SOUTHEAST INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OFFERS TASTES OF OTHER CULTURES

Joo Kyung Sung had to consult a family recipe and phone her mother before cooking japchae for the International festival Sunday. And it took several phone calls home before Sung knew exactly what ingredients to buy and how to prepare the traditional Korean noodle dish.

"I had to call her three times," Sung said. "I needed to know how to cut the carrots or how to cut the beef." Most of the ingredients were found at area markets.

The Korean dish is a combination of noodles, carrots, spinach, beef, mushrooms and onions, soy sauce and sesame oil. It is often served with rice and a spicy dish, kimchi.

Korean food is generally spicier than Chinese foods Americans are used to eating, Sung said.

It was the first time she and her brother, Young Ha, had attempted to cook the dish. And it turned out tasting just like her mother's, she said.

A group of Japanese students made a variety of sushi to serve at the festival. While most Americans think sushi is made only of raw fish, they are wrong, said Emiko Oyama. That is only one kind of sushi. Anything made with rice cakes, vinegar and sugar can be called sushi. The students used eggs and vegetables in their sushi.

Shu-Ju Lulu Chuang made a "homestyle" Taiwanese dish to share. The easy translation is a dish of meat sauce and rice. It was served with a soy egg, which is a boiled egg peeled and then cooked again with soy sauce and spices.

The meal isn't often found in restaurants, but occasionally at street-side vendors in Taiwan, Chuang said. She had to get some of the ingredients, like the spice packets, from her mother, who visits the U.S. about twice each year.

The dish is "popular and cheap," she said. It includes meat, mushrooms, bamboo, soy and a spice packet.

Many different international foods -- some as American as apple pie -- were offered Sunday afternoon at the gathering of international students at Southeast Missouri State University. About 12 countries were represented with food dishes. Some students chose to offer entertainment from their native lands as well.

The international festival usually kicks off the activities for International Week at the university. People in the community, and the students, like the chance to come and learn more about the nations of the world, their customs and their foods, said Tammy Gwaltney of the university's Office of International Programs.

People always worry that they will not like a foreign dish because it's too spicy or too different from American cuisine, she said. "But I tell them that they cook the same things we do, it just may look different." Most of the ingredients are ground pork, chicken, rice and potatoes.

Gwaltney said that even Americans have different methods for fixing the same sort of foods. The fried chicken that her mother makes doesn't taste the same as what you would eat at Kentucky Fried Chicken, she said.

Having an event like the International festival helps the students show off their cultures and foods while helping to get rid of stereotypes, she said.

The festival "is fun and you get to learn something about the world," said George Dordoni, with the advising department for international students.

"You can see that the student are people, not just colorful and different but actually brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers," he said.