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Holy shit, that's a hell of a leap to make. I don't think anyone's taking the position that it's not ok. You posted a thing for a laugh in the social justice thread, and people had a conversation about it. Posting jokey stuff is a little out of the tenor from what usually gets posted here. I think it's fine, but it's why I asked where you were going with it in the first place. I appreciate the spirit it was written in, I just thought it wasn't entertaining.

 

Ninety-three's comparison to gamergate identity, Argo's post (that she has since retracted, and I was really trying to give her the benefit of the doubt that there was a misunderstanding/miscommunication going on), plus the general tenor of some other posts (which may be influenced strictly by the fact that we're on a text based forum) got my hackles up about how this was being discussed. 

 

 

 

On food culture in general, it's difficult to impossible to fully trace and understand (barring making it one's work for awhile) the change that cheap and easy access to refrigeration, spices, knowledge and preservatives shaped all cultures' foods over the last 50 through 200 years.   But that doesn't change the fact that many cultures, in that 200 year span even, have had a significant part of their cultural identity shaped by their food.  The fact that it doesn't necessarily trace back a thousand years doesn't, to me, lesson the cultural importance of certain foods.  And therein also lies the thing I earlier pointed out about the deep hole of point/counterpoint in food examples.

 

I see two ends of a scale here.  On one end is the idea that food is wholly owned by the culture that birthed it, on the other is the idea that food is unowned by anyone.  I don't believe either is accurate.  Cultures aren't homogeneous, and it's ridiculous to say any one culture wholly owns any one food.  That said,  I don't think you can fairly disassociate certain foods from certain cultures without causing some harm, either through the minimization of that culture, through destroying affordable access to certain foods because of their rising popularity (as jenna has brought up), or through changing the concept of a food so thoroughly that the original is functionally lost. 

 

 

FWIW, one of my favorite bbq joints is actually run by a guy with a history of French cuisine, and it's a mixture of traditional Kansas City bbq, with French fine dining and a Cajun/French Louisianan flair.  Traditional (particularly Southern) bbq is actually also heavily tied into parts of Black American history, and the migration of freed slaves throughout the country is one of the big things that propagated the spread of what we now call bbq.  There's been some interesting attempts to capture the history and importance of black cooking in what is often viewed (around here, at any rate) as a middle aged white guy obsession.  Bbq is an example of where cultural legacy has almost been wholly lost (or erased, if someone prefers that word), which I think makes our history all the poorer for it. 

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There is some amazing "enlightened white person" stuff going on in here. Ascribing magical ethnic ability to food preparation is quite...problematic, to use the parlance of the land. Especially when, if you live in the United States, it is highly likely that regardless of what ethnicity the front-of-house staff is, many of those restaurants (non-chain, mom-and-pop operations) employ a disproportionate number of Mexicans as cooking staff anyway, across all types of cuisine. That's certainly true on the West Coast and I would imagine you see similar situations elsewhere depending on immigration patterns.

There is plenty to be said for having grown up in a given culture and, as a result, having years and years of deep, deep familiarity with that culture and its associated practice. That is undoubtedly real and potent. But a lot of people here are treading way beyond that into a kind of infantalization of other cultures--sort of the "magical negro" trope--in a way that I think is pretty gross, even though it is being employed in a way that acts as though it is progressive.

There is almost no food that survives across generations and does not end up being irrevocably changed by cultural interchange, whether it's due to the influence of surrounding cultures and nations, the influence of trade, or the even more rapid and powerful change that happens when immigrants bring foods to new countries and almost always end up with that food being reinvented entirely because of the influence of the culture they are coming into (in the United States, this has happened with Mexican and Chinese and Italian cuisine to the extreme). An American-born Chinese person who grows up in their immigrant family's restaurant (which may well be staffed by people of a variety of ethnicities), then visits China as an adult, is not going to have any kind of claim to "Chinese food." This all gets even more complicated when you consider all the different ways people actually grow up in the modern world; local San Francisco (now New York, I guess) chef Danny Bowien is an American of Korean descent who was raised by white people in Oklahoma and now is one of the most influential "Chinese" chefs in the country--even though he is not Chinese--by way of his restaurant "Mission Chinese Food," which started as a popup in a "traditional" "Chinese-American" restaurant in the Mission, a "traditionally" Latino neighborhood of San Francisco that also has roots as an Irish and German neighborhood.

