The cooking series is as playful as it is cathartic. Frankie Gaw conjured up fun brand names and designs to go with each meal. Frankie Gaw hide caption Toasted sesame flavored Cheerios.
A Pop-Tart topped with strawberry lychee frosting. And a Lunchable that includes a fried pork gua bao, cucumber salad and a Yakult. Frankie Gaw's social media page is filled with videos of creations like these — items you won't usually find at your local American grocery store.
That’s the whole point, says Gaw, a Taiwanese American food creator and author of the cookbook First Generation. “I asked myself, in an alternate universe, where the world is much more inclusive and embraced all of these diverse flavors, what are the things that Asian Americans would want to see?” he said. Gaw talked with NPR about how his hit social media cooking series “Turning American classics Asian" came to be, and its origin as a tribute to his family and his Midwest upbringing.
A post shared by Frankie Gaw (@littlefatboyfrankie) The idea sprouted after a trip to his local supermarket. Traversing through the aisles, Gaw noticed that much of the food stocked on the shelves resembled what he saw as a kid 20 years ago. Meanwhile, ingredients like soy sauce and miso were still strictly grouped in “Asian” or “International" aisles.
“Restaurants have been embracing more Asian ingredients, and it feels like grocery stores have remained the same," Gaw said. For many immigrants and children of immigrants,.