Cultural appropriation in food: When a majority of ethnic cuisine recipes on the web are written by white people, who gets to have authority in food?

[RastaMentality]

For instance, simply take a glance at a few critically acclaimed chefs/food writers and their online biographies, and you'll learn that Fuchsia Dunlop, Nina Simonds, and Carolyn Phillips (among many others) have all made a career out of specializing in Chinese cuisine, despite their whiteness. You don't need to read closely to quickly learn that they love calling themselves authorities on the food of others. According to her website, Nina Simonds is 'one of the country's top authorities on Asian cooking.' Fuschia Dunlop tops Nina - her website includes a quote saying that she is 'a world authority on Chinese cooking'.

It's not just Chinese food. Most foodies have likely heard of Rick Bayless. After spending four years travelling through Mexico to study their culinary traditions and 'test recipes', Bayless returned to America to build a culinary empire. Bayless has since published several cookbooks, owns many critically acclaimed restaurants, and is on the eleventh season of his own television show ("Mexico: One Plate at a Time"), all focusing on traditional Mexican cuisine.

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To do so, I scraped recipes from the New York Times Cooking online recipes collection, which is a searchable database containing over 17,000 recipes with an enormously wide reach - the NYTFood Twitter account has over 1.25 million followers. Each recipe from the database is given a number of tags to make it searchable; and many of these recipes have tags that flag the 'ethnicity' of the cuisine. If you filter your search results to Chinese cuisine, for example, you'll get a compilation of over 260 recipes.

I wanted to know: just how many of these Chinese recipes were authored by Chinese chefs or food writers? Indian recipes by Indian chefs? Caribbean recipes by Caribbean food writers? Who is getting paid to write these recipes, and who is given a platform to share them? Ultimately, who is given the opportunity to write about how these dishes should be cooked?

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Jenny Dorsey, an Asian American professional chef, food writer and social entrepreneur, says the issue comes down to trying to make food more "approachable" to whatever the hegemonic group is — in this case, white Americans. Reframing a "curry" as a "stew" might be just one example. "But food doesn't owe you being approachable," she says. "It's complicated and it has a lot of history and we owe it to food to look that up, to put in that work."

Cultural appropriation has long been a contentious topic for those in the food, according Kyla Wazana Tompkins, a professor of gender and food studies at Pomona College. Tompkins says that the "commodification of ethnicity" has become woven into the story of American food culture.

Erway remembers trying to get her second book, "The Food of Taiwan," published. She says she "just kept getting turned away. It was demoralizing to hear, over and over again: 'Asian cookbooks don't sell.'"

Eventually, she says, an editor decided they could sell it as an evergreen title. But she's always operated under the idea that a cookbook has to have a certain hook, a certain selling point. And that it has to appeal to a certain demographic. "My editor always says, 'Try to make something that ladies will buy in Barnes and Noble in the Midwest,'" Erway explains. "It's really about how much a cookbook publisher decides to throw their weight behind a certain title."

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Alison Roman’s comments about Chrissy Teigen and Marie Kondo lit a fire. Here’s why it’s still burning. — The Washington Post

For women in the food world, the controversy shed light on problems that had been simmering long before

apple.news

Food, Race, and Power: Who gets to be an authority on 'ethnic' cuisines? — Intersectional Analyst

by Lorraine Chuen Some of us will remember when Bon Appetit Magazine caused an uproar last September for publishing an article and video featuring Tyler Akin, a white chef, titled “PSA: This is How You Should Be Eating Pho” . The backlash, in my opinion, was justified: that a white c

www.intersectionalanalyst.com

As we're all cooking during the quarantine, I thought this was a pretty interesting topic.

Asian cookbooks written by Asian cooks still have trouble getting through publishers despite the growing popularity of Asian food in middle class America.

Everything in cookbooks is mostly filtered through how comfortable it makes middle America white women feel. Is this a problem? And do we need to change it?

 

[RisingStar]

The one thing that truly bugs me is seeing British people, specifically Caucasian saying how the UK are very well known for their curry... Right. I see many of them also doing editorials online for South Asian cuisines as well, but at least its changing now with YouTube being far more adopted elsewhere over the past decade or so.

 

[Hollywood Duo]

I was with the author until they mentions Rick Bayless. The man has spent decades highlighting real Mexican chefs and their expertise. I can acknowledge he is an outlier though.

 

[i like big butts]

It's an interesting topic to discuss.

I remember the whole mini shitstorm with regards to Binging with Babish's carbonara recipe. To him, his carbonara is right and has to have garlic. To Italian chefs who work and live in Italy, him telling the world that his carbonara could be considered real carbonara was an affront to Italian culinary arts as to them carbonara was a very specific dish that called for very specific ingredients.

A lot of people in the Anglosphere tend to "fuck up" dishes from other countries, even from other countries that could maybe be considered "white" as their sensibilities and tastes are often significantly different from the rest of the world. There's heaps of borscht recipes that Eastern Europeans would consider to be horrifically incorrect and nothing more than beetroot soup.

 

[Jag]

It's not improbable that white people want "ethnic" food through a white lens. The masses really don't want the authentic experience, just an Americanized version of it.

