Recently I've been getting into fermentation, which even as I type this seems like a weird thing to be 'into'.  Two weeks ago I started a batch of Mexican pineapple vinegar, from Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz, I tasted it on Sunday and it's almost got a vinegary taste.  It needs another week or so of fermenting on the counter I think.

When I was last home to Toronto for a visit with my Omi I told her about my experiment with making vinegar, she laughed at me and told me that this was how they made vinegar when she was a child.  She's eastern European, so they didn't use pineapple but other kinds of fruit.

It's funny to me that my Grandmother moved to Canada more then 50 years ago to give her family a better life, and a generation later I'm making vinegar the same way she did on a rural family farm in the 1930's.

I'm not sure what that says about me that I feel the need to try and make my own vinegar instead of spending 1$ on a bottle at the store, but it certainly felt nice to give my Omi a good chuckle.

Thinking about the banh mi.  It's interesting to think about the history that landed this sandwich in Allston MA.  France colonized Vietnam in the mid-nineteenth century, and that colonization lead to my sandwich.  During the French colonization the Vietnamese embraced (or maybe more accurately were forced to adapt to) parts of French cuisine. Most deliciously baguette's which they now make with a combination of rice flour and wheat, and pate's.  The banh mi is a direct result of the French colonial occupation of Vietnam, not to mention the complicated path this sandwich took the US.

The paths that foods take (immigration, colonization etc) to get to their current whereabouts say things not only about their origins, but also about their authenticity.  Is a banh mi sandwich eaten in Massachusetts less authentic then a banh mi eaten in Hanoi?

Another example, my Grannie makes an apple pie with nutmeg and teaches the recipe to my Mum.  Mum who favors cinnamon replaces the nutmeg and then teaches the pie to me.  I prefer a lard crust to a butter crust so I change the piecrust.  Is this still my Grannies pie?