This Week on Good Food: Is Fusion a Bad Word?, The Food in Game of Thrones, Hot Pot

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Jonathan Gold explains why the term ‘fusion’ is no longer useful; plus, he reviews a hot pot restaurant in the SGV. Elina Shatkin explores the food scenes in GOT.

Highlights from this week’s show: 

1. Ridding “Ethnic” and “Fusion” From Your Vocabulary–Jonathan Gold is the Pulitzer Prize-winning food writer for the Los Angeles Times. This week he talks about why he never refers to ‘ethnic food’ in his writing. He also breaks down the history of the term ‘fusion’ and why it no longer applies to contemporary cuisine.

2. Tin Vuong, the “Anti-Fusion” Chef–Chef Tin Vuong helms four restaurants in the LA area: Abigaile, Wildcraft, Little Sister and Dia de Campo. They are respectively a gastropub, a pizza joint, a Vietnamese restaurant and a taco slinging surf shack. In his review of Little Sister, Jonathan Gold called him the latest anti fusion hero on the block.

3. Jonathan Gold Reviews Hai Di Lao–Jonathan Gold is the Pulitzer Prize-winning food writer for the Los Angeles Times, and this week he reviews a the first US outpost of a China-based hot pot chain Hai Di Lao in the San Gabriel Valley.

Jonathan recommends the pickle broth, but the restaurant is also known for the spicy Sichuan broth and a tomato broth (which Jonathan says can taste a bit like Campbell’s Soup).

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4. The Food in Game of Thrones–George R.R. Martin’s culinary imagination is an important piece of his celebrated series Game of Thrones. Elina Shatkin of Los Angeles Magazine walks us through some of the intricate food styling that the HBO series features on screen; plus, she talks to Chelsea Monroe-Cassel, author of the official Game of Thrones cookbook, and Matthew Brosamer, an English professor and a specialist in medieval literature at Mount St. Mary’s College.

We have a recipe from the Game of Thrones cookbook A Feast of Ice and Fire on the Good Food blog.

5. BBQ Tips to Kick off Summer Grilling Season–In Hawaii, “pono” means, “doing things the right way” and Chef Makani Gerardi aims to do that with her burgers at Pono Burger in Santa Monica. Cooking out of a WWII-era Quonset hut, the restaurant came on the scene just over a year ago. Makani joins us today for tips on getting your summer burger off the grill just right.

6. Craft Beer Revolution–Steve Hindy is president and co-founder of The Brooklyn Brewery, and the author of The Craft Beer Revolution. His interest in home brewing began in the Middle East where he worked as an AP Reporter from 1979 to 1984.

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7. Market Report–Laura Avery interviews Akasha Richmond about what to do with the glut of fruit at local farmers markets, and Mike Cirone of See Canyon talks about his prized Blenheim apricots.