Interview #19: Frankie Gaw's Dumpling Supermodels
Frankie shares his dumpling origins, unique creative process, and what you'll find in his debut cookbook, First Generation.
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Many years ago, I watched an interview1 with Lady Gaga that delved into her holistic creative process. When she’s writing a song and recording it in the studio, she said, she’s already imagining the accompanying music video. To her, it was one cohesive vision, dreamt up and implemented simultaneously.
In this vein, Frankie Gaw—the creator of the food blog Little Fat Boy and author of almost-here cookbook First Generation—is kind of the Lady Gaga of dumplings. Take a gander at his Instagram, and you’ll see an array of dumplings that are vividly colored and somehow simultaneously homey looking (plump, rounded) and impossibly precise (extremely crisp and sharp pleats).
They’re aesthetically interesting on their own, but also in the visual context in which they’re presented, nestled into stunning ceramic platters—sometimes thrown by Frankie himself—and shot on brightly hued backdrops.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Frankie has a background in graphic design. Making dumplings as an adult began as a way to experience nostalgia for his upbringing but soon became an outlet for creative expression. “It started to evolve into more of—how do I push the boundaries of what a dumpling even is and how people see a dumpling?” he says.
“It did become more of an expression of, in a sense, making art, because I was just trying to represent the dumpling in new ways, both visually and through its flavor profiles.” Like Gaga, he thinks about everything—flavor profile, pleat style, dough color—at once, sketching out blueprints of his yet-to-exist creations before going food shopping.
Frankie’s debut cookbook, First Generation: Recipes from My Taiwanese-American Home will arrives officially on October 25 (though there’s no reason not to preorder it now, you’ll get a bonus zine if you do!).
Dumplings feature prominently in the book, including on the cover. “Dumplings are, when it comes down to it, my favorite food. It's the thing that I feel represents me the most,” he says. “The cookbook has a range of different kinds of recipes, but if there was one image that had to represent who I am and where I'm going, the dumplings feel right and it's what people recognize me most for.”
Ahead, learn about Frankie’s dumpling origins, his approach to Taiwanese-American food (yes, corn dogs are involved), and the dumpling brand that he’s just starting to build.
Did you grow up with a specific style of dumpling?
I always grew up eating boiled pork dumplings, with soy sauce and a little bit of scallion and ginger and that's it. The wrapper was a really standard flour and water wrapper. And we would usually do boiled dumplings, because when you have a large family it's easier to just boil them all at once.
When did you make them for the first time as an adult, where you had the autonomy and were like I want to do this?
I was probably in my early 20s. It was only when I was living in San Francisco, in my early 20s, after college, when I was like, I really miss my family and I was going through a lot of personal stuff at that time. My dad passed away when I was 24.
I just wanted to eat the foods that my family enjoyed and that my dad enjoyed. And so I thought, I'm going to make dumplings for myself just to feel some sort of comfort. What jump-started a lot of the making of my own food was me trying to find comfort through food and trying to access memories and nostalgia through food.
You started making dumplings to connect to your past and your memories; when was it like, I’m going to put my own spin on this and make it different?
I was really craving this sense of learning how to make the things that I grew up with, so I started flying to my grandma's house in Colorado, and I would document all her recipes just to understand the process of making things. It started with the dumplings, and then it went into steam buns and all these other recipes that my grandma used to make for me. I was a designer before I was doing all of this stuff, so photography and design has always been a big passion.
I reached a point where I was starting to photograph the recipes just for myself and posting it to social media and then it started to become its own style. As I was starting to develop it, I realized that I wanted to put my own creative spin on it now that I was starting to learn the recipes.
A lot of the motivation, too, was me not being used to seeing Asian American food represented, I felt, in mainstream food media. For me it was selfishly a way to represent that food and to put a creative touch on homestyle food that I wished I could see more.
Once you started developing your own dumpling recipes, were there any early on where you felt like you were really hitting on something that felt like your new style?
Yeah, it was when I started to create the dumplings based on seasonal ingredients. I was living in San Francisco, and the produce there was so good. The one dumpling that really clicked with me was when I combined butternut squash with pork, because that's definitely not an ingredient that you would see in typical Taiwanese dumplings. I remember having butternut squash from the market and I was like, I'm going to roast this and get it really sweet and then substitute that for the little bit of sugar that you sometimes can use in dumplings to balance the flavor.
