like you could choose either chocolate milk or regular milk oh my god wait did it come in bags because canada you guys drink like milk in bags right okay the bagged milk thing is bagged milk is instead of carton big carton of milk it's a big bag of milk and then you like cut the corner and you put it in the bag holder and then you pour it out like a carton almost but like the milk that we got
at school was just like a small carton and it was like daily delivery at lunchtime milk's here then we get our milk that's so cute dude i like hated milk so much growing up so whenever i mean usually my mom would pack my lunch but some days like i would go and like buy school lunch and then when it came with the carton of milk i would always throw it away or like give it to someone i think when i was younger i was like more sensitive to like smell certain tastes the smell of milk or creamy things like cream of mushroom soup it would literally make me like like gag and like start to throw up so then
i like hated drinking milk and the only way my parents would get me to drink milk was to put nesquik in it because when you put nesquik in milk i'm sure you guys know this but not everything dissolves so then you get these like little crunchy bits in the milk and that texture like i would crave it so much so then that was like the only way that i got in all of my dairy nutrients so funny for some reason i think around junior high i started started to like not love milk so the only way I would drink it was yeah with Nesquik but I didn't like those crunchy bits what I was like fighting for my life
trying to squish the crunchy bits out so that everything dissolved so that it was fully chocolate milk damn but then eventually I gave up so I was like mom dad I'm quitting milk and they're like okay then you lived a post -milk life yeah were you a chocolate milk or regular milk person sunny I was just gonna say I feel like I was the only kid who did not like chocolate milk like you know how when you go on the lunch line and then they have the cartons of like regular versus chocolate milk I always pick the regular milk and I feel like every time I tried like my friends or maybe my parents tried
to buy it once or twice but I think I just like never liked it but I also don't really like chocolate in general So that checks out.
I wonder if it's because your mom was pretty health conscious in the household.
Well, I guess this is a bigger question.
Did you guys have snacks in the household?
Yeah, that's a great question.
So we did have snacks, but I would say they were fairly healthy, but then there would be like randomly unhealthy stuff mixed in.
So it's really hard to say, I think growing up, do you remember those like tubes of chips?
Those were really popular.
They had like those Cheetos Asteroids.
And they also had like Lay's Stacks.
Right. So my parents would, I think primarily my mom, she would buy those.
But I think the rest of our snacks tended to be like rice crackers that you could buy from like an Asian grocery store, which I think are a little bit healthier than like just chips.
Yeah. And I think we were raised eating a lot of fruit for snacks too.
If we would come home from school, our snack would sometimes be like, yeah, some fruits and then maybe some pantry snacks but it was never like there were some things that were specifically kind of off limits or I never saw my parents buy like Oreos which I think were like really popular and then I don't think we would ever get like just bags of candy so I feel like when classmates or like other friends at school had them I definitely just like took a few and such a treat so no one not a ton of unhealthy snacks but what was interesting was like crystal you earlier you mentioned like your parents
would sometimes get fast food and i feel like fast food was actually like occasionally allowed in our household too maybe in the summer after like a swimming lesson we would like just go to the mcdonald's drive -thru and my parents were like very open to getting mcdonald's and burger king and i wonder if it's because like as an immigrant this is their first time experiencing like American fast food too so it's like maybe also a treat for them so true I don't know it was really interesting oh my god did you have the like haw flakes snack yes I was gonna say I feel like there are like a few staple
snacks that can be bought like at Asian grocery stores that we always had in the pantry and yes haw flakes like they're this teeny tiny little like paper -wrapped circular round flat snack that is made from like like the Hawthorne, right?
Something like that, like Hawthorne berry or something.
Yeah, and they were really tasty.
I actually think it's like mostly sugar, which is just like disguised as like - Fruit.
It's a fruit. Yeah, like disguised as like dried fruit or something.
Dude, yeah, we always had that as well.
I think it was just like a really cheap and easy like sweet snack to give kids that didn't feel too guilty about like giving it to them.
But I remember we had so much of it that at one point i was like dude like can we get something new i think i would try to trade that snack with other people at like chinese school oh my gosh what about like ice cream did you guys have those pints of ice cream in your freezer or maybe like ice cream bars so for our family yeah ice cream was very much a thing we would have pipes i feel like my parents really really liked Haagen -Dazs.
And I think for kids, we were into ice cream, but we were also really into like popsicles.
