TRY THIS!

Series

So, you just made biscuits and have leftover buttermilk. Now what? You went to buy steak, and the British guy next to you bought blood. Say what... You found some bitter melon in Chinatown, used it like zucchini in ratatouille, and now your family’s on strike...

The world is full of ingredients foreign and familiar, and what makes sense to some is a mystery to others. Every Indian knows buttermilk, but only a few know what to do with blood. And the British love black pudding, but ask which end of a bitter melon is up...

Try This is a culinary innovation show about making the foreign familiar. The premise is simple: discover, learn and experiment with “foreign” ingredients that stump casual cooks an culinary experts, and translate the foreign into something that’s familiar.

Our host-cum-scientist is Tu David Phu, Oakland is our wonderland and its grocers, chefs and bards are our guides. The city’s kitchens are our lab, friends and family are our judge –
all of whom gives thumbs-up (or -down) on the success of our experiments.

So... Asafoetida is great in biriyani, but will it do wonders for chicken fat rice? Can cacao be used in meatloaf and not just mole? How do you cook with sumac? And, seriously, what do I do with this buttermilk? Good questions... Come join us and find out.

BLOODLINE

Short Film

An intimate profile of Vietnamese-American chef, Tu David Phu, and the evolution of his culinary aesthetic—borne from a bloodline that traces back through childhood and his family’s unspoken history of war, and set within a conversation of image-making and cultural bias, or how preferences for food often mirror our perceptions, and prejudices, of people, including Tu’s family.