The Braid, Tastes of Tradition & Katie Chin’s Latkes with David Chiu

On this episode of Taste Buds with Deb, host Debra Eckerling speaks with David Chiu, communication manager at The Braid and producer of their new video series, “Tastes of Tradition.”

“One thing that we at The Braid notice is that food and storytelling, especially for us Jews, are  inseparable,” Chiu explains.  “Food is as much about the people you're sharing it with as the recipes themselves.”

In their snackable videos (they are about two-and-a-half minutes each), “Tastes of Tradition” invites the audience into the kitchens of five diverse Jewish families. 

Featured in the series are Instagram chef Sivan Kobi (Sivan’s Kitchen) and her Iraqi Jewish mother, Yafa, who prepare kitchri, and Chinese-American celebrity chef and cookbook author Katie Chin and her teenage daughter Becca, an Asian American Jew, who make latkes with Asian-inspired dipping sauces. 

Also,  graphic novelist Emily Bowen Cohen, a Muscogee (Creek) Nation member, joins her son Maccabee and mother-in-law Beth to make fry bread for Hanukkah; award-winning comic and educator Joshua Silverstein, who is black and Jewish, and his 16-year-old stepson, Ami, make allergy-friendly hamantaschen for Purim; and Kimberly Dueñas, co-founder of Jewtina y Co, and her father Solomon, a crypto-Jew from El Salvador who kept his Jewish identity hidden for years due to the legacy of the Spanish Inquisition, prepare challah. 

The series is on brand for The Braid, a vibrant cultural hub for connection, creativity, and stories that reflects the diversity of the Jewish experience. And food is frequently part of the mix. 

“To me, the most powerful thing about food is that it's passed down,” Chiu explains. “Even if you don't  pass down Shabbat traditions or other religious things,  there's something that you take from your family related to food.” 

Chiu, who is a Chinese American Jew, says he finds that also true on the Chinese side of his family. When he went off to college, Chiu wrote to his dad, asking him how to cook. 

“He sent me all these recipes, which was hard for him because he's an immigrant and he never wrote anything down,” Chiu explains. “But his recipes became my way of connecting with him and his culture.”

David Chiu shares the origin story of “Tastes of Tradition,” the different ways The Braid integrates food into their offerings, and how he developed his love of cooking. He also shares Katie Chin’s recipe for double happiness latkes with Asian dipping sauces, which you can find at JewishJournal.com/podcasts.

Learn more about The Braid’s “Tastes of Tradition” video series at The-braid.org/tastes. 

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