School Nutrition Association • May 2022 • Page 28

This doesn’t mean you have to discontinue cafeteria celebrations of Chinese New Year, cancel a special event luau or shouldn’t try adapting a traditional Vietnamese bahn mi sandwich recipe so it meets the needs of your school nutrition meal program and your customers’ taste preferences. Cross-cultural evolutions have generated their own uniquely Americanized hybrids in many areas of society. But, as a good rule of thumb, if you are planning cafeteria theme days intended to celebrate Asian or Paciﬁ c Island heritage, do some ﬁ rst-level research, especially to avoid any touchstones that are based in religion or spirituality. OBSERVING AANHPI HERITAGE MONTH While many people from AANHPI communities may welcome your curiosity and interest in learning more about the traditions of their family’s heritage, take care to avoid unintended microaggres-sions with your questions. Similarly, don’t expect a coworker or parent to be your sole source of education in this area. Make yourself receptive to learning whenever the opportunity presents itself. AANHPI Heritage Month is likely to be observed with greater media cover-age of current and historic ﬁ gures. Take time to read articles, watch a documentary and follow social media posts an AANHPI inﬂ uencers. Your local library may have recommendations of biographies, memoirs and novels to check out. If you are aware of local businesses that are owned by or that serve an AANHPI community, make time this month to check them out. For example, perhaps there is a market specializing in the foods and ingredients unique to, say, Korean cuisine. Stop by and ask for some advice about a new menu item that would be an accessible entry point or how to incorporate gochujang, the spicy paste that is making inroads across cuisines, into an existing recipe. While AANHPI Heritage Month comes at a very busy time for school cafeterias beginning to prep for the end of the school year, even a few small activities leave a big impact. It may be too late to implement these for May 2022, so make note of opportunities to implement in 2023! Start with your menu. Review current Asian ﬂ avor proﬁ les that have gained traction with students and explore ways to use these as a foundation to introduce new items. For example, if sriracha has proven very successful, then an experiment with gochuchang may be just the ticket. Or forgo spicy heat and focus on kids’ love of noodle dishes by serving up a pad Thai recipe. If you have a student (or adult) cooking club in place, consider hand-rolled sushi as the activity for May. Be sure to explain the origins and traditional ingredients of the Japanese classic, as well as review different types of sushi and how it’s been adapted. Maybe ask participants to write a classic haiku (a three line poem broken into 5/7/5 syllables) to describe their sushi creations. This combination of culinary craft and education is a perfect way to celebrate AANHPI Heritage Month! eSN Dylan Roche is a School Nutrition Contributing Editor based in Arnold, Md. SN Editor Patricia Fitzgerald contributed to this article. DID YOU KNOW? According to the U.S. Census, there are some 22 million AA and NHPI people living in the United States. That’s about 7% of the population, and research from the Pew Research Center ﬁ nds Asian Americans to be the fastest-growing ethnic group in the country. Between 2000 and 2019, the Asian population in the U.S. grew 81%, compared to 70% among Hispanic Americans, 61% among Native Hawaiian and Paciﬁ c Islanders and 20% among Black Americans. BONUS WEB CONTENT Decorate your serving line with books by or about people from AA and NHPI communities. You’ll ﬁ nd suggested lists for elementary, middle and high school grade levels as an online web exclusive. . Visit www.schoolnutrition.org/snmagazinebonus to access. CULTURAL CONNECTIONS 28 | eSN | May 2022