00:00I'm Lucy Fink and this week is 5 Days of Cultural Dining.
00:07Food feeds the soul.
00:09No matter where you're from or what you do, we all need to eat.
00:12And what we eat says a lot about who we are and where we came from.
00:16I want to choose one culture per day for the next 5 days and really dive into their dining
00:20practices and cuisine.
00:22Starting today, sushi!
00:23Can you believe?
00:24I've gone 23 years and I've never rolled out my own sushi.
00:26So today I headed to the fish market, I got all the ingredients, fresh fish, fresh vegetables,
00:32I got the bamboo roll that I needed, and I had a little sushi making party in my apartment.
00:37I followed along a video that taught me exactly how to make it and taught me the difference
00:41between traditional Japanese sushi and sushi that's become a bit more westernized.
00:46My first go at it was not the hottest sushi roll on the block, but I really made a comeback
00:51there with my second roll.
00:52While my tuna, cucumber, and avocado roll came out like gold, if I do say so myself,
00:58I came to the conclusion that making sushi is definitely not easy, but it's definitely
01:02worth it.
01:06My whole mom's side of the family is Italian, I have cousins that live in Italy, there is
01:11Italian flowing through these veins.
01:13Today I wanted to connect with my roots and make a classic Italian meal.
01:17Can you guess what it is?
01:18Pa-pa-pa-pa pizza!
01:21If you follow me on Instagram, you know that is my dream and my favorite food.
01:25So even though today I couldn't make it all the way to Italy, I still went across the
01:29pond to Brooklyn, let's make a pizza, and flipped a pizza.
01:33My pizza pie had a hole in it because I didn't roll out the dough properly, but the chef next
01:39to me, his pizza came out great!
01:41Fresh mozzarella, fresh tomato sauce, fresh basil, lots of cheese on that.
01:46We put it in the coal-fired oven, the pizza was thin, crispy, amazing.
01:52That's amore.
01:57Today my taste buds traveled east from Italy to India.
02:01So today I ordered lunch from an authentic Indian restaurant in New York City, and I shared
02:06my lunch with some coworkers at RT9, and we ate it the way we would have eaten.
02:09It had we been in a traditional Indian household that observed proper table manners.
02:14We washed our hands before eating, and then, as is frequent in many Indian cultures, we
02:19ate with our hands.
02:20I read in an article that it helps to feed, and I quote, not only your body, but also your
02:25mind and your spirit.
02:27Of course, like any culture, there are some rules.
02:30Right hand only.
02:32Do not eat from your palm, only your fingers.
02:35It's also customary for the host to offer their guests food multiple times, so I can
02:39continue to offer them more food.
02:41And then, since food is considered sacred in Indian culture, we had to finish everything
02:45on our plates.
02:46I've never been to India before, but now if I go, I'll know how to eat properly.
02:50And I won't offend anybody.
02:53For the past three days, I've enjoyed eating authentic cuisines from three different cultures
02:58around the world.
02:58But I have to be honest with you, of the food I've eaten up until today, I've had before.
03:04I've had sushi, I've had Indian food, I've obviously had pizza.
03:08Do you know me?
03:09So today I needed to try something that I had never had in my life.
03:14Call me crazy, but up until this morning, I had never tried traditional Vietnamese pho.
03:20Not pho.
03:21Say it with me.
03:22Pho.
03:22Pho is a traditional Vietnamese soup made from beef broth, spices, herbs, and rice noodles.
03:27Here, we tend to enjoy it for lunch or dinner, whereas in Vietnam, pho is traditionally eaten
03:33as a breakfast food.
03:34So early this morning, I went to Soothsayer, a restaurant in New York City that's known
03:38for its seasonal Vietnamese food, and I worked with the head chef to make authentic pho from
03:44scratch.
03:45We made handmade noodles, we took the beef bones and boiled them in the broth for six hours.
03:50We cut up fresh herbs, we put the spices in, we let it simmer.
03:55There's even a proper way to eat it.
03:57I had to alternate between eating the rice noodles, dipping the meat in the sauces, and
04:01sipping the broth.
04:02It was a procedure, but it was so much fun.
04:07That was awesome, and I had soup for breakfast.
04:13It's Friday, and I traveled all the way back from Vietnam to New York.
04:18I woke up this morning, and I had a classic American breakfast, eggs, bacon, toast, side
04:24of coffee.
04:25Go USA!
04:26There is so much to be learned about culture around the world, and eating their foods the
04:31proper way and learning the proper table etiquette is just the tip of the cultural iceberg.
04:35While I know it's not realistic for me to travel all over the world all the time, I do live
04:40in
04:40New York, a cultural melting pot when it comes to cuisines.
04:43So if this week taught me anything, it's that the world is pretty big, and food can really
04:48help us connect to cultures that are far, far away.