My point is just that culture is complex, and it is really insulting and condescending to act as though people are born with some kind of ethnic ability that gives them powers. People draw in their cultural context and practice from many sources, over a long time, and that absolutely gives them unique perspectives and abilities, but that happens on a level that is constantly-changing and subject to all kinds of factors that cannot be boiled down to "white people can't make collard greens." Being frustrated about seeing something you grew up with bungled is totally legitimate. I grew up in an Italian family with a dad who owned a restaurant when he was younger and grandparents who came over from Italy and a grandmother who cooked a huge dinner for her huge family every Sunday, and I have a lot of fond memories of that, and I think it gives me a leg up when I make a pasta sauce, somewhat. And I know I'm a privileged white person who hasn't had to deal with any of the bullshit that non-white ethnic groups have to put up with all the time. But I think well-meaning social awareness can cross a line pretty quickly into a way of looking at culture and ethnicity that confuses easy dogma with complexity.

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I see your point, but don't you think it's a little insulting to the legacy of Chinese culture (which is older than French culture) to suggest that it cannot stand up to some non-Chinese people making a version of Chinese food? What even is Chinese food?

 

I'm not asking for it to "stand up" to anything. I'm saying that, in a world where China was literally partitioned between Western powers, its people drugged with opium, and its resources exported to fuel non-Chinese industries, there's a more complex and more troubling dynamic to non-Chinese people making Chinese food and it still being considered just as Chinese.

 

I'm further than where Argobot is in that I actually do find it little insulting (but little, as I get that most of it comes from well-meaning minds) because it always seem to boil down to this super stereotypical 'white-or-non-white' distinction where lot of this talk occurs.  China today isn't some poor colonial victim picking up its shattered pieces back just to survive, it is one of the most powerful nation in the world that is actually capable of fielding advanced weaponry like ICBMs to 5th gen fighters that has its share of imperialism in its recent history.  So why does a close-second super power fall into this 'poor non white' category so fast?  I know you probably didn't mean it in such way Gorm but it just reeks of "all non whites are powerless cause vague world history".

 

As I'm typing I just saw Chris' post and while it touches on different, more in-depth and more on topic but it does express my feelings so well... so... umm yeah...

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I guess I'm just a little frustrated that this thread is full of good intentions and has educated me on more than one occasion, but right at the moment no discussion about cultural crossover or exchange ends a cycle without someone throwing down the nuclear option and calling it appropriation. I'm really wary of me going too far the other direction accidentally. This is not a "you're too PC" moment I hope, but sometimes it's like most empathetic wins. Cultures do meld and exchange legitimately. Food is a thing where that happens with an incredibly high degree of volatility, and also something I'm quite passionate about, hence the fire.

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The entire premise of social justice is that white (or straight or male) people have done shitty stuff in the past and need to be more mindful around other cultures and subcultures, now having knowledge and awareness of that, and also to be mindful that it's impossible not to act harmfully with the privilege that one has. We live in an oppressive society, meaning that partaking in that society oppresses certain other peoples and identities. You don't have to accept that premise, if you don't want to accept it or if you think it asks too much of you, but I don't really know why you're posting in the Social Justice thread then.

 

Not that opposing views aren't welcome, but this forum also doesn't really see much of people posting in the Feminism thread with comments about really liking boobies in media and it being inconvenient for them not to be able to say so.

 

And here I thought the entire premise of social justice was about common humanity and a right to equitable treatment, not "white people need to check their privilege". While you have avoided saying it directly, the point you're clearly dancing around is "I'd like you to go away if you disagree about this", and I resent being told to go away. You are not the King of Social Justice (or even the creator of this thread) who gets to set a definition, then suggest people leave if they don't like it.

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Actually, I'm going to bow out of this conversation.  I thought I was sharing something amusing that could be enjoyed and the thread would move on, but for whatever reason this spun way out of control. 

 

Edited original post.

