Ethnic cuisine by the wrong ethnicity

[AznAnarchy99]

Good food is good food and there is no such thing as "authentic."

The Chef has spoken.
So, let it be written.
So, let it be done.

Tell that to the Italians who would bitch at you if you put peas in their carbonara.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Tell that to the Italians who would bitch at you if you put peas in their carbonara.

Peas are a little odd but, I would try it. You can find traditions but, everyone steals from everyone else when it comes to food. There are many many non food people who espouse the value of 'authentic' cuisine of all varieties but, there are only traditions based on available ingredients in a particular place at a particular time. Not to say those traditions are without value, they are. It's merely foolish for people to dismiss any food not following a particular tradition, especially when they know little or nothing about food.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

Peas are a little odd but, I would try it. You can find traditions but, everyone steals from everyone else when it comes to food. There are many many non food people who espouse the value of 'authentic' cuisine of all varieties but, there are only traditions based on available ingredients in a particular place at a particular time. Not to say those traditions are without value, they are. It's merely foolish for people to dismiss any food not following a particular tradition, especially when they know little or nothing about food.

Don't get me wrong. I love fusion foods and stuff that don't follow any norms but if I want straight carbonara, I'm not going to be satisfied with whatever concoction Olive Garden makes. If I want pho, I don't want a poached egg in it.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Don't get me wrong. I love fusion foods and stuff that don't follow any norms but if I want straight carbonara, I'm not going to be satisfied with whatever concoction Olive Garden makes. If I want pho, I don't want a poached egg in it.

That's why I said 'good food is good food,' it just has nothing to do with being "authentic."

 

[ElFenix]

About a year ago I found a pizza place on Yelp in a city I was traveling through. It had decent ratings and was nearby. Once I went in, I saw that the menu had things like curry chicken pizza and then saw that it was run by Indians. I looked closer at the Yelp reviews and saw that most of the five star reviews were from Southeast Asians.

Since I'm into more traditional pizzas, I started walking out and the Indian owner started yelling at me asking why I was leaving. If I told him the truth, I'm sure it would sound racist. I would prefer my pizza to be made by Italians. To be fair, if I went to an Indian restaurant run by Italians with marinara sauce instead of curry, then I'd also leave.

I've tried eating ethnic foods made by a different ethnicity, and it's just never as good as the real deal. At best it's just mediocre. They don't seem to care about the food as much because it's not from their culture and don't take any particular pride in it. It's just something to sell and make money for many of them.

Recently, I listened to NPR talking about cultural appropriation in ethnic cuisine, which got me thinking about this subject again.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt...fit-cooking-other-culture-s-food-you-weigh-in

How do you guys feel about this?

bombay pizza is fantasic your opinion is bad and you should feel bad

 

[cyclohexane]

Culture appropriation = liberal bullshit

Nobody owns any particular culture, and its alway evolving. I see no problem with a white guy with dreadlocks, eating Chinese food at an Irish pub, while listening to Bob Marley.

 

[Childs]

Butter Chicken pizza sounds awesome. This is assuming its just pizza dough with the curry on top, no cheese or pizza sauce.

 

[Eug]

Note that most pizza in the US is American pizza, even if it's run by Italians. It's very different from the pizza you get in Italy.

And yeah, I'd most definitely give curry pizza a try. Butter chicken pizza too. Actually, one of our grocery stores actually sells butter chicken frozen pizza. BTW, curry and beer was declared the defining food and drink of the UK recently.

I go to a Turkish pizza place from time to time too, although it's not really pizza. It's pide, but the place is a regular pizza place too (or North American pizza that is, not traditional Italian pizza).

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/recipes/move-over-pizza-its-all-about-turkish-pide-now/

 

[smackababy]

I would only eat curry pizza if the dough was made of Naan.

Otherwise, that's probably the only pizza place around you without Mexicans doing the majority of the work in the kitchen.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

I would only eat curry pizza if the dough was made of Naan.

