TikTok Chef Cassie Yeung and Her Mom on Expressing Love Through Food

Where I’m From: Now and Gen options in-conversation items between generations — like a youthful girl and her grandmother — discussing matters like magnificence rituals, funds, or marriage. For our newest installment, we caught up with TikTok-famous chef Cassie Yeung and her mother, Betty, in regards to the significance of meals of their Chinese Singaporean tradition. Read their chat about meals beneath.

For Asian American households, food is personal. It’s about extra than simply sustenance. Food is a means for Asian Americans, and significantly immigrants, to maintain their traditions and heritage alive and hook up with their households regardless of distance, language obstacles, and historical past. That’s actually the case for content material creator and chef Cassie Yeung, who’s recognized for her enjoyable, personality-driven recipes, like her common “Takeout Who?” collection during which she re-creates widespread takeout meals.

Cassie makes use of her love for meals and cooking to attach together with her prolonged household, her 3-plus million followers on TikTok, and most significantly, her mother, Betty. In truth, Betty impressed her to begin getting curious within the kitchen. “I hate to admit it, but if it weren’t for my mom, I don’t think I would be the chef that I am today,” she says. “She grew up cooking every single meal for the family and that definitely trickled down when she came to the states. No matter what, after a long day, she would come home and cook for us. We were not a take-out family.”

Growing up in Singapore, Betty had to cook dinner. “Being one of nine children, I had to take over the reins at home,” she says. “I had to do all the cooking and cleaning. Cooking was necessary for us.” And whereas whipping up meals was “not by choice” again then, she now feels pleasure feeding her household, which she’s handed all the way down to Cassie. “It means a lot that I’m able to make something good that they’re gonna enjoy and I’m passing along whatever I learned as a child to both my daughters,” she says.

Below, the mother-daughter duo talk about the significance of meals of their tradition; their favourite Chinese Singaporean meals traditions; and the life classes they’ve taught one another.

On Why Food Is So Personal in Asian Cultures

CY: We by no means collect as a household until there’s meals concerned. Food is all the time the middle of our gatherings. I do know plenty of households do that, however that is positively particular to Chinese Singaporean tradition. My sister and I, each being first-generation and American-born Chinese, it is attention-grabbing for us to see as a result of my mother has introduced over the meals and tradition she was raised with. She’s proven us with out even having to elucidate by her meals.

My sister and I traveled again to Singapore this yr, and it has been the primary time we have gone again as adults, with the ability to listen and establish this tradition. Now, seeing it in my prolonged household on my mother’s facet is so particular as a result of I understand, wow that is the middle level of our complete household.

BY: Absolutely. When my eldest brother got here to the United States to go to me, he would convey me particular sauce that is not accessible right here and he would whip up a meal for all my associates and household, and I’d invite all people that I do know. We’ve discovered to understand meals as a result of rising up from a humble household, we had little or no. We admire meals much more within the sense that extra meals is accessible to us now, moderately than the fundamental elements.

CY: And meals is clearly such a common language. My prolonged household speaks Hokkien and I do not, however each time I am going to Singapore, my aunt and I’ve this particular second the place she’ll train me household recipes. We have a language barrier, however in relation to meals, we each perceive what is going on and what she’s educating me, and I believe that’s actually particular. As unhappy as that is, she says, “Now, when I’m gone, somebody in the family will know how to carry these traditions on.” Food is particular in that sense — I’m now carrying on household traditions as properly.

BY: That’s proper. She’s extraordinarily blissful that she’s in a position to move it all the way down to Cassie.

On the Journey to Embracing Their Food and Culture

CY: When I used to be youthful, I might lie and say, “I want pizza, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich,” the issues that youngsters have been actually going loopy over. But as I received older, I used to be like, “No, I don’t want this.” I needed rice, noodles, all of the issues that my mother would make.

