PA Food Society: Volume 4, Issue 1 by PA Food Society

Courtesy of Claire Wang

PA FOOD SOCIETY volume 4, issue 1

Hey reader, we know you missed us (we missed you!).

We are so back, with our Spring 2025 issue! PA Food Society experienced some administrative hurdles throughout the past year, so while this is our only 2024-2025 issue, we’re very excited to bring out more during the 2025-2026 season! Since this is our Spring issue, we thought there was nothing more !tting than choosing the color green as our theme, a color you cannot avoid when looking outside these days. But it’s also the color of so many foods and family dishes that our writers will share about in the later pages ;) I know we could all eat some more vegetables...

On that note, we would like to thank everyone who took the time to help make this magazine what it is. is could not have been possible without all of our writers who helped put words on our empty pages. We you all!!!

Lastly, thank you reader for your interest in PA Food Society. Hope you have fun reading the magazine because we had lots of fun making it!

Love, Claire Wang & Morgan Hsu, Co-Editors-in-Chief

masthead

Editors-in-Chief

Executive Editor

Claire Wang Morgan Hsu Kendra Tomala Abigail Zhu

Executive Digital Editor

Wher e’s My Bir thday Cake?

by Abigail Kim

Korean Seaweed Soup

Ingredients:

Beef Salt Pepper

Onion Powder

Sesame Oil

Minced Garlic

Dried Seaweed

Anchovies

Kombu

Onion

Soup Soy Sauce

1. Place a small handful of dried seaweed in water and let it soak.

2. Create a broth using anchovies, kombu, and onion.

3. Slice the beef into small strips.

4. Add salt, pepper, and onion powder to the beef and mix well.

5. A er the seaweed has so ened, cut it into small pieces.

6. Add sesame oil and minced garlic into a pan and stir-fry the marinated beef.

7. Once the meat is fully cooked, add the cut-up seaweed and stir-fry.

8. Combine with broth and let it boil. Add soup soy sauce and salt to taste.

1. 말린 미약을 물에 불린다.

2. 고기를 잘라서

3. 팬에 참기름을 뿌리고

넣어 잘 볶는다.

4. 미약을 잘게 자른다. 물에서 건져서 고

5. 멸치, 다시마, 양파를 물에 넣어서 끓인 육수를 붓고 끓인다.

6. 국간장과 소금으로 간을 한다.

생일 축하해! Birthdays are a once-a-year kind of magic—a day of balloons, presents, o -key singing, and most importantly…cake. e thick, sugary frosting, married with dripping candle wax making up the ceremonial rst slice that always goes to the birthday child. at is what birthdays are supposed to smell like.

But on the morning of my birthday, the air was lled with something else. Not vanilla. Not chocolate. Not the slightest hint of sugar. Instead, the scent of simmering broth wa ed its way into my room. My mother, standing at the stove, stirred something dark yet luring.

e Korean birthday tradition does not involve a towering cake or a grand chorus of “Happy Birthday.” Rather, birthdays begin with a steaming bowl of seaweed soup.

Seaweed soup is rich in minerals like iron and calcium, which is why new mothers drink it a er giving birth for their strength. Over time, the nutrients help with health and longevity. e soup is a quiet and thoughtful gesture passed down through generations.

But seven-year-old me didn’t care about the quiet, thoughtful gestures. Sevenyear-old me cared about cake. She wanted something enormous, something so towering and chocolatey that it required reinforcement to stand straight. She wanted her name piped in elegant cursive and exactly seven candles, undeniable proof that I was now older, wiser, and absolutely mature.

Instead, I got soup. e kind that was murky green and sort of oily, with thin strands of seaweed swirling in the broth. I poked at it, hoping that beneath the surface lay my real birthday surprise—a cake, half a cake, or even a cupcake. Anything. “Eat up,” my mother said, pushing a spoon into my hands, “I woke up two hours early to make this.”

I took a sip. It was warm. A little salty, and deeply umami. Honestly, it didn’t taste bad. But it wasn’t cake. And at seven years old, that was a di cult reality to accept. It would take me years to understand that this soup was never meant to be a substitute for cake—it was something else entirely. A tradition, a history, a love language. My mother drank this soup when she gave birth to me, and so did my grandmother before her. And now, on my birthday, I drink the same broth, sipping on the same umami as the generations before me.

