Stir Fried: What childhood snacks are Asian chefs most nostalgic for?
Writer Clara Wang reminisces about the snacks she grew up eating and asks some notable cooks about their favorites
Asian kids often found themselves snacking on all kinds of foods, from char sui bao to leftover roti.
Photo illustration by Ryan Quan
Words by Clara Wang
Stir Fried: The story of any immigrant diaspora is the story of how outsiders became insiders, and nothing tells this story better than food. Names may get scrambled, languages forgotten, neighborhoods gentrified—but no matter how muddled histories become, the truth is served on a plate. Stir Fried breaks down the weird, messy, bastardized fusion cuisines that tell the story of Asian diaspora communities around the world.
When I was a kid growing up in the suburbs of Minnesota, and my mother was either too busy to cook or us children were giggling awake at ungodly hours during sleepovers, I favored two equally nutritious snacks.
We always had a huge box of instant ramen in the basement—like many Asian mothers, my mother has always had a bit of a food-hoarding problem and keeps enough dry and frozen goods in the basement to survive the next two apocalypses. I can’t remember the brand now, but I am certain that she only ever bought chicken-flavored ramen, and I liked it enough to never complain. My brother and I would take an entire packet of uncooked instant ramen, pound the dried noodles into fragments, and mix the seasoning packets with uncooked noodles. Voila! Sometimes we were even civilized enough to use spoons, though I think that amount of sodium tastes better when licked off your fingers.
My other snack was a private pleasure, not to be trotted out in front of undiscerning white friends who I feared wouldn’t have appreciated the essential role packaged pickled radishes play in a Chinese household. Chuan Ba Wang pickled radishes came in a vacuum-sealed green and white bag covered in bold claims, of which only about half were probably true: “Salted Spicy Shredded Radish,” “Crispy & Salty,” “No added preservatives.”
Writer Clara Wang used pickled radishes to make a sandwich as a snack.
Photo via Amazon
In Chinese we call all Sichuan-style pickles “zha cai,” or “pressed vegetable,” so I didn’t know what vegetable this specific pickle was actually made from until I spotted it as a college student perusing an Asian grocery without my mother for the first time. Since then, I’ve tried a few other types of pickled vegetables from the same brand, and other than varying spice levels they all feature the exact same flavor and consistency, so who knows what is in Chuan Ba Wang “pickled radishes?” For all I know, those little fleshy shreds could be tiny fingers lost in Guangdong’s Nike factories, pressed through heavy machinery and stewed in that delectable umami blend of juices until it tastes like my childhood.
Anyway, I made sandwiches with them. White bread, Chuan Ba Wang, and a sodium hangover.
Immigrant parents in their infinite wisdom often forego brand-name junk food at the grocery store. Oreos? Lunchables? Who has the money to waste on unhealthy American snacks? Oh, the glory of peeking in a white classmates’ pantry for the first time and finding items you saw on TV. For children of the diaspora, the items our parents stocked in the fridge, freezer, or pantry for a hungry kid to grab and go can say more about our family than our income tax reports or how many AP classes we took. We spoke to some Asian diaspora chefs about their favorite childhood snacks and the memories that come along with them.
Chef Devan Rajkumar
International chef and cookbook author Devan Rajkumar has been spreading the word on Indo Guyanese cuisine on Canadian TV screens as Chef Dev for nearly a decade. His 2024 cookbook, Mad Love, is a modern take on the vibrant flavors he grew up with in an Indo Guyanese family in Toronto. In between filming his latest TV show, Global Street Eats on Gusto TV and cooking for events all over the world, Rajkumar is currently working on his second cookbook.
“There’s a couple things I wasn’t crazy about growing up, but now if you put it in front of me I’ll just inhale it. My mom would always make fresh roti, but the next day, she would fill the roti up with bhagi, a stir-fried or sauteed spinach, where it gets kind of curry-like…I’d have that and eat it at school like, ‘Ohhh god, not this again,” he laughs.
Baghi is a Guyanese stew of green vegetables that evolved from Indian stews like palak or saag, simply flavored with wiri wiri pepper (a hot pepper indigenous to Guyana), cumin, garlic, and onion.
“Some people call it ‘bhagee’—that’s the thing with Guyanese dishes, you know, everything has a different spelling because there’s no official spelling, so it’s a broken game of telephone,” Rajkumar says.