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Haha, this won't end well

 

I'm going to do something else because I'm pretty sure this discussion is rooted in a part of the American experience I have no familiarity with. You people have Olive Gardens and shit. Your relationship to food is super different to ours so while we genuinely had waves of immigrants set up in Australia, start restaurants and sell a version of their cultural dishes palatable to Australian tastes, that experience isn't relevant to America where you guys went for melting pot rather than cultural shift.

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we genuinely had waves of immigrants set up in Australia, start restaurants and sell a version of their cultural dishes palatable to Australian tastes, that experience isn't relevant to America

This has literally happened in America for generation after generation. It still happens constantly. It essentially defines the first-generation immigrant experience in America.

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And here I thought the entire premise of social justice was about common humanity and a right to equitable treatment, not "white people need to check their privilege". While you have avoided saying it directly, the point you're clearly dancing around is "I'd like you to go away if you disagree about this", and I resent being told to go away. You are not the King of Social Justice (or even the creator of this thread) who gets to set a definition, then suggest people leave if they don't like it.

I think I'm done with this thread for good, honestly. It is constantly full of concern trolls worried about making white people unhappy if we ask too much of them without giving them a lollipop for being decent human beings otherwise, not to mention accusations that I'm writing something off entirely if I point out that any part of it is problematic. I shouldn't have to post Sarkeesian's disclaimer for Feminist Frequency, but maybe I should. I don't know, I know this shit is hard. I'm white, straight, male, and well-educated if on the poorer end of the socioeconomic scale. I grew up with a lot of problematic shit and only came to feminism late in my mid-twenties and still make mistakes, but I try and so I have varying levels of patience for those who don't. I know, that's my bad, and I probably ought to be better.

Also, I really just don't know how to participate in a conversation where I say that culture is complex and you can't really discount a variety of contextual factors rather than just skill in preparing traditional or national cuisines, like many people do when discussing food and its preparation, and in turn I get obliquely accused of "infantilizing" and "magical" attitudes towards other cultures for... I don't know why. I was under the impression that food is one of the few clear-cut areas where gentrified appropriation actively harms minorities' economic opportunities and societal visibility, but apparently that's just how the world works and I shouldn't raise a fuss about it. Sorry for that, too, I guess.

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I think I'm done with this thread for good, honestly. It is constantly full of concern trolls worried about making white people unhappy if we ask too much of them without giving them a lollipop for being decent human beings otherwise. I know this shit is hard. I'm white, straight, male, and well-educated if on the poorer end of the socioeconomic scale. I grew up with a lot of problematic shit and only came to feminism late in my mid-twenties and still make mistakes, but I try and so I have varying levels of patience for those who don't. I know, that's my bad, and I probably ought to be better.

Also, I really just don't know how to participate in a conversation where I say that culture is complex and you can't really discount a variety of contextual factors rather than just skill in preparing traditional or national cuisines, like many people do when discussing food and its preparation, and in turn I get obliquely accused of "infantilizing" and "magical" attitudes towards other cultures for... I don't know why. I was under the impression that food is one of the few clear-cut areas where gentrified appropriation actively harms minorities, but apparently that's just how society works and I shouldn't raise a fuss about it. Sorry for that, too, I guess.

If you think only the people with whom you agree are the ones willing to engage in complexity, I think you are not being intellectually honest. For being someone who claims to speak for oppressed minorities, you seem to have a bit of a persecution complex yourself. The impression you were under about food and gentrification is one that I think you are being simplistic about, not too complex.

A lot of (white, straight, male) people seem to feel that once they've become enlightened about feminism and race, they suddenly are participating in a race to be the most apologetic and humble white person, but it also seems to lead to a lot of self-righteousness that I think leaves a lot of actual real-world complexity behind.

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If you think only the people with whom you agree are the ones willing to engage in complexity, I think you are not being intellectually honest. For being someone who claims to speak for oppressed minorities, you seem to have a bit of a persecution complex yourself. The impression you were under about food and gentrification is one that I think you are being simplistic about, not too complex.

