The following article is one of many final projects from Visiting Lecturer Denise Drower Swidey’s innovative spring 2020 food media course at Tufts University’s Experimental College called “An Insider’s Guide to the World of Food Media.” Drower Swidey generously shared some of her students’ work with us, and Edible Boston is publishing four of them online in their entirety, edited only for clarity and punctuation. For Drower Swidey’s introduction and links to the rest of the projects, click here.

Authenticity is hard to find these days in terms of American cuisine, By Chris Campbell

Chris Campbell is a recent graduate of Tufts University with a BS in Biology, currently living in New York City. He enjoys creating content and hopes to continue growing in the Marketing field. He was a marketing intern for FreshZen, a company operating out of Dorchester’s CommonWealth Kitchen, where he created social campaigns for the company's instagram account. He analyzed customer site traffic to refine SEO for the web page and built PR pages from scratch for the site, such as the blog page, publications page and “Partner with Us” page. Through these projects, he learned a lot about website building and design, best practices for Instagram posts and advertising as well. It was a great way to learn about all around direct-to-consumer marketing.

For much ethnic cuisine in America, the battle between authenticity and appropriation rings loud against mainstream misconceptions. 

Recently, corporate mascots like Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben have been ousted due to their heavily racist connotations. These racial disparities carry over to many numerous cultures celebrated in this country. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the perception of Chinatown and Chinese cuisine has been swiftly criticized and stigmatized by mainstream media.

For Chinatown restaurants once booming with customers and fully booked tables, many of them are now facing the repercussions of false claims that the transmission of COVID-19 can be linked to Chinese cuisine and Chinatowns across the country. Despite many public health professionals and epidemiologists refuting these contrived and racists claims, the hit on restaurants in Chinatown has been sealed. 

New Saigon Sandwich, a once-popular lunch spot for banh mi sandwiches in Boston’s Chinatown, had to permanently close its doors after 16 years of service. While there were speculations that the business owners closed their shop in pursuit of retirement, their daughter, Kristina Phu, explains that the restaurant fell victim to the misconceptions of COVID-19 to Chinese cuisine. 

Phu told Boston.com that New Saigon Sandwich closed “due to the initial racial response to COVID-19 early on, the business suffered tremendously.” With the rising cost of supplies and groceries combined with the overhead costs, the Phu family could not keep up with the costs, especially with a decline in take-out from their Chinatown sandwich shop. She continued, “If COVID-19 was not a factor, I’m sure they would still be open.” 

While Chinese cuisine continues to be persecuted with misconceptions of health concerns and fake ingredients, there are people dispelling this bad reputation. Ruby Chan, founder and CEO of FreshZen Foods is at the frontline in presenting the true essence of Asian cuisine: authentic, fresh, and healthy. New York native Chan grew up in Chinatown, NYC where her parents owned a restaurant.

Unlike the salty stir-fry kits and frozen bags of P.F Chang’s, loaded with sugar and thick sauces, found in the international/ethnic aisle of most Target and Walmart stores, Chan offers home cooks her “Asian pesto” filled with fresh and authentic ingredients in every jar. With fresh, simple, and easy-to-pronounce ingredients like garlic, ginger, scallion and rice wine vinegar, FreshZen offers healing to its customers while opening their palates to true Chinese flavors and new recipes. 

Now, Chan hopes to share her family’s healthy and ‘food as medicine’ traditions and display Chinese cuisine to the world, just as she grew up experiencing the freshest ingredients herself. Chan’s sauces have been well-loved by her customers. Chan recently started selling the sauces online, as well as in over 31 Whole Foods stores across New England. 

This story appeared as an online exclusive in September 2020 as part of a larger story on Tufts University’s course: “An Insider’s Guide to the World of Food Media.”