CAAM is proud to partner with StoryCorps on Asian American culture and food stories. In this segment, filmmaker Kevin Longa sits down with his mother, Christine Chan, and grandmother, May Lee Chan, to discuss their family’s culinary history and relationship with food.
Longa, a former student of Off the Menu: Asian America director Grace Lee, is currently creating a new food-centric documentary series called TASTE With Kevin Longa, featuring the true stories of food entrepreneurs around the world. Longa took Lee’s film class at UCLA in 2009.
“Food and films have the ability to unite people,” Longa tells CAAM. “Yet both culinary and film tastes are so personal and subjective. What I love about these two arts is that nearly everyone on the planet has a strong feeling one way or another about food and film. People may disagree whether ramen burgers are ‘authentic’ or that Eat Drink Man Woman is the best food film of all time. We all have distinct opinions and feelings about these things, and that makes us human.”
Listen to a Longa, his mother and grandmother (“Pao Pao”) discuss how his grandfather got his start, his grandmother’s restaurant, and their family’s sweet tooth.
Help Longa’s project TASTE finish their post-production work by donating to his Kickstarter here!
