THE BAHN MI ISSUE

John Walker has perhaps the greatest job title in the world: Hoagie Master. He oversees a special room at Philadelphia’s Pizza Beddia (recently placing in the top 25 restaurants in America on a recent list by Esquire magazine…

This is weird. The chili pepper is, by most accounts, the world’s most popular spice, an essential component of cooking from the Americas (it originated in what’s now Bolivia, and was first domesticated in what’s now Mexico) to all over Africa and Asia…

The world of cooking can be daunting and scary for beginners. There are thousands of different ingredient combinations that can affect the final outcome of a dish, and that’s without mentioning those delicate methods required to nail the preparation.

Having food that, to me, was colorful and exotic and crunchy and spicy and zingy and pickly, I found really exciting. It was so hard to find stuff similar to that. Then I moved to London.”

A brotherhood was formed in 2009 to place pâté- croûte back under the spotlight it deserves, or at least to remind people that it’s possible to elevate anything to the ranks of haute cuisine by placing it within a competition mechanic.

MAGGI was my first addiction. Long before coffee or cigarettes came anywhere near my lips or lungs there was Maggi Liquid Seasoning — a brown sauce introduced to me as a child in 1980s London by my Vietnamese mother, and with which I soon became obsessed.

With a menu of fillings that rivaled that of any American sub-shop, there was an option for every person – no matter their age or personal taste.

The story of Scott Chang-Fleeman is one of diaspora and, like the hero of issue 2 the bánh mì, it is a story about being the product of your space and making that space your own.