The Daily Show: Ears Edition - ICYMI - David Chang Explores the World's Culinary Landscape in "Ugly Delicious"

Episode Date: August 29, 2019

Chef David Chang talks about how his Netflix series "Ugly Delicious" examines the cultural and historical underpinnings of food from around the world. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to Comedy Central. John Stewart here. Unbelievably exciting news. My new podcast, The Weekly Show. We're going to be talking about the election, economics, ingredient to bread ratio on sandwiches. Listen to the weekly show with John Stewart, wherever you get your podcast. Please welcome David Chang. Welcome, sir. Excited to be here. Welcome, sir. Excited to be here.

Disappointed. You're there. tooom. I'm a try. to the show. Getsetsu. to the show. Glad that you're here.

Disappointed. You're the bang. People are loving it. Why the title, Ugly Delicious. Well as you saw in that clip, I grew up eating really well. My mom cooked a lot of Korean things and growing up in Northern Virginia, it wasn't that cool. In fact, I was like the butt of many jokes.

So when I started cooking professionally, those thia thia th wanted to touch, because I was ashamed of it, or I just didn't want to like embrace it. And that sort of encapsulates a lot of the foods that I think are truly delicious, but may not be cool or is, looks good on a photograph sometimes, you know? Like a curry is a perfect example. A bullet curry is so good, but isn't something that's going to be on the the the the the their their to be on the's going to be on the cover of a magazine. And for you growing up, your food was a part of your culture, but it was also something that people used to tease you about. Do you think that that's a big part of food, is the cultural identity that comes with it? Absolutely, because we're at a, not a crossroads, but food is more popular than ever before, and it sort of intersects so many that that's tha tha th..... th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. I, th. I, th. I, th. th. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, the, the the the th. And, th. And, th. And, thin. And, thin. And, t t toge. And, together, together, together, together, together, together, thin. th so many ways, you know, creating the show with Morgan Neville and Eddie Schmidt, we

decided that food could be sort of a Trojan horse to talk about many of the great things in culture and many of the bad things in culture. Right, like for instance with Chinese food. There's an episode where you delve into Chinese food. And about how the food is itself and about how Chinese people in America have had to assimilate and what that means and how the food has had to assimilate in many ways to fit in with American culture. Like, what did you learn in that experience when looking at Chinese food on its own in America? I mean, it goes all the way back to when they came to work on the railroads and

how they were marginalized way back then in the 189s or so and without getting too much in the history, I feel like as delicious as Chinese food is and it's like the most prevalent kind of food throughout the world it seems, it's never been seen as like as cool as other European cuisines. And quite frankly I think that there has been a lot of sort of hidden racism in how people perceive not just Chinese food like basically anything that's like different than the mainstream America right you see that with the the the the the the the the the the the the th. th. the th. th. th. th. th. I I th. I th. I th. I th. I the th. I th. I thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, the the thi, thi. And, thi. And, thi. I's, thi. I's, the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the thi, th.. I I I I th. I, th. I the the the the, the the the the the the the the, the the the the, the the the, the the. And I'm, thean. And, theanan.ean.ean.ean.ean.ean.ean.ean.ean.ean.ean.ean.ean.ean. their thean. And, the th's like different than the mainstream America right you see that with MSG or how people see like cheap meats in Asian restaurants, Chinese restaurants and a lot of that's not true right they're just you know not even misperceptions they're just wrong right it's interesting that you bring up racism with regards to food because

those are stereotypes that you see you know rearing their ugly heads all the world you know, rearing their ugly heads all over the world. You know, people go, watermelon, black people, and chicken, black people, and they'll be like, oh, you eat this type of food if you're Asian, and you eat this. There are certain ideas that come from food. There are certain stories that are told by the food.

There's an episode where you're the story story story story what I loved is in the story, you know, you're out in the South. You're meeting with people who cook fried chicken, white people who make fried chicken. Did you find that it was interesting to speak to people about where the chicken came from, how it came to be popularized and how they saw the story as it related to the food? Absolutely. And I think, first and foremost about fried chicken. It's a story that, you know, a lot of people don't know about. Everyone I think that eats chicken will find it to be a fried chicken to be delicious. Again, the world over almost, but the story of how it was born out of oppression and slavery for the most part, the fried chicken that we all most are commonly associated with, that's a really tough story to tell, right? And if we can't talk about their their their their their to about about about about about about about about about about about about about their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, to, to, to, their, the, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to be, to be, to be, to be, to be, to be, to be, to be, to be, to be, to be, to be, to be, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, thea, thea, the. the. the. the. toto tell, right? And if we can't talk about fried chicken, how are we supposed to talk about other things that are problematic? Right, right. So, and going back to the, sort of the popularity of fried chicken shops, there's a scene where

I'm talking to my friends really and questioning them, the same questions I'd answer myself, and the reality is it's like, it's a responsibility that I think today in 2018 that we should know more about and we should talk about. And it's not easy to talk about. I mean, I think you have to watch the episode because I think we're not trying to answer anything. We're just trying to start the conversation about that. Because it's just too dense of a topic. Do you feel like that's something people could do like at restaurants, like the waiter should have to tell you about the history of the food when they give it to you. So you should be like, what are you going to have?

I'll have the fried chicken. Let me tell you about slavery and oppression. Like, this chicken over here comes from a long history of people being oppressed and you're like, mm-hmm, I'm going why not go down that rabbit or just a little bit and you know there's a scene in that fried chicken episode where it's not about fried chicken where I say to David Simon, great director of the wire where I'm like hey I would have a problem of someone that's not Korean starts making kimchi. And he sort of smacks me down being like you're an idiot right. Like America is about cultural appropriation when it's done like very well. That makes any sense any sense, and I thought about that and I was like, man, he's absolutely right in the sense that the only way I'm going to get this person that's making kimchi to

appreciate kimchi is to let them go down the rabbit hole. Right, right. And maybe they're going to be the biggest advocate of it, but if I'm there, thriding, their, and I'm their, their, their, thin, and I'm thin, thin, thin, thin, and I'm thin, thin, and I'm thin, and I'm thin, and thi, and thi, and thi, and thi, and thi, and that, and that, and that, and that, and that, and that, and that, and that, and that, and that, and that, and that, and that, and that, and th, and th, and th, and th, and th, and thi, and thi, and thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, can't do this. Right. Then I'm not making any progress there. So I feel the same way about fried chicken and I think that I could have been that that fried chicken shop down in Nashville because I love hot fried chicken so much. Right. The first thing you want to do is pay homage. But we it's a problem sometimes right. It's a what happens if you start killing the very thing that inspired you. Right, that's really interesting. And that's I think what the show does. It asks questions.

It starts conversations. And most importantly, it makes me hungry. That shit. Thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you. It's amazing to happen here. Ugly. the show.

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