A lot of (white, straight, male) people seem to feel that once they've become enlightened about feminism and race, they suddenly are participating in a race to be the most apologetic and humble white person, but it also seems to lead to a lot of self-righteousness that I think leaves a lot of actual real-world complexity behind.

Where was the real-world complexity missing in my actual posts, or are you just going to come in and arbitrate the contents of this entire discussion in generalities? Bjorn, Jenna, and I all specifically argued against a magical ethnic character to native cuisine, instead focusing on complexities of cultural background and the erasure of identities. Disagreeing with us by saying that shit is even more complex than the complexity that we already described is not a thesis about anything. It's a thought-terminating cliche meant to preclude further discussion by painting it as too difficult. That's intellectual dishonesty, in my experience.

And I'll thank you not to psychoanalyze me over the internet. That's cheap and ugly to do. Engage the specifics of what I actually say, rather than impugning my motives for saying them.. is what I'd say if I ever was going to post in this awful clusterfuck of a thread again.

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Well I'm certainly no expert, but Gorm I'd like to see you stay in the thread.  I'll admit that I sometimes push your buttons a little bit in order to get you to elaborate on something, but as I mentioned before that is more a result of me not being satisfied with general words being used as a stand in for discussing specifics.  I'm sorry if I've upset you--my intention is to get an elaboration more than anything else.  

 

So back on the topic of food, I recently moved from Massachusetts to California and I've spent the last couple of months trying all types of restaurants in my area.  I work with a couple guys who are foodies (for lack of a better word) and they've introduced me to a number of dishes that I'd never even heard of before, and styles of food that from my experience just don't exist on the east coast like Vietnamese and ethiopian dishes.  They told me the two things they look for in a restaurant are first if the people making the food are of a particular nationality, and if people of that nationality are eating the food.  Thinking back about all the restaurants we've tried, the quality of the food usually had more to do with the freshness of the ingredients than the ethnicity of the cooks or even the clientele.  From my experience, with cooking in particular, I've always seen it as more of a skill than the product of experience being around something.  Perhaps you would be a better judge of whether or not a particular dish is good or not, but I grew up in a family of Italians and though I've been given literally lectures on how to make a good sauce, I don't have much experience actually making sauces.  I'm sure there are concerns regarding identity and the like, which I couldn't really speak about personally, though I wonder if the ethnicity of the cook is just something that people immediately grab on to as a determining factor in their enjoyment of food they have extensive experience with.

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Where was the real-world complexity missing in my actual posts, or are you just going to come in and arbitrate the contents of this entire discussion in generalities? Bjorn, Jenna, and I all specifically argued against a magical ethnic character to native cuisine, instead focusing on complexities of cultural background and the erasure of identities. Disagreeing with us by saying that shit is even more complex than the complexity that we already described is not a thesis about anything. It's a thought-terminating cliche meant to preclude further discussion by painting it as too difficult. That's intellectual dishonesty, in my experience.

And I'll thank you not to psychoanalyze me over the internet. That's cheap and ugly to do. Engage the specifics of what I actually say, rather than impugning my motives for saying them.. is what I'd say if I ever was going to post in this awful clusterfuck of a thread again.

It is possibly true that I am not taking this argument as seriously I could be. I'm sorry about that. I still believe I have a legitimate difference of opinion on this matter than many people in this thread do, and I'm not about to apologize for that, but I introduced that difference of opinion poorly--largely because my posts conflated 1) the particulars of this food issue, and 2) the spectacle of "most empathetic white person" acrobatics that I find to be a hugely muddling force when it comes to discussions of ethnicity and race on the internet. ("I'm the white person who actually knows the right answer because I know that white people are always wrong", etc.) However, those issues do not fully overlap and I shouldn't have let myself combine them into the same argument.

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I wish there was a way to talk about these issues without them ending in anger. I guess the seriousness of these issues kind of ensure that will never be the case though. I think it's good for everyone to remember (me included) that everyone here is well-intentioned and wants to get this stuff right. I highly respect everyone on this forum and I don't want anyone to feel so burned out that they have to leave. I will do my part to remember in the future to be more accommodating and less aggressive.