Like I feel like it was so fun to just like eat as a kid.
So we would always have like those fruit bars.
And I particularly like like the strawberry one.
But yeah, I think ice cream was allowed. I wouldn't say we had it every day or anything, but it was definitely like a treat for us.
And I feel like it was regularly stocked in our freezer.
I feel like I'm now realizing i'm like we had healthy habits for like most of our main like recurring meals like dinners and lunches but then i think we had some sprinkled in treats here and there so it wasn't completely health only things are in moderation but but ice cream is a lot yeah but ice cream is a yes ice cream and fast food are a yes ice cream must have been one of your parents weaknesses illnesses true yeah to this day they always still have ice cream in the freezer you could be right I think actually what's funny about ice cream is when I was younger I think we had it stocked a little
less often than we have it stocked now now whenever I go home my mom's like dude Crystal I just bought hella ice cream like help yourself like popsicles like pint of ice ice cream like it's all there i'm like okay but when i was younger i think it was a little more spark like spaced out sometimes we didn't have it sometimes it would be like a nice treat and they like buy a box of popsicles or something but yeah my dad loves ice cream dude he goes through like three or four popsicles in like one sitting holy dude i know it's insane my mom's was always like crystal don't tell dad yet but i got popsicles
or like i got ice cream so like you should you should eat some now before he finds out and like it all disappears oh my god you know actually that's a good point because my parents are also big ice cream lovers i think in general my mom has a weakness for snacking so then whenever we went grocery shopping she would come back with like one or two snacks for herself one or two snacks for me and it would just be like a part of what we do when we like watch TV or hang out or something.
For ice cream specifically like my parents have very different styles of ice cream that they would like and low -key I think it's like strategic in a sense because my mom would buy red bean ice cream which she knows my dad won't touch and then she'll buy my dad his caramel ice cream bars that she doesn't like and then she would buy me like whatever uh soda flavored like popsicle or something so then we we would each have like our own little bags of ice cream pops in the freezer and we were all just like one happy family.
Like there was no competition, you know?
Wow, the concept of like not having to share.
It's crazy. Oh my god, so true.
Because Sunny has two siblings.
You know, in a perfect world, I think that could work with my family too, except except low -key my dad just eats anything like sometimes he eats a bunch of stuff and he's just like i don't even know what i ate but like it was lit and we're like dude during covid i was living with my parents and i think i had bought like a six pack of like some random fancy craft beer or something and then my dad was like he just like took one one day and he was like oh there's just beer here and he started drinking it and then he like you know over the course of whatever a couple weeks or whatever he ended up
drinking a decent amount of it and then i was like wait like what's happening to this beer that i bought and he was like oh i've been drinking it because like i like beer i was like oh did you like it it's like kind of fancy and he was like wait what it just tastes like beer and i was like oh my god and then i was like okay hey you know what like maybe you should go drink like Bud Light or something like so I would buy like a decoy beer that was like just you know whatever the label just says beer on it like some basic thing right and then like the craft beers I would try to hide to the back of the fridge
that kind of reminds me were there certain roles in the the family where like someone would eat all the leftovers or someone would be responsible for eating certain parts of a dish that maybe you as a kid wouldn't eat like how did you all approach that growing up dude I actually had a really funny role when I was younger and I think it's because with our baby teeth sometimes it's like harder to chew stuff I guess I was just like dude I love love fat like the fat on meats and stuff like that if you think about it it makes sense it's like you know it's really fatty it's like really flavorful and it's
easy to chew right so my parents were like dude perfect that is so easy like just give crystal all the like fat parts of the meat and we can get all the lean parts you know like not as fattening I guess and it was great for a while but then as I got older I guess like my palate changed a bit and I was like okay low -key I don't really like these fat parts anymore but I don't know how to break it to my family you're like I don't want to disappoint them but eventually I voiced out my uh my change in appetite and they were like damn what are we gonna do with all these fat bits now there was definitely
a long phase where I was just devouring everyone's like unwanted parts of the meal I feel like every household has and needs some sort of person like that for us our family was obviously very small because I'm an only child if there were any leftovers at the table my dad would eat it but the funny part is my parents have very different approaches to like like how they want a dinner to go.
So my mom is kind of like maybe normal to quick speed of an eater.
And my dad is a very slow eater.
