immigrant & ethnic food cultures, white ppl & appropriation, foodies

yes i am aware of the existence of cheap good food, but in this hypothetical i have fuck you money

nah i am in agreement with you if i was rich i would stupid amounts of money on fancy food

im not even rich and i have had dumb dining experiences that were fun. good sushi comes to mind tbh, it's not cheap

i would stupid amounts

i would *spend* stupid amounts obv

that looks basic af, there are way better choices if you have fuck you money in nyc

it's true. you could put the lobster...in mac 'n' cheese.

that looks basic af, there are way better choices if you have fuck you money in nyc

― call all destroyer, Wednesday, March 22, 2017 4:30 PM (thirty-one minutes ago) Bookmark

i've had food from TAO exactly once and afaict it's a giant PF Changs with a nightclub attached to it

https://story.californiasunday.com/cooking-lessons

Disillusioned with fine dining, one of the world’s great chefs took on fast food. It has been harder than he ever imagined.

pretty interesting. main chef sounds like a bit of a tool.

On the cultural approp tip, TeenVogue ran this:

http://www.teenvogue.com/story/coachella-cultural-appropriation

Which I'm not entirely clear if the point is "hey white people, don't indulge in this shit so in an insulting or derogatory manner" or something like "hey white people, don't indulge in non-white people shit _at all_"?

America fucks around with everyone's food, including dishes that originated in Europe. It's what we do. When it comes to food we are color blind. Some would say we also lack taste buds and a sense of smell.

how about "most of this shit makes you look like a dipshit, knock it off"

did you read the article? imo it does a decent job of explaining why some things touted as fashionable have specific social meaning

xp

fwiw I think we have some non-food threads tackling the cultural appropriation fashion idiot angle

I read it, the separation just didn't seem that apparent to me. Maybe I didn't read it closely enough.

Also, I couldn't find the other thread, and this is a main one has the actual word "appropriation" in the title

the subject was well-plumbed during the great wayne coyne/oklahoma governor's daughter headdress debacle of jesus time all just smears together eventually

how about: "if you're doing something new to you in public, think about whether it's something symbolic or of religious significance to its native group, and whether you're being respectful to them"

seems like a good rule of thumb but also if you don't follow it it's not a big deal but prepare to have people be mad at u

is how i break it down to an extent

otm

I mean, it's fine to be ignorant, but judge people on how they react to being informed they missed something

unless it's something really obvious they should have picked up, then clown them

Informed doesn't mean convinced buck

*sips a car bomb shot* mmm true

Outrageous

NB if Irish ppl don't do something can you be said to have appropriated it

dude...you're sipping your shots

where are yr manners

Worse again manners is a British thing

ok lemme rephrase it

u dont sip a shot glass

how do i shot glass

u shoot it

for me it makes more sense to use this for sipping:

http://i.imgur.com/dcZ80n1.jpg

and this for shooting:

http://www.platinumeventrentals.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/lil-shot.jpg

otm

whew glad that's settled

https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/article/the-struggles-of-writing-about-chinese-food-as-a-chinese-person

I can understand why the author of that piece identifies one of the subjects she interviewed and quotes as being "half-Chinese", because such identifications are expected in America, to the point where the person would generally identify herself that way. But to me the term "half-Chinese" sheds far more light on the society that accepts the label as meaningful than it does on the person identified by it. The dysfunctional groupthink about race runs so deep no one seems able to escape it.

I think you're a little too mature to be acting cute

Everyone is a member of some group that constitutes a minority within society at large. Usually it is a trivial minority. Because this thread and that article are both about food and its acceptance or lack of acceptance, then it is disarmingly simple to find food preferences that are a minority position. In most cases it makes no difference to the person because that minority is not treated systematically worse on account of, say, hating mayonnaise or loving black licorice.

