Question
Hilda P J
Please tell us about your introduction to the world of food and cooking. What was your biggest influence?
Answer
Well, my introduction to food and cooking would've been my mother specifically, who I consider to have been a good cook, one of those good home cooks. And my mother was from Japan, and she grew up in a very hands-on, food-rich environment and passed that on to me. And I think I was very lucky to have been drawn to the kitchen as a child and to have very fond memories from age four or five or so of just tinkering, and my mother was very supportive of involving me in different simple processes and later playing with fire and those sorts of things. So, that's where it was initially and for those first several, or longer, I guess, formative years before my awareness of food outside the house started to shape and My enjoyment of food continued in these more varied environments outside of the home cooking. My relatives in Japan as well as here, namely my grandmother here, were also good cooks. And so I was exposed to different types of food, different food culture, in those environments. I also grew up in Japan, so I was exposed to a lot of different, interesting, and I thought very good foods from my childhood, again, from about age five. And I happen to be one of those people that will eat anything. I am still looking for a food that I don't like. And so I feel blessed in that respect to be able to put anything in my mouth, at least what has some semblance to food, and then find some enjoyment in that. Later went to culinary school here in Portland, Oregon, and then followed up with kitchen work, not only here in Oregon, but in Japan, in India, in Mexico, which was accompanied by some academic fieldwork in those three places, which deepened my understanding, appreciation, and enjoyment of food. So that, in a nutshell, was my journey. Thank you very much for asking, Hilda.