Being Korean-American o en feels like straddling between two worlds. e worlds of hamburgers and rice, English and Korean, and cakes and seaweed soup. But on that morning, with each warm sip, I celebrated both.

Of course, that didn’t mean I abandoned my beloved cake. Later that night, my seventh-birthday wish came true, in the form of a thick, chocolate cake with exactly seven candles. Some traditions deserve to be honored, but to be honest, who doesn’t want cake?

by Ava Shu

At the ripe age of thirteen, I found out that tiramisu was not, in fact, a Japanese dessert. This also came with the realization that tiramisu was not pronounced tiraMI-su, but tirami-sU—with a pompous accent at the end. My mother always said it the former way, and so perhaps that led me to assume the dessert’s origin from its syllabic name (only when I started learning Japanese did I know that the traditional Hiragana syllabary did not include the sound “ti”).

But no matter what I thought of its origin, tiramisu reigned as one of my favorite desserts since first-bite. I only recently attempted to make the treat myself and found that the baking process was just as satisfying as eating it.

One of the desserts I’ve made most frequently (and most enjoy making) are chiffon cakes. Tiramisu, like chiffon cake, requires meringue—egg whites beaten with sugar until fluffy—which is difficult to perfect but my favorite part of any recipe. When I realized I got to whip fluffy meringue not once, but twice in the tira-

misu-making process, I knew I had to take on this dessert.

So began my quest to make tiramisu. While I scoured Walmart for cocoa powder to dust the top of my finished tiramisu, my eye caught a bag of matcha powder that was begging me to use it. And so birthed an idea that combined my childhood misperception of tiramisu with its Italian reality: matcha tiramisu.

Ingredients:

Ladyfingers (skip if storebought):

1. Prepare a large, flat baking tray lined with parchment paper and preheat the oven to 375°F.

2. Separate the egg yolks and whites into two bowls. Set whites aside and add sugar for yolks and optional flavoring extract. Whisk thoroughly until combined.

3. Sift around a third of the flour into yolk mixture and whisk until combined.

4. In a big bowl, add egg whites; it is recommended to add cream of tartar or lemon juice for better hold and volume.

5. Whisk egg whites at high speed until frothy (preferably with a handheld or stand mixer). Slowly add 25g of sugar to the whites, pausing a couple moments for every third added. Once all the sugar is added, beat the mixture until stiff peaks.

6. Once the egg whites turn into meringue, fold a third of the meringue into the yolk mixture until streaky. (NOTE: FOLD the meringue. Do not whisk as that will deflate the air.) Then, add the remaining meringue into the mixture and fold gently until streaky.

7. Sift in the remaining flour and fold it into the egg whites and meringue with a spatula.

8. You can do this step either by piping your batter into a piping bag or spreading it flat on the baking tray. Using a piping bag, pipe short strips of ladyfingers. Alternatively, you could spread the batter into a large, but textured rectangle of batter to make flat cake sheets. Make sure to work quickly to prevent the batter from deflating.

by Ava Shu

3. Using a stand or handheld mixer, beat the egg whites until frothy. Slowly drizzle in the 25g of sugar and beat until soft peaks (you can choose to continue beating until your preferred consistency).

9. Put the tray into the oven for 10-15 minutes, or until you can insert a toothpick and have it come out clean.

At the ripe age of thirteen, I found out that tiramisu was not, in fact, a Japanese dessert. This also came with the realization that tiramisu was not pronounced tira-MI-su, but tirami-sU—with a pompous accent at the end. My mother always said it the former way, and so perhaps that led me to assume the dessert’s origin from its syllabic name (only when I started learning Japanese did I know that the traditional Hiragana syllabary did not include the sound “ti”).

Filling:

misu-making process, I knew I had to take on this dessert.

(Egg-Free Filling Alternative):

Pour heavy cream into the bowl and beat with a stand or handheld mixer until cream-like consistency. Drizzle in the sugar while the cream is still beating. When it is stiff enough to spread, fold in one third of the mascarpone cheese until combined before adding the rest and folding again.

Assembly:

1. Separate egg yolks and whites into two bowls.

2. Whisk the egg yolks with 25g of sugar. Once combined, add around a third of mascarpone cheese and fold with a spatula. Then, add the remaining two thirds and fold until combined.

