Fusion Cuisine with Added MSG, 2016 – 2018

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Artist’s book
7.25 x 5.25”

Fusion Cuisine: With Added MSG! brings together your all time favourite MSG dishes from the 1930s to the 1970s in one handy-dandy cookbook! Mississauga Fried Chicken, Hockey Spare Ribs and Nova Scotia Fish Chowder are just a few of the timeless recipes that will have you drooling in a pool of nostalgia. In no time, your family will be thanking you for these delicious, umami loaded Canadian classics brought back to life with an exotic flavour enhancer from the far east.

Fusion Cuisine, Now with Added MSG! begins with a research essay that outlines the once embraced use of MSG and the xenophobic motivations behind its demonization with Chinese food. The remainder of the book takes on the form of an instructional cookbook and focuses on MSG’s history within Toronto. Featured are a selection of recipes published in the Toronto Star between 1935 and 1976 that call for some form of MSG. The recipes were recreated and documented to challenge the notion that MSG is inherently Chinese.

Fusion Cuisine, No MSG, I Can’t Believe It’s MSG and A Visual History of MSG Marketing  are four components of Accent; a project featuring a history of MSG product marketing alongside archival materials from the Toronto Star Newspaper.

Designed by Tetyana Herych of Furrawn Press.
Published by the Art Gallery of York University (AGYU).

This project was made possible with the support of the Toronto Arts Council.