Otherwise, that's probably the only pizza place around you without Mexicans doing the majority of the work in the kitchen.

Because, everyone knows Mexicans can't cook. 🙄🙄

 

[DaveSimmons]

I don't care about the ethnicity of my chef, nor do I require the ingredients to be gluten-free, free-range, cruelty-free, locally-sourced or organic.

Good food is good food, good cooks are good cooks. Japanese can cook good burgers. Americans can learn to make good ramen (no, I don't mean cup noodles).

Not being racist, I would have checked the menu to see if they also had American pizza. If not, I'd have explained my mistake and left.

 

[leper84]

I thought it was only cultural appropriation if white people were doing it?

 

[Rakehellion]

Cooking food is not cultural appropriation.

 

[zerocool84]

In most restaurants the back of the house staff is going to be Mexican anyway so enjoy going to the "authentic Italian" place to have your pizza cooked by Raúl from Oaxaca.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/adriancarr...ypocritical-re?utm_term=.qyv49AW9l#.muW8gnRgp

This

Who cares who makes what, tasting good is all that matters.

 

[PowerEngineer]

The best New York style pizza in my vicinity is made by a Greek man (and his family) that moved here from New York. Haven't tried their gyros yet,

 

[kstu]

If I want pho, I don't want a poached egg in it.

Pho with a poached egg sounds awesome! :thumbsup::thumbsup:

 

[TXHokie]

I mistakenly one time followed Yelp to a Pho place in LA owned by Koreans. Ordered the special and it came with pickled vegetable and the pho had seafood....ummm no.

 

[Blue_Max]

Last pizza place I ordered from an asian pizzeria used a tomato sauce heavy with cinnamon! It was disgusting...

Sometimes fusion just doesn't work and I'm ordering a type of cuisine to GET.that.type.of.cuisine!

 

[pmv]

There was an entire episode of that Freakanomics podcast discussing this. In particular I think they were asking whether it would fall foul of race discrimination laws if a restaurant only hired staff (particularly wait-staff) of the "correct" ethnicity.

Its a tricky one, as I do remember going to (continental) Europe and being a bit taken aback at finding 'Chinese' eateries run entirely by white people.

However, I have to say I _like_ chicken tikka pizza. I don't care if its an abomination to two different cultures.

 

[Ichinisan]

As with sex, there is no such thing as bad pizza, only pizza that leaves you feeling unfulfilled and wishing you still had that other pizza from that place you went to in college.

I've had some pretty terrible pizza on many, many occasions.

 

[sdifox]

i've seen a lot of japanese restaurants run by koreans. i can't tell the difference much.

The 35 year Japanese occupation of Korea played a lot into that.

 

[sdifox]

Tell that to the Italians who would bitch at you if you put peas in their carbonara.

Who puts peas in anything?

Peas are best when they are on the side of the plate by themselves so they can be ignored easily.

 

[feralkid]

Good food is good food and there is no such thing as "authentic."

The Chef has spoken.
So, let it be written.
So, let it be done.

The chef needs to travel to some of the regions where certain foods and wines were first produced.

It just might open your eyes.

Terroir is not a small breed of dog.


Cheers!

 

[StrangerGuy]

Culture appropriation = liberal bullshit

Nobody owns any particular culture, and its alway evolving. I see no problem with a white guy with dreadlocks, eating Chinese food at an Irish pub, while listening to Bob Marley.

If somebody else does your very own food better than your natives, of course its not a sign to improve yourself, but to play the liburel card.

 

[DigDog]

As with sex, there is no such thing as bad pizza, only pizza that leaves you feeling unfulfilled and wishing you still had that other *pizza* from that place you went to in college.

so true
Ichi doesn't get it. The "Pizza" from college, MMk? The "pizza" that did butt stuff?

And we morph the hell out of recipes. Most "pizza" in the US wouldn't be recognizable as such to an actual person from Italy.

also true