American chef, author and TV host Christine Ha at the QIFF 2018 Cooking Theatre with some members of the Vietnamese Embassy and community.
DOHA: Food is an effective vehicle in uniting people, promoting culture and staying in touch with one’s roots, said famous American chef, author and TV host Christine Ha-one of the celebrity chefs at this year’s Qatar International Food Festival (QIFF).
In an interview with the local media, the first blind contestant and winner of US MasterChef, who is in Doha for the first time, said she was happy to be in Qatar, where people from different countries live, and take part in the festival, where cuisines from various cultures are shared.
“I think it’s a good thing to bring and share all the cuisines around the world in Qatar because Qatar is a country with many expats are living, so it’s nice for them to be able to remember the food from their home countries and learn about other cultures through all the foods that are available in the festival,” she said.
Ha, who was born to Vietnamese parents and raised in the US, believes food transcends barriers as a medium which bridges geographical, cultural, social and religious differences.
“I think as human beings we have much more in common than we don’t and I think food is one way to see how we are all the same as human beings regardless of our religious or socio-economic background,” she said.
On the importance of food in promoting culture, she said: “I think it’s one of the top ways to promote culture because food is universal and everyone in this world has to eat to survive. It is probably the top diplomatic way to get to know another culture and work with other people.”
Despite having been born and raised in the US, she was not able to lose grip of her Vietnamese roots.
“My parents raised me in a way that I won’t be able to forget where I came from. My parents moved to the US as refugees in 1975 and I was born in the US, but growing up I was only allowed to speak Vietnamese at home and my mom cooked mostly Vietnamese food. I was always surrounded by the culture even though I didn’t ever go to Vietnam until I was 18 years old,” she recalled.
She featured at the QIFF Cooking Theatre presenting two cuisines with different culinary influences namely “Mexican Beef Steak Fajita and grilled corn” and “Vietnamese Grilled Lemongrass Chicken Rolls with fish sauce vinaigrette.”
“Vietnamese cuisine is a very ingenious cuisine because Vietnamese people really have a knack for being able to take inexpensive ingredients they find in their country and turn them into something amazing, delicious and healthy. They are able to take things that we may think as ordinary, cheap or inexpensive and elevate it into something very good and nutritious meal, so for me Vietnamese cuisine is one of my favourite.”
Apart from improving her skills in cooking, participating in the MasterChef has taught her to trust her instincts and believe in herself throughout the challenges.
“I think with any art or with anything that could be subjective , it’s important to believe on what you are producing and be able to support that because if you don’t like the food that you are producing or putting on the plate, then no one else will.”
For her the biggest reward of winning MasterChef was being able to travel around the world to cook and advocate for Asians, women and people with disabilities or vision impairment. She is currently busy writing her second cookbook, keeping up with her social media channels and working on a concept she plans to open in Houston soon.
