#ChineseFoodiesofIG: Mackenzie Fegan

Mackenzie Fegan

This is part of an ongoing series of interviews I’m doing with my favourite Chinese foodies that I follow on Instagram. Come and follow the #ChineseFoodiesofIG hashtag on Instagram and leave a comment showing your support for these talented folk!

Where are you from? Where are you really from?

Brooklyn-based, California-bred. But if someone is asking me "Where are you *really* from," what they want to know is that my mom is from China.

What does home taste like?

A trip to my family's restaurant, Henry's Hunan, for dumplings and chile-flecked string beans and smoked-pork-everything followed by whatever weird, seasonal ice cream my mom picked up for $1.49 at Grocery Outlet Bargain Market.

What’s in your fridge?

At the moment, a brining turkey and nine different kinds of dairy.

Share a food memory:

When I was very little, I attended a Chinese day care where I was the only mixed race kid. I didn't like Chinese food, so the woman who looked after me boiled me a hot dog every day for lunch.

Who's your Chinese food legend?

My grandfather, Henry Chung! The New Yorker called Henry's Hunan "the best Chinese restaurant in the world.”

What’s a Chinese recipe everyone should learn?

I love teaching people how to make jiaozi. I throw a Lunar New Year party every year and bring friends together over a big bowl of filling and stacks of wrappers. It's such a cozy, communal activity.

The most important Chinese ingredient is…

Saying whatever you cooked isn't very good. Also, chilli peppers.

Dream dinner party guests:

OMG dinner parties 😢 I miss them so much. If you'd asked me a year ago it would have been aspirational guests, but today I just want to roast a chicken for my family and friends.

What does Chinese food mean to you?

It really represents my own changing relationship to my race and culture. When I was a kid, I identified more heavily with my white side of the family; I saw my Chinese family as foreign and other, and that included the food they ate. I didn't cotton on to my own internalized racism until college, which was also around the same time that I started to love Chinese food.