Like he wants to eat European, like Spanish style, you know, with like four hour dinners, like sipping wine, like chatting, talking to everyone around the dinner table.
So then my mom would eat in like 20 minutes and then just like sit there and be like, I don't want to talk anymore.
Like, can you hurry up?
And then my dad would sit for next three hours.
You know, as he's talking, me and my mom were just kind of like sitting there.
So we would like eat a little bit of the food.
And then at the end, my dad would be like, oh, there's no more food left on the table.
And then he would just like finish all the like scraps of each dish.
I think like, over the years, and especially since I don't live with them anymore, like we don't do as long of a dinner.
And I noticed that my dad has started eating quicker.
quicker but when I go to eat dinners with like James's family for example I notice that I'm the slow eater and I'm the one who like talks more and I'm like oh my god this is like passed down to me and I want to tell people like guys trust me in my household I'm on the faster side that's funny you're right though like James is a really fast eater so I imagine at home they're probably like wolfing down their food and then you're like do we not just start eating i'm just like impressed i'm like how are you guys talking and then also eating like at the same time in the same breath like for me it's
like two separate actions how about you sunny do you have a specific role in your family i would say not really but it's It's funny that you talk about like speed of eating, because I feel like as a family, we would always sit down at the table to eat together like every night.
That was like very much a thing.
But I do think that it was not an hour or multi hour event.
It was just like something to do on the checklist. It was like everyone sit down, eat your meal.
We as kids didn't have to like clean up too much. It was just like put your stuff in the sink and then other people will do the rest of the cleaning.
evening so i would say we also ate fairly quickly and then just like had short conversations and then just uh called it a day there wasn't anything in particular i was like responsible for but i would say my dad similarly was the one to eat all of the things that no one else wanted to eat and he embraced that role okay but did you and your siblings fight over food were you like oh god i need to like hurry up and scoop half of this dish into my plate or bowl before someone one else gets all of it you know that's interesting that you ask because I don't remember ever feeling that way during like
dinner but I definitely felt that way about snacks like that was a very common thing in the household like fighting over snacks something I remember in particular is again when my mom would buy those just like either bags of chips or like the lay stacks even just like rice crackers anything like that my brothers would do this thing where they would eat 90 of the container and leave me like two chips and then just like wrap it wrap it back up and like put a rubber band on it but you would never know especially in like those tubes right until you open it so i would like go and get a snack and i
would like open the pantry take out the tube and i would look inside and there would be literally like a chip and a half and I would lose my mind every time I feel like I have had like many tantrums over this oh my god so not fighting over food at the dinner table but definitely fighting over snacks dude I'm so fucked up I would also lose my mind oh my god did you and Max over fight over food at the dinner table I don't know if Max was was an active participant but I think I was fighting a little bit.
It's a one -sided beat.
You're creating problems for yourself.
I think like I really like tofu skin and so sometimes like that would be in one of the dishes and I would literally like just pick those out and my mom was like dude what the fuck are you doing?
And I don't think my brother was like very worried but I was out here trying trying to pick them all out into my bowl.
That's so funny. I feel like as an only child, I don't have much experience fighting over stuff.
But there was this one thing where there's this soup called cheonggukjang.
It's basically like soybean soup, but extra fermented.
So it's a little stinky.
And then the way that my family likes to eat it is the soybeans are intact.
So like it's in the soup kind of like settling at the bottom.
That's like my favorite part of cheonggukjang.
So every time my mom would make it, I would like scoop all the beans out.
then when I was like in high school like early high school or something I found out that my dad also likes that and when I'm not there he's the one who eats all the beans like my mom like let it slip one day like oh so funny that you and your dad both like to eat the Cheonggukjang beans and I was like what are you talking about like I thought this was just my thing she was like no your dad also likes it then after I found that out I was like okay I should like share so then we like half happened but it was literally not until i was like 15 where i like realized he also liked it oh my god that's
how considerate he is of you he's like my child can have it i don't need it that's so cute i'm just imagining like young jisu scooping out a bunch of beans and her dad looking at them a little sadly but he's like yeah you should eat them he's like those Those were mine.
Well, I guess beans aside, I do want to ask you guys, do you feel like your parents ever went through phases, whether it was with like household dinner habits, watching TV with dinner, for example, or whether it was like actual food related stuff, like a salad phase or a no white rice phase?