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As an aside, the last two posts from Chris and Argobot, which are both to some extent a kind of mea culpa, are what make me comfortable posting and talking about these kinds of things here. Participants are largely willing to say when they've spoken too quickly or out of turn or whatever, and that's so rare in online discourse. That matters, and it's valuable, and I hope that other people recognize that and continue to be comfortable talking about complex issues here.

 

Gormongous, you always provide a valuable and thoughtful historical perspective, and I hope you continue to contribute to these discussions.

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Haha, this won't end well

I'm going to do something else because I'm pretty sure this discussion is rooted in a part of the American experience I have no familiarity with. You people have Olive Gardens and shit. Your relationship to food is super different to ours so while we genuinely had waves of immigrants set up in Australia, start restaurants and sell a version of their cultural dishes palatable to Australian tastes, that experience isn't relevant to America where you guys went for melting pot rather than cultural shift.

Is there a foodie-hunt for authentic aboriginal dishes in Australia? That would be interesting to hear about.

--

Also, I enjoy Gormongous's opinion, but I personally find it no more valuable than itsamoose's opinion.

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I'm not educated enough on this topic to present anything significantly useful, but I don't understand why Gor's arguments were being read as absolutes. Often this thread seems to be about highlighting a factor in privilege to be aware of. But sometimes discussion here ends up being read as a declaration of what white people aren't allowed do due to inherent guilt, instead of something to be mindful of.

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I'm a bit if a wallflower in this thread and I like taking in people's different views on these topics. I think it's interesting to hear the different views that appear in these topics. I find myself more in agreement with Gorm's post than 93's. But I think your participations are equally valuable in the topics. I'm not currently trying to make my mind up based on the views expressed. But I find them challenging enough to merit a certain amount of indecisiveness.

I think I've also become familiar with the practice of having a direct descendent opening a store that demonstrates their take on their culture's best food. But I'll still appreciate the odd Butter Chicken curry heh. 

Anyway I didn't see absolutes either. My judgement is currently swimming under layers of drink but I'm finding the views here compelling and I think we'd be poorer for it if there were less people around to express theirs.

 

I think I may be in a similar position to Merus. We still live in societies that are divided in racial lines but they might be less obvious than other nations. Like how most fish and chip shops double as chinese shops and no one really sees a difference because its fundamentally the same battered cholesterol daring food. But it'd still feel weird to find an all white restaurant preparing Chinese takeaway. Which could well be a racist or at least irrationally biased feeling.

 

I did share Bjorn's article with a friend since we both found it funny. I think we could both imagine a dish/style/thing we enjoy being butchered by trendy people who don't quite get it.

But still I live in a relatively small nation that has a high rate of immigration which leads to a lot of different restaurants opening to serve a wide variety of cultural palates. I still haven't found a decent Lok Lak or Pad Thai outside of Cambodia/Thailand. Though I think that could just be because its easier to find the right ingredients in those countries than over here.

 

Edit: sorry if this isn't reading too well I was fairly sauced at the time.

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I apologize generally for my behavior in this thread. I find a lot of the way this topic gets discussed to be frustrating, but that's not an excuse to be a jerk about it. Like a lot of tricky topics it is made trickier when the discussion is a decentralized bunch of people all tossing in comments, and leads to a lot of talking at cross-purposes. Sorry!

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I was raised ethnically Chinese so the topic of appropriating food culture is kind of familiar. I've always found the problem to be less that non-Chinese people are making bad Chinese food and physically stealing an element of Chinese culture, but that bad Chinese food is being made because it being "Chinese" is all it needs to be marketable.

 

So the appropriation doesn't exist in the fact that a different group of people are making the food, but that authenticity is being marketed without any attempt to actually be authentic. What's being "appropriated" isn't this specific element of culture but the aggregate image of a culture from the culture itself.

 

It misrepresents and essentializes a really deep, rich part of the culture for the benefit of cheaply peddling the aesthetic of "being Chinese". At least where I live, the majority of bad Chinese takeout places are owned by ethnic Chinese people. That doesn't make the existence of General Zuo's Chicken any less problematic in the grand scheme of things as a bad caricature of Hunan cuisine, or makes the fact that the takeout place across the street from me claims to sell "authentic Sichuan cuisine" but actually just sells a spicy version of a much simpler Cantonese food any better.

