Synonym Magazine, Issue 04

About Synonym Magazine:

At Synonym, we are telling immigrant stories through food. As strangers in a new land, a taste of home can provide comfort and familiarity. Bringing those tastes together with the food at hand creates new traditions, a new heritage. We’ll spotlight these stories and share how trade, politics, colonialism, and capitalism have changed food cultures around the world, for immigrants and countries’ natives alike. We’ll explore all of this in the most intimate ways possible —through generationally shared flavors, the dishes placed on a table, the spices packed in a suitcase.  

About this issue:

Issue Four is all about enclaves: neighborhoods, barrios, towns, and communities where people have built new cultural spaces for themselves. This is our most global reaching issue yet, featuring stories from across the world. Ashia Aubourg reports about Bermuda, where over 90% of the food is imported, and explores the country’s fight for food sovereignty. We partnered with photographer Nicola Muirhead to capture some of the issue’s most striking visuals. We feature an excerpt from Cambodian chef Nite Yun's new cookbook, My Cambodia, which explores her family’s roots in Stockton, California—home to one of the largest Cambodian communities in the U.S. She also shares three recipes from the book, including the delicious Sach Ko Ang and Sach Mu-Anh Jien. (Full disclosure: one of our editors, Tien Nguyen, co-authored the cookbook.) Ruby Robina Saha interviews Indigenous chef Sean Sherman for our “Shelf Life” column, where he shares the American ingredients he always keeps on hand. The feature also includes an expanded profile and his reimagining of what American cuisine could look like. Priyadarshini Chatterjee takes us to Kolkata to explore the two Chinatowns that emerged there—Cheena Para and Tangra—accompanied by archival photographs generously shared by Bijoy Chowdhury. We’re thrilled to feature Ocean Vuong in our “Chewing the Fat” interview, where he talks with Esther Tseng about why he’s not a foodie—and shares some unpopular opinions about pho.