Like, do you remember any phases like that?
that i did have a phase where we watched tv at the dinner table my dad even set up a tv at the end of the dinner table so they would watch a bunch of like chinese shows and i would just get absorbed into it too but then after a while they were like ah forget it they just like removed the tv and we went back to normal dinners i'm trying to think about specific phases we had so I can't think of phases with dishes necessarily but there was a phase where we didn't have a microwave which is kind of funny it was like an anti -microwave phase or something I think I think what really happened was our microwave
was really old and then we just like didn't bother to replace it so we would reheat everything in either like the convection oven or just over the stove which which was kind of wild.
I distinctly remember trying to make hot chocolate, heating my milk on the stove and just like mixing it so a little like layer wouldn't form on top.
So I think it was primarily because number one, our microwave was just too old.
But also I feel like maybe my parents or specifically my mom read online that like microwaves aren't like good for your health.
So there were like a couple years in our life that we just never had microwaved food.
It was kind of wild.
Damn. I feel like that would double the amount of dishes to do.
Especially pots and pans, which are annoying to clean.
Totally. I could never.
Dude. Yeah, that's crazy.
I think our family also had, like, a TV phase.
We would, like, watch a bunch of shows during dinner.
And then I just remember one day I noticed, like, our little laptop that we use as, like, a fake TV at the end of the table wasn't there.
and i was like oh how come we're not watching you know the saturday show today and my dad was like yeah like i read online that it's supposed to be better if you don't watch tv while you eat so we're not going to do that anymore and i was like devastated i was like no then we ate dinner and it just felt so empty without the tv because we had like our daily shows too that we like to watch literally the next week on that saturday the tv was back and we're like oh thank god it's like a short -lived face that's so funny oh my god wait my family also had this really funny phase dude one summer my brother
and i found this game that our parents used to play some like online rpg game kind of like world of warcraft -esque he got like the entire family to to start playing it and we all became like addicted to it so then we would just order taco bell for our meals wait we literally became like degenerates for a month okay actually i don't know if it was as long as a month but it was like definitely a week or two yeah and it would be like oh shit it's meal time and my dad would be like i'm gonna drive to the taco bell down the street and get a a bunch of bean and cheese yeah it was pretty crazy that's
amazing i love that honestly but the funniest part is that my mom told me recently she was like your brother max told me that those were like his favorite memories of our family of all time and i was like dude that is so touching yeah you're like you mean that period where we didn't talk to each other and didn't look at each other during the wait no but we would play the game together like we would raid together and like boss run together that's crazy yeah I remember I was so shocked because I was like damn we're gonna eat taco bell every day and you guys love taco bell too I love that and I feel
like you're like in a way carrying that torch you know with you i feel like i could still see you doing that for sure never turn down some taco bill this is kind of random but did you guys grow up eating dinner at your dining table or did you eat it somewhere else in your house i only ask because we had like a formal dining room with like you know the big wooden dining table but we also had this little like bar area it was like a kitchen island kind of thing and then there were bar stools and I guess because it was closer to the kitchen we would always eat there and the only time we sat at the dining
table was when people would come over later I was like isn't that kind of weird like why did we buy this entire dining table only for it to be untouched most of the year we actually have kind of a similar setup up so we had like the formal dining room and dining table that we would only ever use if people were coming over but on a regular basis we had like this smaller dining table that was closer to the kitchen and that's where we would I guess it's technically still an official dining table but we'd never use like the large nicer one we just use like the day -to -day one that seats like only my
family. No more than five people, truly.
Dude, that's crazy.
Same thing. I also had the kitchen island bar area that we would always eat on.
But I think my parents started to think similarly to you, Jisoo, where they were like, okay, wait, we literally have this bigger dining table outside.
Why don't we just use it?
So one day they cleaned it up, set the table.
after that we ate on the formal table we still do now as well so for us i'm realizing now that we also used to eat on the coffee table a lot and i don't know if this is a korean thing or something but when i would go back to korea to visit my family and we all like met up at my grandma's house to eat we would set up this like a lower korean table called a sang and then we would all all just sit like crisscross applesauce around the little sang and just eat on the ground.
I carry that habit with me to this day.
I still like to eat at my coffee table and like sit crisscross applesauce.
And it's just like comforting to me.
But I realized that if maybe if you didn't grow up doing it, it's really uncomfortable because James will start to have like knee problems or like knee pain or something.