Another common use of leftover roti was to spread it with a savory sauce—usually achar, a pungent hot pepper paste made from dried green mango—sometimes with a little butter.
“In terms of being nutrient dense, it couldn't be further from that, but it’s a snack,” Rajkumar says. “You have leftover roti, give it a spread of some achar, throw a little bhagi in there, roll it up like a burrito, wrap it up in some foil, and there’s your lunch.”
Cathy Mai, Mai Little China
Cathy Mai grew up in the 1960s as part of a close-knit Chinese American community that had settled in the Mississippi Delta. She and her husband Matthew have owned local restaurant Mai Little China in Greenwood, Mississippi since 2007.
“Char sui bao and scallion pancakes are my absolute favorites. Growing up, my mom kept some in the freezer for breakfast, after school snack, or midnight snack. They are my ultimate comfort foods,” Mai says. “Scallion pancakes are also a big hit in our family. Everyone craves them. They are so crispy, chewy and buttery at the same time.”
The tradition continued for Mai’s children—her mother continued making huge batches of char sui bao and scallion pancakes well into her 80s for her grandchildren to snack on.
“Needless to say, Mom kept my freezer stocked,” Mai says. “Now when my family gets together, whether it’s five or 20, we all participate in making the pancakes together in honor of Mom.”
Chef Yia Vang
Chef Yia Vang's version of "Sardines."
Lauren Cutshall
Featured in last month’s Stir Fried column, Hmong American chef Yia Vang serves up childhood memories at his lauded Minneapolis restaurant Vinai. On the menu is a dish titled “Sardines,” which many Southeast Asian kids will be familiar with.
“We smoke mackerel into a confit and put it in these little containers that look like a sardine can,” he says. “It’s funny because we did such a great job that one time somebody asked, ‘What brand is this? Like, this is so good, I want to go find this in the store.’ We call it sardines because all Hmong kids would take one of these sardine cans and open it up, and add garlic, cilantro, chili peppers, we mix it up, and then we sticky rice it.”
Chef Craig Wong
Chef Craig Wong's favorite snack was a slice of hardo bread with a layer of margarine and some chocolate milk.
Courtesy of Craig Wong
Born and raised in Toronto to a big Jamaican Chinese family, Chef Craig Wong mastered his craft in acclaimed French culinary institutions before launching Patois in 2014, a casual-dining restaurant serving the flavors of his roots. Wong has since launched AYLA, a restaurant inspired by golden-age Hong Kong cinema, partnered with Dubai’s first Jamaican restaurant, Ting Irie, and created limited edition patties for pooches at Patois’ sister snack-shop JunePlum. He co-hosts the television series Cook Like A Chef, and is currently a judge on MasterChef Canada.
“My all-time favorite treat when I was a kid was taking a slice of hardo bread. Hardo bread has a tight, fine crumb, it’s not a yeasty pocketed crumb like traditional breads that we get in North America. It’s ultra-soft but super dense and firm too, so it’s a unique style and texture,” Wong says, noting that they named their production company after this Jamaican pantry staple.
He adds, “I would take that hardo bread, I would spread a nice thick layer of margarine on top—always margarine because Jamaicans would never have butter at home. I would take Milo, the chocolate drink mix, and I would put enough so that I would get that gritty, gritty texture. That was my favorite, to have that gritty texture, that layer of margarine, and that pillowy soft but firm and dense hardo bread.”
Published on February 11, 2026
Words by Clara Wang
Clara Wang is a freelance writer based in Austin, TX but often found wandering abroad exploring culture through the lens of food and drink. Her work has been featured in publications such as Conde Nast Traveler, Food & Wine, Eater Austin, BuzzFeed, Refinery29, the Austin American Statesman, and the Daily Dot. Her monthly column Stir Fried explores Asian diasporic cuisines around the world.
Art by Ryan Quan
Ryan Quan is JoySauce's social media manager, associate editor, and all-around visual eye. This queer, half-Chinese, half-Filipino writer and graphic designer loves everything related to music, creative nonfiction, and art. Based in Brooklyn, he spends most of his time dancing to hyperpop and accidentally falling asleep on the subway. Follow him on Instagram at @ryanquans, and check out his work on his website.