Nov 17, 2022·edited Nov 17, 2022Liked by Mari, the Happy Wanderer
We were making potstickers for dinner this very night, so I went ahead and made your peanut sauce. It's very good! I flinched at 1-1/2 limes because I suspected you might be using normal-sized, tiny limes, instead of the dinasour limes we seem to get now at the grocery store.
Lewis said-- "Next time you make fries, you are totally making this sauce!"
Mmmmm. Pot stickers. (Said in a Homer Simpson voice.) So glad to hear you liked the recipe! And yes, our limes here are tiny, so please do adapt accordingly!
1) Authenticity is the death of creativity. Some of the most wonderful dishes are “inauthentic” because they were improved upon. As I wrote once upon a time, most of my cultural gastronomical heritage is “inauthentic” because it was created by immigrants who had access to different ingredients, namely, the excess of American beef due to Texans and railroads. And yet, a life without spaghetti and meatballs is one not worth living.
2) We had an International Day in 4th grade and I ate some Middle Eastern dish that even three decades later I can remember its taste but have yet to rediscover. It drives me insane.
3) Some day, my restaurant, Holidays (Holidaze?) will open. It’s gimmick is that the menu is just holiday meals. Imagine eating Thanksgiving dinner in April! I’m going to become a billionaire.
Your number 1 is an excellent point. Every art--be it cooking, visual arts, music, literature, etc.--borrows and adapts. We humans are magpies with culture; we collect and adapt those things we find interesting in the world around us, and that is a wonderful gift of our being human, not something to be discouraged and punished!
I want to write 2,000 words on this. In part because you compared food to art, whereas mentally I place it with technology. Interesting. And it’s certainly both now that I think of it.
But it’s quite interesting either way. No one would ever say “that isn’t an authentic Ford, it has the ability to go over 20 miles per hour!” or “that isn’t authentic music, there’s no lute!” Yet, I have been subjected to endless conversations about “authentic Chinese/Italian/Mexican/Indian cuisine.” The iterative evolution of anything, be it technology or art, is the most powerful thing we can do.
Is it people being so wrapped up in labels? If we called General Tso’s Chicken “Chinese inspired” would it cause less complaining?
Of course, then the problem of what “authentic” means. You need to freeze a point in time because all foods had a fairly recent beginning. The Columbian Exchange radically altered cuisines that people now complain of us being inauthentic.
My assumption is that this gives people some sense of power or specialness but it’s illusory. I can complain that midwestern pizzas aren’t pizza. But pizza itself is just a modern updating of an ancient food. And if someone in Chicago or Detroit wants to eat their versions, what skin is it off my nose?
I am famous for my scones. I often bake from Paul Hollywood’s British Baking cookbook and people LOVE it. None of it is overly sweet, which is refreshing to the American palate.
The British are particularly bad at appropriation of “foreign” foods, take our national dish Chicken Tikka Masala, in India you will not find this dish on the menu, but it was designed for the British taste buds and we adore it! Recently I joined a British expats food group on Facebook. I am in heaven lots of posts about traditional British food making me hungry! I have seen many posts about making sausage rolls and have had to bite my tongue as people have such diverse recipes. I only started making sausage rolls when I found a British store in NYC that makes authentic bangers. I mix the meat (taken out of the skin) with salt pepper and chopped fresh thyme, wrap in store bought puff pastry, brush with egg wash and bake! Ember members loved them at an after concert bash! On this site people use Jimmy Dean sausage meat or add weird seasoning or (horror ) use Italian hot and sweet sausage!!!! Who cares? You cook what you like to eat!!! BTW I’ll bet that Noah had sausage rolls in the UK, he would love mine I’m sure!
There's a really good Thai restaurant near me. I don't see what's to be gained if I decided not to eat at Thai places because I'm not from there - that would, in plain English, be called "boycotting" Thai food, and it's the kind of thing you'd do if you really did not like the country or at least their government. Boycotting foreign food in general, now that sounds like the kind of thing racists would do. How would "I refuse to spend money in shops/restaurants not from my own culture" not be a morally bad thing in itself?
