Chef explores Asian-American identity with virtual reality dinner for Lunar New Year
- At Los Angeles dinner, dishes and ingredients rich in symbolism, poetry, and VR interludes are meant as cues for guests to discuss issues close to their hearts
- Chef Jenny Dorsey, a migrant from Shanghai who will prepare the Lunar New Year meal, intends it as a safe space where diners can open up about identity issues
Food has history, but does it have meaning? For Jenny Dorsey, founder of the Los Angeles-based non-profit culinary organisation Studio ATAO, it does. Dorsey, a chef, uses food to address the identity issues that Asian-Americans face by staging dinner events under the title “Asian in America”.
The events use virtual reality (VR) and poetry to inspire diners to discuss issues relevant to the Asian-American community as they eat. The dishes, and the cocktails prepared by husband Matt Dorsey, are carefully constructed to represent those issues in symbolic form.
For Lunar New Year, Studio ATAO – which stands for All Together At Once – is staging an event in Los Angeles at the Japanese American National Museum.
The aim of the dinner, as with others in the series, is to create an environment which prompts Asian-Americans to talk about issues – personal, social, or political – that are close to their hearts. The community is generally reticent about discussing such matters in public, she says.
“People are shy and uncomfortable in social situations,” says Dorsey, a first-generation immigrant from Shanghai. “They tend to talk about work, or the weather, rather than sensitive topics or identity issues. The dinners create a safe space where they can share their thoughts about such things at the table,” she says.