1. Start by spreading a thin layer of the filling at the bottom of a baking dish or any container you’d like to use to assemble your tiramisu.

2. Cut your ladyfingers or cake sheets to fit the size of your container. Dip them into your matcha brew, then lay them across the bottom of your container.

3. Spread around ½ of your remaining filling on top of the first layer of ladyfingers.

4. Repeat step 2 if necessary.

5. Spread the remaining filling.

6. Dust the top of the tiramisu with matcha powder with a sieve.

TIPS!!

Separating eggs and yolks: If you’re unsure how to separate them without bursting the yolk, you can crack all the eggs into one bowl and scoop out the yolks with your hands — this is a foolproof method with low risk!

Whipping meringue: What makes beating meringue so difficult is the timing. There are only a couple of seconds between soft peaks and stiff peaks, and then overbeaten, so it is crucial to check the meringue constantly. You can always beat it more, but you cannot un-beat it. Since you are beating air into the egg whites, it is also

absolutely vital not to deflate the meringue after it is done beating. This means gently folding, not whisking, in one direction after it has been transferred into the yolks and working quickly.

Altering sugar level: Though this recipe has reduced sugar, if you want to add or further reduce the amount of sugar used, it is advisable to alter the sugar level for the yolks rather than the whites. Altering it for the whites might cause complications with beating the meringue.

by Morgan Hsu

Key lime pies, oyster garnishes, and salsa. ey all require this fruit. And according to their recipes, it seems that lemons cannot replace the lime’s role. Yet it also seems that the green fruit stands inferior against lemons with their smaller shape and tarter avor. But is this argument true? Despite its physical qualities, limes have an indispensable place in cooking.

Firstly, to clear up any confusion, limes are not the same as an unripe lemon. ey are both citrus fruits and are hence related but distinct species. While lemons thrive in moderate climates, limes grow best in tropical and subtropical areas.

Limes and lemons both contain high levels of vitamin C, which is an important mineral for iron absorption and collagen production. ey also contain antioxidants, which help protect our bodies against cell damage. Both fruits, however, have high citric acid contents, with lemon juice having a higher citric acid content than lime juice by 2.8 grams per liter. Citric acid can dissolve tooth enamel, quickening the tooth decay process. By this logic, limes cause less harm to our dental health than lemons.

I believe the lime is more versatile than the lemon. While most regard lemons as more exible in the kitchen due to their well-rounded avor, I actually believe in the opposite. While lemons cannot emulate the bitterness and sharpness innate to a lime, limes can easily assume a lemon’s taste just by adding sweetness.

Additionally, I would argue that the lime’s striking taste is more valuable to a meal than the lemon’s less-aggressive taste. Well-thought-out menus contain a diverse variety of avors: salty, spicy, and sour, to name a few. Lemons ll the avor components of both sour and sweet, unremarkably meshed together in murk. Limes, on the other hand, strike sour with the invitation to bring spicy and/or sweet avors forward. Instead of having one ingredient that blends two avors so harmoniously that neither stands out, the lime summons more interesting avor combinations and thus is a more valuable fruit to have in the pantry.

Lastly, it is interesting to me how di cult the distinction between limes and lemons seems to be. e di erence in physical appearance between the lime and lemon is o en what turns people away from the rst and onto the latter. However, small lemons exist, and so do yellow limes. is is not to say that lemons hold little value, but rather that the believed inferiority dangled over limes should not be justi ed by those who cannot tell the true di erences between the two. Give limes a chance—they just might overtake the lemon basket in your pantry.

Matcha Grape Creme Cake

by Anny Wang

SPONGE CAKE BASE:

Corn Oil (40g)

Low Gluten our (50g)

Milk (50g)

Sugar (40g)

Matcha powder (10g) 5 Eggs

CREAM:

Heavy cream (300g)

Sugar (15g) Grapes

PROCESS:

1. Mix corn oil with matcha powder.

2. Mix in milk.

3. Separate the egg yolk from the egg white.

4. Sieve in the our, and mix in the egg yolk.

5. Whip the egg white in another bowl and add in the sugar in three portions. Whip until the egg whites form small peaks (see picture).