I try and judge claims of cultural appropriation by whether any people from the culture supposedly being appropriated from are making the complaints. That means, for example, that "sexy Indian" Halloween costumes are morally forbidden, which is good (not that I would want to dress up as sexy anything in the first place though). I've never seen anyone from Thailand complain about westerners eating in Thai restaurants though, in fact the staff there seem positively inviting and happy that I'm spending my money at their place.
I've heard from the Swiss side of my family that a couple of generations back, when a lot of construction companies hired Italian laborers, one of the concerns about Italians in the right-wing circles of the day was "what if they don't like the same kind of food as we do in this country". Indeed they didn't - they brought over things like pizza and pasta that turned out to be so good that they're very normal things to eat in Swiss (and many other European) cultures now!
My current favourites from other cultures - apart from "naturalised" ones like pizza - are mochi balls (Japanese) and steamed buns (Bao, Chinese). Both can be found at an excellent Asian supermarket not too far from here.
I really like your criterion of whether the people from the culture being "appropriated" are objecting or not. This is such an easy way to decide what the right thing to do is! If, say, the Thai restaurant owners don't object to your presence (and are in fact likely happy you're there), then that's wonderful!
I have to laugh at your story from your Swiss relatives, because Italian food--especially pizza--is such an important part of the Swiss restaurant scene now. Within walking distance of my house are at least a dozen places where you can get pizza and Italian food, as well as Turkish, Thai, Chinese, and Indian food. Why would we want it any other way?
We were making potstickers for dinner this very night, so I went ahead and made your peanut sauce. It's very good! I flinched at 1-1/2 limes because I suspected you might be using normal-sized, tiny limes, instead of the dinasour limes we seem to get now at the grocery store.
Lewis said-- "Next time you make fries, you are totally making this sauce!"
Mmmmm. Pot stickers. (Said in a Homer Simpson voice.) So glad to hear you liked the recipe! And yes, our limes here are tiny, so please do adapt accordingly!
Three thoughts:
1) Authenticity is the death of creativity. Some of the most wonderful dishes are “inauthentic” because they were improved upon. As I wrote once upon a time, most of my cultural gastronomical heritage is “inauthentic” because it was created by immigrants who had access to different ingredients, namely, the excess of American beef due to Texans and railroads. And yet, a life without spaghetti and meatballs is one not worth living.
2) We had an International Day in 4th grade and I ate some Middle Eastern dish that even three decades later I can remember its taste but have yet to rediscover. It drives me insane.
3) Some day, my restaurant, Holidays (Holidaze?) will open. It’s gimmick is that the menu is just holiday meals. Imagine eating Thanksgiving dinner in April! I’m going to become a billionaire.
Your number 1 is an excellent point. Every art--be it cooking, visual arts, music, literature, etc.--borrows and adapts. We humans are magpies with culture; we collect and adapt those things we find interesting in the world around us, and that is a wonderful gift of our being human, not something to be discouraged and punished!
I love your restaurant idea and would totally go!
I want to write 2,000 words on this. In part because you compared food to art, whereas mentally I place it with technology. Interesting. And it’s certainly both now that I think of it.
But it’s quite interesting either way. No one would ever say “that isn’t an authentic Ford, it has the ability to go over 20 miles per hour!” or “that isn’t authentic music, there’s no lute!” Yet, I have been subjected to endless conversations about “authentic Chinese/Italian/Mexican/Indian cuisine.” The iterative evolution of anything, be it technology or art, is the most powerful thing we can do.
Is it people being so wrapped up in labels? If we called General Tso’s Chicken “Chinese inspired” would it cause less complaining?
