‘Bowlcut’, the new All (Asian) American Sauce Line

IMAGE: @GETBOWLCUT ON INSTAGRAM

                               FOR SPEC MAGAZINe SPRING'24 Edition

Bowlcut founder Crystal Ung grew up working in the kitchen of her dad’s Chinese restaurant. In the hot, sunny, Asian disapora of Los Angeles, Ung developed her Chinese identity scooping chili sauce into little take-out containers. Because for the Asian community, food is culture, food is connection and food is family.

Today, not much has changed for Ung since her early years at the restaurant. After leaving behind her life in New York City’s fashion business scene in 2020, she returned home — to Los Angeles and to food — and began to conceptualize Bowlcut: a condiment brand focused on recreating nostalgic Asian flavors such as Char Siu Barbeque, Korean Gochujang, or Spicy Chili Crisp, but rooted in better health.

“I was at home cooking a lot more like everyone else in the world,” she said, “and noticed that many traditional asian sauces were filled with a lot of additives and sodium.” Compared to other ethnic groups, Ung realized that Asians and Asian Americans consume the most sodium — The biggest culprit: sauces and condiments central to it’s cuisine.

“That was a wow moment for me, connecting it to a lot of my dad’s health problems,” reflected Ung. “He’s consuming these sauces everyday, every meal, and I didn’t have a way to help him make better health decisions.” With experience at restaurant, though, Ung was in a good position to adapt her family recipes.

With growing rates of heart disease and diabetes in Asian men, Ung explained, Bowlcut uses all natural ingredients, reduced sodium, reduced sugar, and zero artificial additives, whilst remaining true to the flavors nostalgic to her childhood.

But the permanence of tradition is habitual to older generations. Dietary trends are stubborn, and catalyze the development of health issues such as Coronary Heart Disease in elders with unchanged eating habits. Therefore, to enact real change on the wellness front, Ung targeted a younger millennial audience with her sauce. “We are in the position to really make decisions not just for ourselves, but our kids and our elders,” she said. “Because you’re right, our parents’ generation are never going to make the switch. It's going to be for kids, which is us. We’re providing that solution.”

Bowlcut is more than wellness-forward, however. Coinciding with the rise in AAPI violence during the COVID-19 outbreak, Bowlcut’s beginnings sought to serve a bigger purpose. Ung drew several triggering parellels between violence against Asians at this time and during the SARS pandemic when she was a teen. “Working at my dad’s restaurant,” she said, “I would see first hand how food could work to bridge cultures and bring communities together.” Ung hoped for Bowlcut to bring about a similar impact.

“A key part of our DNA is to be inclusive. One way we do that is through the versatility and approachability of our products.”

With inclusivity at the core of Bowlcut’s purpose, Ung not only emphasized what we eat, but how we eat. Despite being surrounded by food her whole life, Ung maintained that cooking, preparing, and making Asian dishes can be perceived as intimidating. “With elders, they are very specific about how a dish is made, what ingredients you’re using, where it’s from, all these things,” she said. But, in redefining the way Bowlcut’s sauces can be consumed - to one that is more approachable and versatile - Ung hoped to share the flavors and culture East Asia with a wider audience.

By featuring recipes such as “Chili Crisp Kimchi Mac and Cheese” and “Char Siu Tofu Tacos” on their website, Ung wanted customers to find the beauty in food that is adaptable, experimental, and globalized: “As you start to develop your own identity and your own tastes, you incorporate other flavors from around the world. It’s an evolution that we’re really trying to celebrate. There isn’t shame in consuming these things together, naturally they taste delicious,” she said.

Growing up as a second-generation immigrant, Ung struggled to straddle a hyphenated identity: Asian-American. She noted the difference between dishes she enjoyed with her family, and those she enjoyed with her friends. Bowlcut is her attempt to bridge these two palettes. "As you get older, those worlds merge more and I think that perspective is missing from the mass market, this kind of new authentic Asian-American perspective that truly represents how we eat,” she said.

“I hate to use the word fusion but in a way it is fusion eating,” Ung said; integrating certain ingredients and flavors which seemingly don’t go together naturally represents a realistic system of living. It is the accessibility to easy, home-style recipes that speak to how Bowlcut characterizes the diversity of their sauces. They don’t not aim to manufacture capital F “Fusion”, but instead create a new generation of flavors both rooted in tradition and innovative and forward looking.