I combined the butternut squash and the pork, but then kept a lot of the same aromatics that I typically use, like ginger and scallion and garlic. I remember pan frying it, and then giving it to my boyfriend at the time and we were both like, “Oh wow! This is pretty good.” And it really does taste like fall and like San Francisco, but it also still reminds me of my grandma's food. I remember thinking this was a really interesting route—to play around and pull seasonal ingredients from the local markets.
You’ve discussed your background as a designer. Your dumplings are so aesthetically precise—I was looking at the blurbs for your new cookbook, and Molly Yeh referred to your dumplings as “supermodels,” which I loved. How long did it take you to get to the type of folds and precision you have now, and why is that important to you?
I've always known how to fold dumplings, just because I've done it for so long with my family, and the folds that we would make are very homestyle—two pleats and then throw them into the water. It's more to get as many dumplings folded as possible.
Once I started photographing them, it took me about a year of weekly dumpling-making to really get it precise. Personally, I'm a perfectionist, so it brings me joy when every single dumpling looks exactly the same. But, for someone else, that might be totally psychotic. I tell people, “Hey, fold them the way you want to fold them and try different folds and experiment. Whatever brings you the most joy in how you fold, that's what you should do.”
I came up with a lot of the folds by either just playing around or looking at how people would make pastries, and that would inspire some of the folds. The precision is more of a “me” thing, but it's definitely not what I expect out of people or the everyday home cook.
Do you have any favorites that you are especially proud of?
A lot of the two-tone ones, I think, are really fun. When I showed my grandma and she was excited, that's when I was like, Oh wow. I feel I'm onto something.
There's one specific one that looks like a kitchen tile, but it's essentially two different colors on top of each other. And then, when you fold it, it ends up becoming a two-tone dumpling—it's almost like origami in a way, and looks like this pinwheel kitchen tile. And that came from experimenting. Those happy accidents are the ones that I feel proud of, because they're me experimenting and coming up with cool visual representations of a dumpling that I haven’t seen before.
Now, I want to ask you some questions about the cookbook. I know dumplings make up only one section of it, but also, there are two-toned dumplings on the cover. I assume that was a deliberate choice on your part.
I knew for the cover that I wanted a singular image. Dumplings really represented both where I am at and also the overall arching theme of the cookbook, which centers around being a first-generation immigrant. The cover was actually the last thing I shot, and I was really crunching up against deadlines. I would like to think that I was very intentional about which dumplings I was going to put on the cover, but honestly, I looked in my freezer and I was like, What dumplings have I made already that I can just put on a cover?
I knew I wanted to represent both a traditional dumpling, just a flour and water dough with pork inside. And I also wanted to show the other end, which was something two-tone, really technical, and maybe isn't something that a home cook wouldn't necessarily do as often, but felt more of a representation of where I am as well.
Your book has several essays in it. Do dumplings come up in any of them?
The essays are the introduction for each chapter opener, so the dumpling chapter has an essay that is related to dumplings. It's called Twinkie, and it's basically about me growing up in the Midwest. When you're an Asian American growing up as a first-generation immigrant, a lot of times people will say, "Oh, you're Asian. But, you're basically white just like us. You're white on the inside, but you're yellow on the outside. So you're like a Twinkie." And it was a way, I guess, at least, for me to justify that I belonged.
The essay is about growing up in grade school, trying to figure out my identity and living between these two cultures. There was my home life, with all these traditional home-cooked dishes that were Taiwanese, and speaking Mandarin, and eating dumplings— it was really a part of me, but confined in my home. And then once I stepped into American-me, it was Gushers and Doritos and all these things I also love, but they were completely separate from each other. And how sometimes when I bring those things from my home into my quote-unquote, "American life," there would be this tension in me not knowing what to do.
Do you mind sharing any examples of dumplings you're particularly excited about in the cookbook?
