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

Food train wreck videos have crept into this thread like a hermit crab moving into a discarded tin can.

Thought this was a good read heading into 2020:

What happens when years of migration cause treasured family traditions to vanish?

https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/article/Death-migration-and-the-loss-of-traditions-14572327.php

a couple of threads prompted by the annual NYT piece on how shitty durian is (now with added mangosteen and rambutan!):

In international journalism, I am willing to say the single most tired Southeast Asian reporting cliche is that of DURIAN, THE FREAK SHOW FRUIT. In this @nytimes piece, “occasional disappointment” turns out to be a meta remark about the article, not the fruit. Thread: pic.twitter.com/60ZY1kBDCL

— Amirul Ruslan (@amirulruslan) June 25, 2020

The recent @nytimes "article" slagging SE Asian fruit — starring the durian — is especially bewildering because it's not new. They does it so often, even other foreign correspondents joked "the biennial durian piece has dropped". I used my NYT sub to find out how true that is. pic.twitter.com/OKsuTdfBDb

— Amirul Ruslan (@amirulruslan) June 26, 2020

lol:

Writing about US food the way the NYT covers Asian fruit: In a nation torn by racial conflict, one unlikely food unites. To those accustomed to chopsticks, the greasy parcel known as a 'burger', a sort of split bao, is crude and messy. Yet it encapsulates a nation's violent past.

— Soon-Tzu Speechley 孫子 (@speechleyish) June 25, 2020

I love that last one

Last year there was one about 'the soul of the nation bound up in the flavors of the durian... acrid and off-putting to the naive and foreign, but rich and rewarding for the (journalist), the educated, and the noble native." Always reminds me of the schoolbus bit in Altman's 'Nashville.'

I love durian and this is totally tangentially related but last weekend I bought a (frozen, but pricy) jackfruit and holy shit it was a fucking chore to uh... dissemble/extract. I was youtubing hacks and it still took the better part of 90 minutes.

Recommended if you have a passion for extracting pomegranate and pomelo fruit I guess?

mangosteen and rambutan are some of the tastiest shit ever. still have not found a way to enjoy durian. this has been kevin k from white man reports, ILX. signing off

i love all of these fruits, but i was raised by people who were into food culture and am married to someone with a broad knowledge of Asian cuisine (he's Chinese), so i am always baffled by these articles, and also baffled by how insular and boring most Americans' tastes are.

Horrible to contemplate what "Chris" has to eat at home:

https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/08/parenting-indian-food-bubble-covid-families-judgement.html

ahaha, wtf, I was at least expecting that to be about a toddler. my small children love mildly spiced dhal etc.

am now dreaming of being invited to a home-cooked Indian food feast...

people can be horrible about what they think their kids should eat

I remember when friends of my parents were shocked that we let our kids eat olives.

do we have a rolling "these people are horrible" thread for horrible people that aren't politicians or celebrities?

I think that thread is called reddit.com