The idea that food is political has nothing to do with food and everything to do with social oppressions for which food is used as a convenient proxy. Black licorice and mayonnaise are not proxies for race. Fermented tofu and chitterlings are, right up to the point where large numbers of white people start to enjoy them regularly and they are moved to non-race-proxy status (look at burritos for example). That's the obvious dynamic. It's not really about the food.

I submit that none of the problems experienced by someone who is "half-Chinese" who loves fermented tofu and is 'othered' for it can be attributed to food being political by nature. The flow of 'otherness' goes from race and politics toward food, and it is a one-way street.

there's some real incoherence in that article. i don't know how editors let shit like this through:

"There's an ancient Chinese recipe ... in which a fat goose is stuffed into the belly cavity of a whole lamb. It is roasted until the lamb skin is burnt and crisp and the goose well-done. As it cooks in the belly cavity, the goose absorbs the taste of the lamb, while retaining its own tenderness and flavor.

And so imagine my disbelief when Turducken became a groundbreaking culinary phenomenon."

they don't have anything to do with each other. other than one animal stuffed with another, it's hard to see the connection between a tang dynasty recipe and a cajun recipe.

"I've met Chinese restaurateurs here in Los Angeles County who have been unable to open restaurants in certain locations because they are not "mainstream and trendy" enough. I've been forwarded actual emails written by the city representatives to those restaurateurs with those exact words. "We need to find something mainstream and trendy," the emails say."

who are these 'city representatives'? like, can't anyone sign a lease and open a restaurant (with financial backing, obv)? or is the author saying that elected representatives mediate what kinds of restos open in different parts of LA. i just don't get the argument.

i mean, i guess the point is for mainstream publications to provide more space for chinese people to write about chinese food. so why veer all over the place?

i kind of disagree fundamentally with your post, aimless

anecdotally, at least: as a transracial international adoptee who – as a teenager – accessed/experienced an alien birth culture primarily through cooking and consuming foods not native to his upbringing, but native to his ethnicity, i am proof positive of the claim that food IS inherently political. my puritan parents refused to eat the "hispanic flavors" i brought into the house, and the first place i ever drove when i had my license was to a bodega in the big scary city. for one early birthday i was taken to taco bell to experience "my culture." (i'm from south america and i didn't find culture, but i did find out how tight i could squeeze my cheeks together on the ride home.)

more precisely i disagree w/ yr assertion that "In most cases it makes no difference to the person because that minority is not treated systematically worse on account of, say, hating mayonnaise or loving black licorice" because, heck, try saying that when you're the kid who's accused of fumigating the cafeteria for bringing garlicky mofongo you're then too ashamed to eat. food is private and personal, but conspicuous and a vulnerability, and a prime area for microagression which - let's be honest – are how a lot of us experience our racial identity.

" other than one animal stuffed with another, it's hard to see the connection between a tang dynasty recipe and a cajun recipe."

that seems to be a fairly large similarity though, I mean, how many other recipies do you know of that involve shoving a whole animal inside another one?

"like, can't anyone sign a lease and open a restaurant (with financial backing, obv)? or is the author saying that elected representatives mediate what kinds of restos open in different parts of LA. i just don't get the argument."

I think the latter is likely completely true. I don't know that it's a good idea, but cities and licenseing and approvals and zoning are weird business.

more precisely i disagree w/ yr assertion that "In most cases it makes no difference to the person because that minority is not treated systematically worse on account of, say, hating mayonnaise or loving black licorice" because, heck, try saying that when you're the kid who's accused of fumigating the cafeteria for bringing garlicky mofongo you're then too ashamed to eat. food is private and personal, but conspicuous and a vulnerability, and a prime area for microagression which - let's be honest – are how a lot of us experience our racial identity.

― remy bean, Monday, April 24, 2017 10:16 PM (twenty-four minutes ago)

this is a great point. my gf has made this point to me before (she's indian, grew up in white suburb)

Xpost: Cities can absolutely NOT make zoning decisions on the basis of who intends to use the space. If it's going to be a restaurant, it can be anyone's.