I think the one I'm most excited about is an open face steam bun, a gua bao, with a black vinegar-barbecue brisket. The brisket is dry rubbed in a bunch of different seasonings and then gets slow roasted for a few hours and it gets really tender. Then you basically baste it in a bunch of barbecue sauce that's made with black vinegar and there's some soy sauce in it. It's this really punchy, sweet and savory barbecue sauce that I'm really proud of. Then, you slice it and put it in a bun and put some pickles on it and eat it like an open face sandwich.
I really like that one, because I feel it really represents a lot of different parts of my identity. My dad's side of the family lives in Memphis, so we used to eat barbecue for Thanksgiving every year. And my grandma would also make steam buns. So we'd have steam buns and pork dumplings, but then we'd also have barbecue brisket and sweet potato and collard greens.
There's another recipe I wanted to ask you about. It might not even be in that chapter, but—the lap cheong corn dog.
I've grown up eating corn dogs. We used to get boxes of corn dogs at Costco and then every time I'd come home, I'd microwave one and watch Maury (laughs). I've also grown up eating Chinese sausages, like lap cheong in sticky rice, or chopped up and eaten with white rice. As I was developing recipes and thinking about how I can represent my story through food, in my head, I was just like, oh yeah, of course I'd want to make a corn dog out of a lap cheong sausage. And I remember writing the idea down in my notes app and then leaving it there. You can't go wrong with a sausage wrapped in a carb.
I’d love to ask you about the dumpling kits that you’re launching. Is having your own dumpling business the end goal?
My end goal has always been to have a dumpling line and to sell dumplings at scale. Even before the cookbook, this has always been a bucket list item. The cookbook was also a bucket list item—after the cookbook was done, I was like, maybe this business is much more tangible than I had thought. That's what's started me trying to make these dumpling kits. I'm basically in the testing phase right now. Part of this whole dumpling kit side business, as of right now, is just to understand what people want and how people want to make dumplings.
The joy of dumpling making is the gathering with your friends or your family and making them together. So the dumpling kits are wrappers and fillings packaged separately. I make all the wrappers and then seal them, and then the filling is in a pack. You can essentially just fold your own and then cook them, but then you don't have to roll out your dough.
I find that the store-bought wrappers have a really specific texture, which I enjoy, but they are different from what you get when you're making homemade wrappers. I wanted to recreate the experience of making dumplings with your family without the overhead. That's what I'm going to test soon—to see if people want to make their own dumplings, or if they really just want pre-made dumplings.
How many are you making in a given week?
I'm making around 600 wrappers and then there's maybe 40, 50 pounds of filling. Overall it takes three days to get everything made.
Each kit has two separate fillings and two different wrappers. The first kit is a carrot kit. There's one filling that's chili crisp, marinated chicken, and carrot. The other one is more traditional, it's pork-carrot. The traditional one has a white wrapper, and the spicy chicken one has an orange wrapper. So I'm having to blend loads of bell peppers and then drain the juice and then knead all the dough.
Especially with recipe dough, I'm so used to making such small amounts. I can literally make a quarter recipe of a dumpling and only have to make 10 dumplings and it works out. So this is almost the opposite end. But luckily I have access to a community kitchen, called The Pastry Project in Seattle. They have residencies where people like me can come in and use their kitchen space, and they have big industrial mixers and walk-in fridge space, and I have all my flour there. So, it's been super helpful to produce from there.
Where does this stand now? Are you doing the kits locally or is it something that people can order from anywhere?
They're starting local because I'm one person still. I don't have the capacity to make a national amount at scale. A lot of it for me is just trying to understand what people want and trying to figure out product market fit. So I'm starting local, I'm starting small, with little local drops that people can buy.
You’ve mentioned your grandmother, and that you’ve learned so much from her. How has she responded overall to seeing the work that you do and how you've carried her work forward and made it your own?
When I try to explain like, "Oh, I posted this thing," or, "People are responding," I don't think she understands the scale of it. Sometimes my mom will be like, "Oh yeah, there are thousands of people who've seen this thing," And she'll be like, "Why are all these people interested in this very basic homestyle dish that we've made for so long?" She just doesn't understand the scale of the internet. But she is very proud, and I think she does get excited when she hears about everything that's happening.
Above the Fold was created by Leah Mennies. Logo + design elements by Claudia Mak.
The above interview was condensed and edited. Interview subjects are paid an honorarium for taking the time to share their knowledge and experience.
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