 

I also feel that the "what even is authentic food" path of argument is somewhat missing the point because although elements of a culture's cuisine could be adapted from another culture, what makes it "part of" that culture is its unquestioning assimilation without being othered or systemically held up as "foreign". I feel that nowadays you can draw a line with ramen on one side and Chinese noodles on the other without controversy, although 60 years ago ramen was called "shina soba" in Japan, specifically "Chinese style noodles". What makes it Japanese is its adaptation to the tastes and ingredients native to Japan (the use of kombu and bonito stock, the various toppings and method of preparation), and the cultural and culinary history that integration has developed. In my view, its existence as an element of cultural appropriation basically ended when people stopped using the (really offensive) word "shina", and began to view it as part of Japanese culture.

 
The same would go for General Zuo's Chicken. I have no problem with calling it Chinese-American food, because that's what it is. It's elements of Chinese cuisine made to fit an American palate, and come to be part of American culinary experience. I'd even call it "Chinese food" in America because that's basically the cultural shorthand for this kind of food anyway.

 

So even though actual Chinese food is itself a cultural mishmash of imported, native, and "fusion" elements, I find that it's still possible to say that it's being misrepresented as a whole without problematically imposing a fixed identity on it.

 

In the context of the article Bjorn posted, the issue with collards being badly made is that much of the marketing energy isn't being spent on the restaurant having good collard greens, but that they sell what people consider Southern food without effort to make good collard greens in the value system that they're marketing. The fact that this is the focus is what I find problematic.

 

I'm a bit tired so apologies if this is missing the point of the conversation or is in some way internally inconsistent.

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I was raised ethnically Chinese so the topic of appropriating food culture is kind of familiar. I've always found the problem to be less that non-Chinese people are making bad Chinese food and physically stealing an element of Chinese culture, but that bad Chinese food is being made because it being "Chinese" is all it needs to be marketable.

 

So the appropriation doesn't exist in the fact that a different group of people are making the food, but that authenticity is being marketed without any attempt to actually be authentic. What's being "appropriated" isn't this specific element of culture but the aggregate image of a culture from the culture itself.

 

It misrepresents and essentializes a really deep, rich part of the culture for the benefit of cheaply peddling the aesthetic of "being Chinese". At least where I live, the majority of bad Chinese takeout places are owned by ethnic Chinese people. That doesn't make the existence of General Zuo's Chicken any less problematic in the grand scheme of things as a bad caricature of Hunan cuisine, or makes the fact that the takeout place across the street from me claims to sell "authentic Sichuan cuisine" but actually just sells a spicy version of a much simpler Cantonese food any better.

 

I also feel that the "what even is authentic food" path of argument is somewhat missing the point because although elements of a culture's cuisine could be adapted from another culture, what makes it "part of" that culture is its unquestioning assimilation without being othered or systemically held up as "foreign". I feel that nowadays you can draw a line with ramen on one side and Chinese noodles on the other without controversy, although 60 years ago ramen was called "shina soba" in Japan, specifically "Chinese style noodles". What makes it Japanese is its adaptation to the tastes and ingredients native to Japan (the use of kombu and bonito stock, the various toppings and method of preparation), and the cultural and culinary history that integration has developed. In my view, its existence as an element of cultural appropriation basically ended when people stopped using the (really offensive) word "shina", and began to view it as part of Japanese culture.

 
The same would go for General Zuo's Chicken. I have no problem with calling it Chinese-American food, because that's what it is. It's elements of Chinese cuisine made to fit an American palate, and come to be part of American culinary experience. I'd even call it "Chinese food" in America because that's basically the cultural shorthand for this kind of food anyway.

 

So even though actual Chinese food is itself a cultural mishmash of imported, native, and "fusion" elements, I find that it's still possible to say that it's being misrepresented as a whole without problematically imposing a fixed identity on it.

 

In the context of the article Bjorn posted, the issue with collards being badly made is that much of the marketing energy isn't being spent on the restaurant having good collard greens, but that they sell what people consider Southern food without effort to make good collard greens in the value system that they're marketing. The fact that this is the focus is what I find problematic.

