Cultures of Flavor

The Texas Health Fort Worth family is a melting pot of the world’s culture. I have been blessed with the opportunity to travel to many of the places from where Texas Health Fort Worth employees originate. Before I pack my bags I research the culture, which includes the food; it’s actually the impetus for my chosen destination.

For five days the Cramer Café will feature dishes inspired by street foods and world comfort food, from a host of Mediterranean, Asian and Latin food cultures, and across the Caribbean. Highlighted regions and food cultures include Korea, India, England, Jamaica, Cuba, Mexico, and the Caribbean.

The phenomena of world street food and world comfort food each imply a broad range of food traditions—some of which overlap—but together represent flavors, dishes and culinary ideas that often fall outside of the realm of fine dining menus. In recent years though, American chefs, even those with the most upscale menus and operations, have found new inspiration from these “fast casual” and slow cooking world traditions.

Well-traveled chefs and their savvy, foodie customers have long known that in many cultures, “street food” and other non-restaurant foods (including bar foods, snacks, and the prepared foods of open-air and wet markets) represent the best, most delicious cooking in a given country. From Singapore’s famed hawker chefs and the street food vendors of Delhi, Luck now and Mexico City to the market stalls of Saigon, Bangkok, Penang and Marrakech (a personal favorite) to the tapas bars of Spain and meze hot spots of Greece and Turkey, these are food experiences packed with vibrant flavors; hand-held, in a bowl, or otherwise easy to eat; and inexpensive. A world-class bowl of noodle soup can still be savored “on the go” in much of Asia for a couple of dollars—or less! Street food is especially ubiquitous in tropical cultures where much of life is lived outside, and the perfect evening meal is a string of small bites from street vendors who are typically famous for one or two dishes, having perfected them for 20 or 30 years.

Hand-Held & Full of Flavor
These foods utilize all methods of preparation and cooking, from the steaming of tamales in Cuba and Mexico to the very hot, wood-fired oven baking of pizzas in Naples, and from the olive oil-frying of Andalusia and deep-frying of Indian pakoras and Brazilian salt cod and potato fritters to the charcoal grilling of skewered meats in Istanbul, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, and Tokyo. In many cultures, bread creates the wraps for handheld street foods. Consider the tortas in Mexico City, the pressed Cuban sandwiches of Havana and Miami, the delicious harissa-spiked, grilled pepper and tuna sandwiches of Tunis, the porchetta sandwiches of Italy, and the falafels of the Middle East. In Southeast Asia, rice paper (think salad rolls) and greens (think Vietnamese sizzling crepes) are the wraps of choice, with a singular starring role for baguettes in Vietnamese banh mi. In Peru, crispy dough encases the savory fillings of empanadas.
And at Japanese train stations, nori wraps up inexpensive grab-and-go sushi

Join us as we plunge into a five-day, sauce-slopping, noodle-slurping, tandori-sampling, jerk-nibbling, tortas-savoring, bulgogi-grazing epic tour of the best of world street food and world comfort food!

- Chef Hugh Gittens