6. Mix 1/3 of the whipped egg whites into the rst mix.

7. Mix in the rest of the whipped egg whites.

8. Pour the mixture into a square mold and bake for 25 minutes on 320°F.

9. Whip the heavy cream with the sugar.

ASSEMBLING:

1. Cut the cake in half, horizontally.

2. Place the rst half in the mold and spread a thin layer of cream on top.

3. Cut the grapes in half and place them in the cream.

4. Cover the grapes with another layer of cream.

5. Place the second half of cake on top.

6. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

7. Decorate with grapes and cream (and anything else you’d like).

(a satirical recipe) by Miklosh Frusztajer

I vividly recall the summers I spent in the Hungarian Southwest, trekking each day across sand-covered beaches and luxuriating in the water-!lled oceans. When the sun began to set, my mother would make me pick all the olives I could and put them in my small blue wheelbarrow, alongside a barrel of saltwater. From this haul birthed my family’s super easy, super cheap, and super accessible pesto recipe.

this dish, I added a single, endearing ake. Needless to say, the souvenir didn’t last very long.

I became estranged from my Hungarian relatives in the Great Hungarian Tsunami some 500 Hungarian years ago (in Hungary). I was swimming with the dolphins and one of them said to me, “Stay and play with us!” So obviously I did, before that slimy mammal tried drowning me. Glad to say I made it out alive, but for this reason, I do not support sea mammal voting rights. When I wasn’t writing hate comments on that Atlantic-Ocean-brahmin’s Twitter tweets, I was able to grab a souvenir vial of salt, which I have worn on a necklace ever since. Each time I made

Since then, I’ve devoted my life to raising sheep in remote parts of England, far, far away from the dolphins. But you know what they say. Once you escape one mammal, you’re le dealing with another. And boy, are my sheep something to deal with. ey’re constantly getting into !ghts, and there’s always that one sheep that records the whole thing and posts it on my Twitter. Seriously, I really don’t care that my sheep are !ghting, but the dolphins stalk my Twitter daily and make fun of me for how my sheep have no manners. If anyone has any advice, please please please please please pleaseeeeee let me know in the comment section below :3.

Ingredients:

½ an arroba of fresh olives

1.12 gallons of seawater

271 cloves of garlic

Box of pine nuts

Basil seeds

Minimum 8 cows of the Canadienne breed

Ninja Nutri-Blender Pro (Please buy this by clicking my a liate link)

Axe

Step 1:

Locate a fax machine. Send a telegram to your favorite Zootopia character (You have to be nonchalant. Or else they’ll think you’re trying to irt. Trust me, I know). While awaiting a response, acquire 8 Canadiennes. You can also play Roblox with me to pass time. Don’t forget to use your axe to chop down a few trees that you’ll use to create a cow-enclosure.

Step 2:

With the remaining wood, carve a cattle stick. I’m not telling you how, so !gure it out on your own. en, set it aside and rinse some olives before smashing them to a pulp with your bare hands. You have to use your bare hands. Because I said so.

Step 3:

Press the smashed olives through a cheesecloth and set it aside for a day or two until the oil separates from the liquid. Reserve about 117/125 of the oil, pouring the other 8/125 onto your raw cattle stick. Let it cure in the sun for up to a week.

Step 4:

Harvest milk from your Canadiennes until you have between 140 and 150 gallons in reserve. Add 37.5 rennet tablets and simmer in a large vat until the substance hits a temperature (Not sure which one). Pour o the liquid, before adding the remaining solid to a unicorn-shaped-cast and setting it aside for 1-2 years. Release your cows into the wilderness. We are not dolphins— sorry, I meant monsters.

Step 5:

While you wait for your cheese to ripen, you can play Roblox (with me, user: PinkUnicornLover222). It really sucks because I have nobody to play with but how else am I supposed to farm points on Scary Spelling Bee?

Step 6:

Grow a bunch of basil (using your basil seeds). When they’re !nally taller than your cattle cane, harvest them and chi onade the leaves.

Step 7:

Dice the parmesan into cubes, each surface encompassing about 6.4516e-8 hectares. Toss all the ingredients into a Ninja Nutri-Blender Pro (please buy this by clicking my a liate link) and pulse on the lowest setting. Enjoy atop fresh sea pineapple or Wonder Bread.

by Claire Wang

Now, on my dorm desk sits a two-tier bamboo rack upholstering my 7-piece matcha supply collection, along with three tins of ceremonial-grade matcha powder which I only obtained a er dragging my mom and sister through approximately 30 stores in Kyoto. When I begged to buy a fourth tin, my mom joked, “Are you starting a matcha café?”