 

I'm a bit tired so apologies if this is missing the point of the conversation or is in some way internally inconsistent.

 

As a Filipino-American who has seen an increasing amount of butchered lumpia being sold as authentic Filipino food, all of this rings perfectly true to me. I was trying to figure out how to characterize exactly what the problem described in the article was because it also rang true to me, but you captured it - it's not the fact that non-native people are cooking these things, it's that it's inauthentic to market them as legit while disserving them. It's why the example of many different cultures enshrining French cuisine (and why isn't that appropriation?) also doesn't track for me, because the adoption of French cuisine is obscenely earnest and many chefs spend an eternity learning in French kitchens, ascending from the guy who carefully chops the garnishes to years later being the guy who cooks the fish.

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As a Filipino-American who has seen an increasing amount of butchered lumpia being sold as authentic Filipino food, all of this rings perfectly true to me. I was trying to figure out how to characterize exactly what the problem described in the article was because it also rang true to me, but you captured it - it's not the fact that non-native people are cooking these things, it's that it's inauthentic to market them as legit while disserving them. It's why the example of many different cultures enshrining French cuisine (and why isn't that appropriation?) also doesn't track for me, because the adoption of French cuisine is obscenely earnest and many chefs spend an eternity learning in French kitchens, ascending from the guy who carefully chops the garnishes to years later being the guy who cooks the fish.

 

That's an interesting way to summarize this issue, but again, I must question how and who is allowed to measure sincerity? How do you know that a white person isn't earnestly trying to emulate a style of cooking outside of their culture (and conversely, how do you know that a person who looks like they belong to certain culture isn't capitalizing off that appearance to lure in gullible people on the search for authenticity)? I never want to be the smug person who feels morally superior for eating at a Mexican restaurant in the Mission over going to Chipotle, because I'm sure that there are tons of "ethnic" restaurants that are capitalizing off that feeling. I agree that there is a lot of insincere appropriation of a popular minority culture for capitalistic ends, but it's not something I feel very comfortable with policing, because I don't think anyone is really qualified to know who is sincere and who isn't.

 

There was a really great NYTimes piece last week called "White Debts." Here's a really relevant part:

 

"Guilt is what makes a good life built on evil no longer good. I have a memory of the writer Sherman Alexie cautioning me against this way of thinking. I remember him saying, ‘‘White people do crazy [expletive] when they feel guilty.’’ That I can’t dispute. Guilty white people try to save other people who don’t want or need to be saved, they make grandiose, empty gestures, they sling blame, they police the speech of other white people and they dedicate themselves to the fruitless project of their own exoneration. But I’m not sure any of that is worse than what white people do in denial. Especially when that denial depends on a constant erasure of both the past and the present."

So unfortunately, my recent posts probably slot me in the denial section. My fear of becoming so wrapped up in the legacy of white guilt makes me push back in a way that may seem callous in the face of real minority suffering. I'm aware that eating quinoa is creating a dangerous economic situation for developing countries, but I bristle at the hypocrisy of someone stating that fact on their smart phone, another item that is crippling developing countries. The fact that every choice we make in a capitalistic society has harmful ripple effects doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to mitigate that harm as best we can, but it also doesn't mean that it's helpful to create groups of "good" and "bad" white people, because none of us can escape the legacy of what white culture has done to the world.

Again, I'm willing to admit that as a white person who doesn't like to think of herself as contributing to oppression that I might be too sensitive to this idea. Please let me know, I really value opinions here.

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I think the question of how do we know that they're being sincere or not is a legitimate one, but I read the original article in question as a means to blow off steam rather than some broad attempt at policing. If the article does little more than inspire people to be a little more skeptical and discerning, I think it'll have served what purpose I personally hope it intended. Seems to me that there are far more actionable/police-able instances of appropriation that take place outside of cuisine, though cuisine is the kind of pervasive undercurrent of appropriation that should at least be made visible if not actively fought against.

 

I've never thought to consider what is the appropriate amount of white guilt is worth feeling, I'll check out that article when I have a spare moment.

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