This Independence Day, Free Yourselves From Burgers and Hot Dogs

(Bloomberg) -- A sea of shining grills stretches across the nation on the 4th of July, topped with sizzling burgers and hot dogs. That’s the story we’ve been reading and writing for decades, since way before I became part of the culinary journalism world.

But throughout America, there is a rich tradition of celebration through shared meals that goes well beyond this story. On summer holidays, people draw upon a rainbow of dining and drinking cultures to gather and eat, and these less-shared stories highlight heritages so varied they’d make a dazzling picnic quilt.

There’s no better place to find vibrant July 4th celebrations than Los Angeles. It’s one of the most diverse cities in the country, set in the most diverse state. Locals are cookout experts. They also treat the 4th of July as one of the year’s big holidays, not necessarily to celebrate independence but because it is a day to hang out at the beach, cook out at home, and watch major firework displays. Few restaurants are open that day, so for the millions of kids whose parents work in dining rooms and kitchens, it’s one of the year’s few, true family days. Because of the Covid-19 coronavirus, most of this year’s fireworks are virtual, and home parties are socially distanced. They are still being planned.

“Basically, for us, the 4th of July is a time to celebrate what it means to be a non-Anglo-American,” says Kim Luu-Ng, co-owner of the southeast Asian spot, Cassia, a restaurant that is especially active in supporting social justice causes. “I don’t have to just eat burgers and hot dogs on 4th of July. I can eat Vietnamese barbecue, too. Eating just one kind of food is deprivation, in my opinion.”

Cheyenne Nicholson, founder of Fun-Diggity Funnel cakes, a popular dessert place near South Central L.A., is looking forward to this year‘s holiday specifically as a way to break from old traditions. “Being African American, a lot of us are finding our history,” she explains. “We celebrate a lot of holidays with open arms, and we want people to celebrate what our ancestors went through and start to have conversations and change traditions: the way you eat, the things you talk about.”

“Everything is changing and evolving,” she adds, referring to the Black Lives Movement and other awareness campaigns. “The 4th of July is a good place to start.”

Here, seven Angelenos talk about what they eat to celebrate Independence Day.

Aishwarya Iyer, founder of Brightland Olive Oil

Menu: Pav Bhaji (vegetarian vegetable mash) and kulfi (Indian ice cream)

“I was born in Chennai in south India, but I spent part of my childhood in Chicago, and that’s where my earliest memory of the 4th of July is from, when I was around 6. We went to a couple cookouts, but my family was vegetarian; none of us could eat the burgers. I was bummed by the whole thing. At home, my Mom made pav bhajii to make up for it. Pav bhaji is a popular Indian street food, it’s a little thicker than a stew, served with a roll. When you put it on a bun, it spills over the sides, like a sloppy joe. Mom added red onions and lime and cilantro on the side. It became our DIY 4th of July. We’d bring it to parties with idli [steamed rice cakes] tossed in gunpowder spice in Ziploc bags.

“For dessert, we’d go to Baskin-Robbins and get ice cream. But sometimes we’d buy kulfi. The ultimate was kulfi falooda, which is like a sundae, with rose syrup.

“I haven’t done pav bhaji for the 4th of July in a while. But now I’m talking to my parents about it, and we have all the memories, and this is the year I want to bring it back.”

Kimberly Prince, owner of Hotville Chicken

Menu: Fried chicken, corn on the cob, homemade pecan pie

“If you’re part of the Prince family, the 4th of July means the Nashville hot chicken festival. For the last few years, I fly back home to Nashville and roll up my sleeves. The Hot Chicken Festival started in 2007 to pay homage to my aunt Andre Prince, who owns Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack. It’s the hottest day of the year, literally. The line for the festival is over a mile long. I wish I was exaggerating. I have walked that line myself: People from everywhere sitting on blankets with their kids, the babies, the dogs. The park isn’t that big, but that’s no excuse. We don’t have a hot chicken festival here in L.A. yet, but its on my mind, and I’m talking to all the places here to have one for future July 4ths.

“This year, the 4th of July will be a work day for me. It’s Hotville’s first 4th of July in our current space. We’ll break out the Kool-Aid, which is our summer drink. People ask what flavor is it, I say ‘red’—or ‘purple,’ if it’s grape. We’ll also have corn on the cob, banana pudding, pecan pie. But mostly, it’s fried chicken. Watch, I’m going to make the 4th the hottest day of the year here.”

Bryant and Kim Luu-Ng, owners of Cassia restaurant

Menu: Cantonese Roast suckling pig, Vietnamese pork rolls, and specialties from Dolan Uyghur, which features Asian Islamic food.

Kim: “Every year since we’ve opened Cassia five years ago, we’ve closed the restaurant for July 4th and had a party at our house for our employees. We decided: Let’s give everyone a day off and get food from places in the San Gabriel Valley where we live. We’ll order from different restaurants, depending on which ones we think are really good that year, and introduce these flavors to our staff.

“This year we’re picking Uyghur food from Dolan Uyghur restaurant. We had minced lamb pie; its called goshnaan. And we had deep-fried naan, stir-fried with beef, seasoned with all kinds of spices. Who’s seen that before? It was so unexpected. Our staff was, like, ‘This is amazing.’ We have a lot of pride in expanding people’s understandings, it enhances the nuances of a culture.