Because I used to be on the dance staff, we’d have tailgates. And whereas many individuals have been bringing the everyday finger meals, my mother was bringing trays of dumplings, spring rolls, and noodles, and everybody went loopy over it. None of the opposite meals was touched. People I did not know have been coming as much as me like, “Oh my God, you’re Betty’s daughter. She’s making me dumplings for my birthday.” As I received older, I used to be similar to, “Why am I embarrassed of this food?” I shouldn’t be embarrassed. This is one thing that is so particular, clearly so many individuals are loving, and I do know that I really like myself. It did take me some time to begin to admit it, however now, particularly with TikTok and Instagram, it is now not one thing that persons are shaming. [Viewers are] not simply curious to see what different folks take pleasure in, however they’re curious to see how they’ll re-create it or take pleasure in it themselves. That’s why content material creation is so particular to me now. I’m nonetheless on this journey determining the way to love this tradition and love myself, and taking folks together with me and permitting them to fall in love with it as properly.

BY: I wasn’t gonna convey pizza or pasta or no matter. I’m gonna make noodles, dumpling, and spring rolls. Whenever Cassie and my different daughter will not be feeling properly, they are saying they need to come dwelling to Mom and Mom will make them the particular meals that may make them really feel higher. They’re like, “Mom, can you make me a congee or this noodle soup” that they crave. That could be very, very particular to me as a result of that is a connection that we have now. That is one thing that I’m actually, actually blissful about.

On Their Favorite Chinese Singaporean Food Traditions

BY: The reunion Chinese New Year sizzling pot dinner in Singapore. Singapore is humid and extraordinarily sizzling. However, with out fail, we may have a boiling sizzling pot on New Year’s Eve with my complete household, and we’ll eat in shifts. We’ll have a desk of 10, and the older kids will go first and the youthful kids will come and do the second shift. It is a really joyful event and custom. It’s loud, it is noisy, and all people’s speaking on the similar time, and there’s plenty of meals. And it is sizzling.

CY: For me, it is dim sum. My household calls it yum cha. I’m in Philly now, my dad and mom are in New Jersey, and then my sister and my brother-in-law are additionally in Philly, however simply not so near me. But we all the time return to the place my dad and mom are, and we have now some dim sum collectively. Almost each weekend in my childhood, my dad and mom would take us out to dim sum. Once I moved away for college and then I used to be residing in California for a couple of years, I needed that conventional dim sum. So it is a particular time for me now, as an grownup, as a result of I get to sit down again and really feel like a child once more, as a result of my dad and mom simply order the whole lot. It jogs my memory of my childhood and now’s principally a convention. Any time we collect, 99 % of the time, we’re gonna go for dim sum the subsequent day.

On the Life Lessons They’ve Learned From Each Other

BY: I’m extraordinarily pleased with her, and she actually impressed me as a result of she took on this TikTok factor in a yr. She ventured into one thing unknown to her and though she’s acquainted with cooking, she’s not acquainted with what it entails and what the result is gonna be. She’s courageous and good and inventive. I’m not simply saying that as a result of she’s my daughter, however she actually is. She’s one in every of a form.

CY: The first time I’m listening to this! We do not say this about one another, so it is humorous to listen to it, though I do know it. I might say I’ve lots to owe to my mother as a result of, once more, if it wasn’t for her cooking within the kitchen, I would not have had the identical ardour as I do now. But on a extra technical stance, she’s taught me that no matter you need to do, you simply should go after it. I transitioned into content material creation probably not realizing what was going to occur, and having that dialog with my dad and mom — clearly it is international to them as properly — it was a troublesome choice, going into the unknown. But my mother was the one saying, you must present up and submit like that is already your full-time job. Her placing it into these phrases clicked for me as a result of I believed, if I do that, I actually should go for it. I’m very grateful that my dad and mom believed in me. I’m very grateful that they weren’t solely supportive, but additionally gave me that tough work ethic — as a result of my dad and mom, nonetheless to today, work so onerous for the whole lot that they’ve of their life.

This interview has been edited and condensed for readability.

Yerin Kim is the options editor at POPSUGAR, the place she helps form the imaginative and prescient for particular options and packages throughout the community. A graduate of Syracuse University’s Newhouse School, she has over 5 years of expertise within the popular culture and girls’s life-style areas. She’s obsessed with spreading cultural sensitivity by the lenses of life-style, leisure, and type.