I spent 6.5 hours slow roasting a pork shoulder in preparation for bo ssam, or Korean-style slow roasted pork shoulder, to be torn up and served with ssamjang (homemade Korean barbecue paste), ginger scallion sauce, rice, and lettuce. It actually wasn’t much work, as the oven does the cooking. The one thing that took the most time were the ginger scallion sauce since I had to finely mince a decent amount of scallions and ginger.

When I was growing up, up until I started eating dinner at my friends’ homes and out at restaurants with my friends’ families, I was exposed to an extremely limited amount of food. Sure, I had a lot of good food — my grandmother and aunt made some of the best (and most laborious) Cantonese dishes, my mom made delicious potstickers, stews, and Vietnamese dishes, and my dad exposed me to different types of meatloaf and biscuits — but they were all in the realm of Cantonese, Vietnamese, or generic American-household foods like spaghetti or mashed potatoes. I had no idea that Thai curry existed; I never knew people ate pasta with sauces that weren’t red. And I definitely would not have known that in many parts of the world and even within China, bread was actually the primary household staple, not rice.

But what I hope is that when we have children that I’ll continue to have the desire and love to experiment with recipes of cultures other than our own. So many people have found it comical that I know how to make Indian food, even making my own curry mixes. Other people laugh when they hear I am making Korean or Turkish dishes. But I think this is important for knowledge and to ensure our future children are exposed to a wide variety of cultures via these cultures’ foods. What better way to learn about and appreciate other cultures than eating their cuisine?