“People say, ‘Oh, you’re Vietnamese, I love eating pho.’ But that’s just scratching the surface. It’s the same thing with Chinese food. When it’s just that single dimension, you’ll never understand how rich that other culture is, and how rich and nuanced you are as a person. The people that work at Cassia are Asians of so many ethnicities: Vietnamese, Taiwanese, other Chinese. There are Black Americans, so many different Hispanic groups. We have close to 100 employees from 20-plus different countries, so many languages, and we’re celebrating American independence with the best food the San Gabriel Valley has to offer. That’s what it means to celebrate the 4th in Los Angeles—and who you are.

“We purposefully picked the 4th of July to do this. Growing up, my family and Bryant’s family adopted Anglo-American ways of celebrating the 4th. We had hamburgers and hot dogs, but we’d also have Vietnamese barbecue.”

Cheyenne and Bernard Nicholson, founders of Fun Diggity Funnel Cakes

Menu: Plant-based burger; funnel cake with ice cream, strawberries and whipped cream

Cheyenne: “The 4th of July is the day we started Fun Diggity, three years ago. It’s always been a party day for us—also, because my mom is our business partner. Her birthday is on the 4th. We were used to making it a gathering, so we decided it’s the day Fun Diggity would be born.

“We’re both from Compton; our store is in L.A. We get people from all over all the city. Most businesses are closed on the 4th, we’re open, and people have adopted us as their holiday dessert. It’s one of our bestselling days: Last year, we sold 800 funnel cakes in one day.

“Our feeling is: You’ve got to have a burger on the 4th, but it’s a tradition you can evolve. We’ve been incorporating more plant-based meat into our party. And then we bring out our cakes when the sun is going down and everyone is outdoors, and it’s like fireworks. It’s our party.”

Fernando Lopez, co-owner Guelaguetza and founder of the michelada party bus, Miche Mobile

Menu: Michelada-marinated carne asada, chorizo, grilled vegetables, and lots of sides and beverages

“I came to the U.S. from Oaxaca when I was 7 years old. My parents had started the restaurant, Guelaguetza, and they were always working. Then they saw that no one came to the restaurant at night on July 4th, so they’d close and take us to the fireworks. You learn about Independence Day in school, but for me, the 4th of July was the one day of the year when I could see my family. Food wasn’t always big for us, but eventually, when I was a teenager, we started barbecuing. But we weren’t hot dog and hamburger people. We had our traditional meats, like chorizo and carne asada with tortillas and plates of avocado, radishes, cheese, salsas, so many plates of toppings.

“My parents retired around eight years ago. They went bankrupt, had to close everything. My sisters and I took everything we had and bought them out. When we took over at the height of the recession for the Mexican community; it hit our world later and for a prolonged time, and there were entire days when we had zero customers. We had to come up with a revenue stream, so we started selling our michelada [a spiced-up combination of beer and tomato juice] mix. No one knew what it was then, but they knew we had a good one. I bought an old VW bus, and tricked it out. It has beer taps. There’s a TV, speakers, and a DJ booth.

“Our menu changes on the 4th of July. Sometimes we do our family mole, we import ingredients from Oaxaca. My family eats a lot of meat, so I make carne asada. I’ve been throwing our michelada mix in with some steak, slice up some jalapenos and some onions, and then grill or saute it. We’ll grab big corn tortilla that’s toasted, imported from Oaxaca (they’re called tlayuda), with pork spread, asiento, and a bunch of other good stuff. Usually, I have my friends over, and at least one of them will be a DJ, so they take over the booth in my truck and it’s a party.”

Jazz Singsanong, owner of Jitlada Thai restaurant

Menu: Thai barbecued chicken and the chopped meat salad larb

“When my kids were little, we’d do barbecue in the back yard. I’ve been in America for 40 years; I came here from Thailand with $200 and one suitcase to go to school. Then I met my husband—I didn’t leave. One of my most famous dishes at Jitlada [one of the country’s most revered Thai restaurants, with a reputation for incendiary dishes] is the Jazz burger; I don’t put it on the menu. I use all Thai ingredients. It’s not American at all. I started making it because I found out that my daughter was hiding the food I made for her at school. She worried that her friends would make fun of her for her Thai food. That’s why I tried to make a burger for her. And Thai spaghetti. And that’s why I make Thai barbecue chicken, not American barbecue chicken for the 4th of July.

“The ingredients in the chicken are simple: It’s whole cloves of garlic, cilantro stem, black pepper. You put it in the blender with coconut milk, fresh turmeric—if you can find it. Serve it with dried chile, as hot as you can stand it. When you throw all these ingredients in your barbecued chicken, the world is yours. My kids are grown up, but on 4th of July, I usually have kids from the Thai temple in Los Angeles. We have American flags outside, but the food isn’t American. It’s Thai.

Wes Avila, founder of Guerilla Tacos

Menu: Lobster, tortillas, potato salad, cocktail shrimp, and stiff Tiki drinks

“The 4th of July was a big part of growing up here in L.A. If we weren’t going to Baja lighting fireworks, we were in L.A. with fireworks. Burgers and hot dogs were traditional for me as a kid, but also carne asada and chicken, which were really tasty marinated Mexican Cornish game hens. Also enchiladas. My Mom always made potato salad and macaroni salad. Every Mexican house I know makes some kind of starch salad. It’s not typical in Mexico, but it’s a staple here. I also serve lobster because a lot of my childhood was going to Baja.

“It’s the place to get lobster, with flour tortillas—the good, stretchy ones. Also, tiki drinks are a thing for me. We do big big rum drinks, fruity ones like a Mai Tai, because usually it’s a beautiful day, along with a lot of beer. And we close the shop for the 4th of July; it’s one of the few days of the year that we do. It’s a good reason to gather. People are upset with what’s going on, some tradition or history that’s not sitting well with people. I’m taking the holiday to celebrate being together.”

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