So now when we do that, he takes like our little stool and like sits on it.
kind of like hunched over that I'm just like happily sitting crisscross applesauce on the ground wait so you guys don't eat at your dining table I would say it's like 50 50 how about you Sunny like do you eat at a dining table nowadays or at like the coffee table or a bar or whatever I'm 50 50 kind of like Jisoo I feel like if the meal is a little more involved evolved and could be messy then i think we'll eat at the dining table but if there's like a show we're trying to watch or like a game or anything we'll usually eat at the coffee table and it's really funny i will sit on the ground because i
just like want my table to be at this level like i don't want to sit on the sofa and then bend over to eat right but jim will sit on the sofa and bend over to eat while i'm sitting on the ground so we have a similar setup to like jisoo and james he's like hunched over yes literally we both have back problems but different kinds different different parts of the back probably oh my god okay i'm similar i i love eating at the coffee table especially if it's just me then i can like watch tv or have something in the background but i do have like a more formal dinner table and yeah if it's like more
elevated or there's like more pieces to the dinner I guess then I'll set it up on that but dude so this was a problem for me too I was like shoot if I eat on the coffee table then I have to like I usually end up sitting on the ground and I was thinking like that's such a waste of my couch so what I did was I changed out my coffee table for one of those with a lift top so now I can sit on the couch and eat on the coffee table and lift it up honestly genius the one that I got not only can it lift up once it lifts up you can actually extend it it's like a it's already folded over so you can unfold
it into a bigger like surface area so if I had a more complex dinner I could set it up on the like maximum extension dude you're like like making spring rolls on your pocket table but it's truly been a game changer but I think my ideal is like if I just had an island with bar seating I think that's my ideal day -to -day seating probably dude something about the dining table feels so formal like I feel like I should tuck a napkin into my collar or something do you think okay actually are your dining tables round round or like rectangles ours is rectangular oh currently mine is rectangular okay I
have a theory that rectangular dining tables feel more formal than circular ones okay but I have a question are you are you if it's just two people are you sitting next to each other or across on your rectangular table we sit next to each other because we watch a show okay we do that it's like ipad up to optimize for screen viewing wait i sit across whoa wow you know now that i think about it sitting next to each other could be a move absolutely the move i guess like we just defaulted to sitting across yeah now that i'm picturing it in my head and like looking at the layout of the room I'm like
oh we could totally sit next to each other and watch the tv it feels almost like the safe space to eat a meal sitting next to each other because that's something that I rarely do when we go out if not never but at home it just feels so right like side by side and then tv across from the tv has to be there otherwise it doesn't feel safe it's the third person in the view okay but when i sit on sit on my couch and use the coffee table we're sitting next to each other so funny i feel like by the end of this episode the three of us are all gonna have that same lift top extendable coffee table guys
i'm telling you it's so good i feel like i would never leave it is a little dangerous so we talked a bit about like the type of food that we've eaten at home growing up from our parents.
So I'm wondering how that's carried on in our lives now.
At home, what do you usually cook for yourself?
Or what do you feel comfortable eating in your day to day?
For me, it's kind of funny, because I think a lot of people ask me if I cook Korean food all the time at home.
And I think when I first started out cooking at home, I would because that was kind of what I grew up eating that's what the definition of dinner or like what the visual of dinner looks like to me so then I would try to make those things at home but I think just with my lifestyle and you know me not being like a first generation Korean person like my parents are I was like I feel like this is too much for me I can't be cooking stew every single night and like making five banchan's every day so now we've been eating a lot of like salad it or like you know the classic of like salmon chicken breast
steamed broccoli or whatever korean food or chinese food would be like a treat from time to time but i have like so many dried anchovies and kombu in my fridge because every time my mom goes to korea she comes back with like the good shit you know like the the stuff that they stock in the supermarkets here she says aren't as good as what you can get on like the dry markets or whatever in korea so she She like vastly overestimates how much stew I make.
And the entire bottom section of our fridge is just like anchovy.
Oh my god. Dude, you should start selling them.
You guys want to shop my stash?
Vokey, yes. I'm down too.
How about you, Sunny?
I would say we also like optimize for just efficiency.
so we're usually cooking like a protein either like chicken fish sometimes red meat and then like a veggie of sorts and eating it with rice we will also sometimes eat like a pasta or like noodles and whatnot but I think it's too involved and I'm not as good of a cook as my mom is so there's no no way I'm making like three Chinese dishes for a dinner casually.