There's been litigation in Toronto about mosques who've been denied permission on the basis of things like not having enough parking spaces. Courts have been clear that using neutral requirements to justify discriminatory decisions isn't cool. It's the same in the States. I don't think the author is taking about that. That's the problem: I don't know what 'the city representative' means.

As to turducken being a stuffed multi animal dish like the lamb one: so what. Paul Prudhomme wasn't 'appropriating' Tang Dynasty cuisine. To claim as much is weak.

I see all these articles by young 'writers' that are stuffed full of anecdotal whisperings and half-considered arguments. It undermines the premise. I'd rather they stuck with the quantification of how many white guys were writing Chinese recipes for the NYT.

or quantifying how many white guys love shitting up this thread

"Normal" food or "American" food or "family style" food is a magnification of privilege that is, I think, largely invisible to its hypertensive beneficiaries.

So is ... food

So true. My parents, who both grew up in financially limited circumstances, tried to instill in me the belief that "wholesome, home cooked" food was morally and dietetically superior to even the best restaurant in the world. Their parents instilled the same value in them, but in that case it was ex post facto justification for depression-era financial sacrifices. My mom has probably been to less than thirty restaurant in her lifetime, and she's in her seventies. When she comes to my house, and I serve her food that is not "wholesome, home-cooked" it raises at least an eyebrow. This includes, incidentally, bread/yogurt/jam that I do not make from scratch, and eggs from chickens I do not own. It's a strange and antique snootiness, and though intended to convey simple living is ironically dependent on the financial freedom and leisurely schedule necessary to raise chickens and make own bread, yogurt and jam.

So true. My parents, who both grew up in financially limited circumstances, tried to instill in me the belief that "wholesome, home cooked" food was morally and dietetically superior to even the best restaurant in the world. Their parents instilled the same value in them, but in that case it was ex post facto justification for depression-era financial sacrifices. My mom has probably been to less than thirty restaurant in her lifetime, and she's in her seventies. When she comes to my house, and I serve her food that is not "wholesome, home-cooked" it raises at least an eyebrow. This includes, incidentally, bread/yogurt/jam that I do not make from scratch, and eggs from chickens I do not own. It's a strange and antique snootiness, and though intended to convey simple living is ironically dependent on the financial freedom and leisurely schedule necessary to raise chickens and make own bread, yogurt and jam.

username irony

My mom's parents were farmers and incredibly frugal (again, during and post-depression mentality) but completely on the other side of things -- my grandmother's family was very transient and she lived in a half dozen places as a kid so she wasn't used to farm fresh stuff, my grandfather was scrappy in the way farmers could be but really wasn't that proficient. I think they had one dairy cow for a few years but it's not a dairy region. Same with chickens, it just wasn't anything they were into. I think when my grandparents met, my grandma was a telephone operator.

So my mom had bland junk like powdered milk and canned hominy. This whole "farm people, simple life" thing wasn't even the everyman approach of their day.

my wife has mentioned in the past how when she grew up, one reason she hated eating vegetables was that her parents bought them all canned or jarred. along with a lot of canned meat. i think i had a lot of that growing up as well, but maybe not nearly as much.

Perhaps it's a practicality thing. My grandparents didn't eat at restaurants - you could do it cheaper at home. And while they were for 'home cooking' they were enthusiastically pro tinned/dried foods. I think it was largely a consequence of rationing. They would certainly not have any time for 'fads', which would probably include my veganism in addition to people avoiding carbs etc. ('bread and potatoes is what food is!')

many an xpost: absolutely i'm shitting on that article. but defend this:

"It seems that publishers are shy of taking on a book that really has no precedent with which to make a reasonable estimate of sales figures."

i also figure some publishers like their job. i realize this is a dumb thing to express a general frustration with. but as someone who genuinely believes that voice should be given to those who can carry it best, i really fucking hate half-baked, bougie critiques about race in america. there's so much violence here: do it right. do your fucking homework.

i'll see myself out...