I used to hate green tea.

ere was something hideous about the avor, something that rang like the toogrown-up-y conversations my father would initiate during family dinners about cleaning the sump pump. I dreaded adulting, and green tea reeked of taxes and car insurance. Or perhaps it was just that hideous green color which reminded my nine-year-old palate of vomit. So I stuck to ordering my usual: oreo creme brulee boba (don’t judge), resilient as my mom shoved lu cha down my throat.

I’m not sure when I started appreciating the slightly savory yet warming aroma of matcha, actively searching for that ugly dark-green when ordering at cafés. I know that matcha has become somewhat of a trend on the internet, and many have begun to call out the 5:00 a.m. pilates-princesses for feigning their enjoyment of drinking something that “tastes like grass” simply to “match the aesthetic.” Or maybe you’ve heard jokes against “performative”, six-foot, feminist, Clairo-listening men that text in all lowercase who, too, “pretend” to drink matcha—with hopes of getting a girlfriend. Whenever I stare at the pink matcha bowl that matches my pink cherry blossom matcha whisk-stand which are both perfectly juxtaposed with my navy blue striped mug, I, too, wonder if I’m indulging in this green drink simply for the aesthetic.

I did some soul-searching. Sat down, and thought about why I drink matcha. If you asked me to my face, I’d say “I’m drinking it for the ca eine.” Which is true. My friends hail me as a ca eine connoisseur (they don’t, but I’d like to think that they do), and I’ve just about cycled through every ca eine drink ever during my time at Andover. First it was Panera Charged Lemonade (R.I.P.), then I extended to Pumpkin Creme Coldbrews, then I tried making my own coldbrew, and then came the mandatory Yerba Mate phase. e throughline between all these drinks is that, yes, they made me feel invincible the rst few hours a er drinking them. I could’ve pulled an all-nighter but upon grazing my lips on any one of those delicacies, I’d immediately feel like sharing my entire life story with anyone I come by. But once the clock struck 3:00 p.m., I’d crash. e ca eine immediately wore o , and all of a sudden, I got the desire to skip my life sport in exchange for an hour of sleep (this is just a joke. I wouldn’t ever actually do that). e thing about matcha is that it never made me crash. I could drink just a sip and it would keep me going until I hit the hay (apparently there’s science behind this claim—matcha has L-theanine which helps slow down ca eine absorption).

I also noticed my mood has improved since getting on matcha, thanks to its high antioxidant concentration. ere’s also something mood-li ing about whisking matcha powder with warm water rst thing in the morning. And I enjoy walking to class with a mug full of green liquid, knowing I’m probably the only person on

campus under the age of 30 carrying her drink in an open-air vessel (I’m de nitely not, but that’s what I tell myself). e drink always splashes and leaves its marks on my white clothes, but there’s something that I like about each green splotch, how it resembles the almost- gure-like shape of clouds. My mug of matcha makes me feel carefree, even of the clothes it dirties. I wouldn’t make a fuss to hide the green stains as I continue walking along the paths, letting my drink splash in whatever way nature dictates (although I do go and change during my free period, but that’s besides the point).

So I guess in that sense you could call my matcha-drinking performative. at I’m trying to inherit the traits of a carefree spirit as someone who would otherwise crash out over just about every small thing. But the more I went outside holding a mug and seeing nobody else doing the same, the less embarrassing it felt. e more I let myself forget about my green stains, the less I cared for all other spilled milk.

Which is why I believe it is okay for people to drink matcha as a way to t a certain aesthetic. Aesthetics are just a collection of desirable traits masked by Pinterest imag-

es. If someone wants to become more productive, wants to align with the 5:00 a.m. pilates princesses and sees matcha-drinking as a prerequisite, then it’s okay that they’re indulging in the beverage. e more we let ourselves be consistent with our goals during the little moments, like when your drink stains your shirt, the easier it is to carry that consistency into more important situations. Everything that starts o as a performance eventually becomes reality—including matcha drinking. But at the end of the day, it’s just a ca enated drink. “What about the worldwide matcha shortage?” Well, I blame the Clairo-men for that one.