I think that is one thing that I would like to continue to learn more of is just Chinese cooking or like things that my mom's made so that I'm able to make that instead of just making chicken and broccoli or salmon and asparagus.
Yeah, I think similar.
I've been in a salad phase because it's just so easy.
I literally go to Costco bulk buy like lettuce, tomatoes, and then just, you know, eat that for the whole week.
You don't have to think too hard about it.
And it's like nutritional, add a protein in there.
So that's been like the easy go to.
And then sometimes what I'll do is in the morning or maybe like around noon, just like throw some protein into the Instant Pot or like I just got a slow cooker, which will make this even easier now.
Just like toss it in in the morning, set it and then like let it cook while I'm at work and when I come back a soup is ready.
Oh I love that. I think I have a bit of a food identity crisis though because most of the stuff I make is is like leaning towards Asian ish but at the same time I'm like I just do this because I'm Asian I guess and I'm used to eating this food but it's not really like I had recipes passed down to me.
I'm like googling the the same things that everyone else is you know I mean yeah like my mom can cook and she's pretty good at it but she doesn't like cooking so it's like some people are really into it so they're excited to like share recipes and like teach you more about it but because it's not like my parents favorite thing to do I feel like the learnings that I got from them is maybe not as in -depth as like some other people could be getting from their parents so in the end it's just me like like researching what to make.
And then I'm like, oh, well, I guess I've chosen to research a lot of Asian recipes when I could have also just researched a lot of other like whatever anything recipes.
And it's it also makes me wonder, like, you know, if I were to have kids, what would I feed them?
Like, what are they going to be eating?
What is my like, what am I passing down to them?
Actually, I think that's a really, really good point.
And And I feel a little bit of that imposter syndrome sometimes, too, where I'll be, like, halfway through making a meal and I'm like, wait, am I making Asian fusion?
Like, am I elephant bar right now?
Because the other day I was like, I want to eat a salad and, like, be healthy, but I wanted to be, like, vaguely reminiscent of, like, Japanese cuisine.
So then I made, like, miso salmon on salad with, like, sesame dressing or something.
thing and then I was eating it and I was like well this isn't like really Japanese food it's like some weird mix that I just like threw together yeah I feel like I I am similar in that I feel like I want to make certain dishes but I don't know how so I think like also with the rise of social media I've been using that a lot to learn new recipes or like Asian inspired dishes Or maybe just I think like there's a lot of Asian American creators now who specialize in like at home cooking or maybe have had like previous restaurant experience.
And I feel like I follow a lot of them just to get like new recipe inspiration and try to like expand my repertoire from like five to ten dishes without having the exact like skills that immigrant parents have. have honestly sometimes I ask my mom I'm like yo can you look up this dish for me in like Chinese and then send over the Chinese recipe or like I'll like look at it with her the Chinese recipe and I'm like okay what does that say like what does this say and I'm like writing it down like okay maybe I'll try this later I like I don't know what it is but like sometimes that feels almost more
legit in a way it's like oh I'm like looking at people's like from wherever and all all the histories of their families versus just like whatever I'm piecing together from like random other recipes if that makes sense yeah that reminds me of this time where I was also very in like I want to make something how my mom used to make it I like texted my mom and I was like oh mom like can you send me your recipe on how you make this one Korean dish and then she she was like oh just go to like ten thousand recipes .com and like type it in and that's what I use and I was like wait that's the website I've
been using like you're telling me we're sourcing from the same website oh my god maybe it's all a lie I should be a little like my parents are also using the same recipes too like all of our parents have the same shared cookbook Yeah, exactly.
Like family recipe.
It's from user like X, A, G, 1, 2, 3, 4.
Well, I guess as all of us start to assemble our little food repertoire of dishes that we'll pass down, it has been so fun to hear both of your guys' families' relationships with food and also see how that has impacted your own food habits to this day.
So thank you, Sunny and Crystal for for sharing your stories about food in the household.
And for any of our listeners out there, if you have any food related stories about your family or food habits that you have to this day that you think were passed down from your parents, then feel free to share.
We have Instagram at eatyourcrustpod and we also have email eatyourcrustpod at gmail .com.
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We upload new episodes every other Wednesday morning.
Thanks for listening.
And don't forget to eat your crust.