Of course, then the problem of what “authentic” means. You need to freeze a point in time because all foods had a fairly recent beginning. The Columbian Exchange radically altered cuisines that people now complain of us being inauthentic.
My assumption is that this gives people some sense of power or specialness but it’s illusory. I can complain that midwestern pizzas aren’t pizza. But pizza itself is just a modern updating of an ancient food. And if someone in Chicago or Detroit wants to eat their versions, what skin is it off my nose?
I am famous for my scones. I often bake from Paul Hollywood’s British Baking cookbook and people LOVE it. None of it is overly sweet, which is refreshing to the American palate.
I would love to try your scones (pronounced “skahns”) one day! I don’t like sweets, so your version sounds perfect!
The British are particularly bad at appropriation of “foreign” foods, take our national dish Chicken Tikka Masala, in India you will not find this dish on the menu, but it was designed for the British taste buds and we adore it! Recently I joined a British expats food group on Facebook. I am in heaven lots of posts about traditional British food making me hungry! I have seen many posts about making sausage rolls and have had to bite my tongue as people have such diverse recipes. I only started making sausage rolls when I found a British store in NYC that makes authentic bangers. I mix the meat (taken out of the skin) with salt pepper and chopped fresh thyme, wrap in store bought puff pastry, brush with egg wash and bake! Ember members loved them at an after concert bash! On this site people use Jimmy Dean sausage meat or add weird seasoning or (horror ) use Italian hot and sweet sausage!!!! Who cares? You cook what you like to eat!!! BTW I’ll bet that Noah had sausage rolls in the UK, he would love mine I’m sure!
I know that Noah would love your recipe! I will have to try it for him next month!
Fellow British American here and I can attest that sausage rolls are a huge hit with the non-British.
I’m VERY excited to try that peanut sauce with scallion pancakes!
Let me know how it turns out! And you've inspired me to try this too, because my husband loves scallion pancakes!
There's a really good Thai restaurant near me. I don't see what's to be gained if I decided not to eat at Thai places because I'm not from there - that would, in plain English, be called "boycotting" Thai food, and it's the kind of thing you'd do if you really did not like the country or at least their government. Boycotting foreign food in general, now that sounds like the kind of thing racists would do. How would "I refuse to spend money in shops/restaurants not from my own culture" not be a morally bad thing in itself?
I try and judge claims of cultural appropriation by whether any people from the culture supposedly being appropriated from are making the complaints. That means, for example, that "sexy Indian" Halloween costumes are morally forbidden, which is good (not that I would want to dress up as sexy anything in the first place though). I've never seen anyone from Thailand complain about westerners eating in Thai restaurants though, in fact the staff there seem positively inviting and happy that I'm spending my money at their place.
I've heard from the Swiss side of my family that a couple of generations back, when a lot of construction companies hired Italian laborers, one of the concerns about Italians in the right-wing circles of the day was "what if they don't like the same kind of food as we do in this country". Indeed they didn't - they brought over things like pizza and pasta that turned out to be so good that they're very normal things to eat in Swiss (and many other European) cultures now!
My current favourites from other cultures - apart from "naturalised" ones like pizza - are mochi balls (Japanese) and steamed buns (Bao, Chinese). Both can be found at an excellent Asian supermarket not too far from here.
I really like your criterion of whether the people from the culture being "appropriated" are objecting or not. This is such an easy way to decide what the right thing to do is! If, say, the Thai restaurant owners don't object to your presence (and are in fact likely happy you're there), then that's wonderful!
I have to laugh at your story from your Swiss relatives, because Italian food--especially pizza--is such an important part of the Swiss restaurant scene now. Within walking distance of my house are at least a dozen places where you can get pizza and Italian food, as well as Turkish, Thai, Chinese, and Indian food. Why would we want it any other way?
This is a wonderful and thoughtful post. I really enjoyed the philosophical thoughts and the images. Now I am hungry.
Thank you so much for the kind words! TBH, I'm kind of hungry too now. ;-)