Asian American Association (AAA) collaborated with Snack Attack and Chinese Club on April 24 to host a food event where people could make their own food, including dumplings and tanghulu.
The event took place in the Foods classroom, where students could choose to either help make dumplings or tanghulu. Some tasks included sticking the fruit on the skewers, concocting the syrup for tanghulu, and bundling stuffing for dumplings.
Junior Liana Cacal Li found out about the event through her friend, she said.
“I actually just found out about this yesterday because my friend told me that there’s a tanghulu night going on,” Li said. “So I was like, let’s go, because it sounds fun.”
Li had also attended a similar event in her freshman year, she said. Li tried to make tanghulu before, but it turned out unsuccessful, she added.
“For tanghulu, this is my second time (making it) because of the event I went to last time,” Li said. “It helped me get a better idea of what to do better this time, because lots of disasters happened last time. This is my first time actually making dumplings.”
Junior Jasmine Yang also helped out at the tanghulu-making event, she said. Yang handled the fruits and the syrup mixture pot, which contained boiling water and sugar, she added.
“So far, I only peeled oranges, but I got to make my own skewer,” Yang said. “They already gave fruits, so I just put it on a stick. I also helped watch the water boil to make the syrup.”
Yang also attended a tanghulu-making event in freshman year, though parts of the cooking process did not go smoothly, she said.
“The thing that went bad (last year) is that we accidentally burnt the sugar,” Yang said.” I think we waited too long, so as we were starting to pour the mixture, it got really cooked through; it did burn a little bit.”
The event was originally supposed to be hosted solely by the AAA before they decided to collaborate with Snack Attack and Chinese Club, senior and Snack Attack president Giselle Fan said.
“Dumpling night is a tradition the Asian American Association holds, but this year we wanted to combine it with Snack Attack and Chinese Club,” Fan said. “So we added tanghulu, since there’d be more food and there’d be two things going on.”
All three clubs worked together to help determine who would find specific food supplies for the event, Fan said.
“So some officers from Chinese Club got the fruits and the sugars,” Fan said. “Then, some officers of the Asian American Association got all the dumpling ingredients, and then Snack Attack promised to help reimburse them.”
Because of her role as Snack Attack’s president, Fan’s role during the event involved giving people specific jobs, she said.
“Since I’m the president, I’m just delegating everyone,” Fan said. “So I’m just telling people what to do and what to start on, and what everyone’s doing.”
Despite the lack of advertising, there were still a decent number of people who turned up to the event to cook food together, Fan said.
“For not advertising the event that much, this was a pretty good turnout,” Fan said. “That is good, and I think this is enough food for the amount of people we got.”