 

[Kard8p3]

I wouldn't mind (if even possible) seeing this list further broken down by authors who have longterm experience working in and around the cultures' foods they are writing about, vs them Americanizing it. Denying anyone who is not white a chance to write about their culture's food is of course another issue and one that needs to be looked down upon and changed.

 

[Big-E]

I have been cooking more and I have been trying to do things that I have never cooked myself before. The most frustrating thing is that I never know if I have an authentic recipe as the person who is sharing is often white or not of the culture that is cooking it. There should be a website that is nothing but grandmothers cooking their recipes so you know it's legit.

One example of this is flour tortillas. I searched and some of the first hits didn't mention lard at all. All of them were claiming to be the best tortillas. I knew that lard is important for flour tortillas but I would not know that based on some of the google hits. I feel that I would make that mistake with something else thinking I am making something authentic when I am not.

 

[DarthSpider]

There's no reason why a white person can't be an authority on, say, Chinese food. But systematically denying Chinese people a platform on which to share their recipes and food culture in a new location is fucked up.

 

[KmA]

The one thing that truly bugs me is seeing British people, specifically Caucasian saying how the UK are very well known for their curry... Right. I see many of them also doing editorials online for South Asian cuisines as well, but at least its changing now with YouTube being far more adopted elsewhere over the past decade or so.

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This drives me up the wall. They REALLY want to claim chicken tikka masala as this white british dish... when it was made by south asians in britain. It's a huge difference.

 

[Failburger]

The ones who writes a 90 0 page novel about how the recipe is passed down from mother to daughter after being found on a meteor needs to be shot. Your 3 ingredient tomatoes sauce isn't worthy of 9 hours long read.

 

[Deleted member 3815]

Is this a problem?

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Yes because White people know nothing about other people culture.

And do we need to change it?

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Also yes as other culture know more about their food and how to cook it than white people.

White people really need to stay in their lane and stop stealing from other culture.

The one thing that truly bugs me is seeing British people, specifically Caucasian saying how the UK are very well known for their curry... Right. I see many of them also doing editorials online for South Asian cuisines as well, but at least its changing now with YouTube being far more adopted elsewhere over the past decade or so.

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Same with Tea. It's not a British invention but it is commonly associated with Britain despite the fact that the Chinese and Indian were drinking tea long before the British came.

 

[thewienke]

It's not improbable that white people want "ethnic" food through a white lens. The masses really don't want the authentic experience, just an Americanized version of it.

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That's always been my interpretation of it.

Just taking something like Blue Apron for instance which touches upon many, many types of world cuisines but does so in a very typical American friendly way with pretty familiar ingredients.

But there's other problematic elements at work here that I also get.

 

[skycamefalling]

Appropriation of food and recipes is the best thing that has happened to us, culinarily speaking.

Not giving minority chefs a platform is an issue, having white people prepare an Asian dish is not.

 

[i like big butts]

I have been cooking more and I have been trying to do things that I have never cooked myself before. The most frustrating thing is that I never know if I have an authentic recipe as the person who is sharing is often white or not of the culture that is cooking it. There should be a website that is nothing but grandmothers cooking their recipes so you know it's legit.

One example of this is flour tortillas. I searched and some of the first hits didn't mention lard at all. All of them were claiming to be the best tortillas. I knew that lard is important for flour tortillas but I would not know that based on some of the google hits. I feel that I would make that mistake with something else thinking I am making something authentic when I am not.

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When I was looking for proper recipes for solyanka and borscht, I had to resort to Ukraine language sources even if I can't understand or read the stuff. A whole lot of those "my mum's recipe is authentic" sources are just complete bollocks really, about the same as Peggy Hill's bolognese sauce.

The thing with leaving stuff like lard out is that ingredients like that aren't something the writer's demographic would want to use or could be bothered to use. A lot of recipes written by English speaking white people are often simplified (cutting out ingredients) or "boosted" in flavour (garlic in carbonara) to sell to a demographic just wants simple to do recipes that take you to flavortown.

 

[ABIC]

On one hand, I get it, America is a white-founded nation and it's predominantly still white-driven even though the demographics are changing. I don't expect Chinese recipes to be authored by 90% Chinese because the country is 72% white. There's just a lot more white americans than chinese americans.

On the other hand, I do feel like there's better representation of a food and culture from someone of that native race/culture.

Lastly, I think it's not just a white cultural appropriation issue.. like, a Jamaican or a black American could be the best Chinese cook in the USA, and I'd hate it if s(he) couldn't shine because s(he) weren't Chinese. Meritocracy first yo.

 

[Zelenogorsk]

I think the recipies for ethnic food should come from chefs of that specific ethnicity. I reserve the right to bastardize ethnic food to suit my white midwestern taste buds, but first I need to know how it's supposed to be made. I don't want some white person telling me how to make ramen, i want a Japanese person telling me how to make ramen the legit Japanese way. I'll put my own spin on it if need be. Picasso first had to learn to paint the old school way before he invented cubism, ya know what i mean?

 

[Sabretooth]

Same with Tea. It's not a British invention but it is commonly associated with Britain despite the fact that the Chinese and Indian were drinking tea long before the British came.

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I can't speak for China, but India was introduced to tea by the British. A lot of effort had to be put in to make India a tea-drinking nation, during and shortly after British rule. It's a surprising fact even for most Indians, given how entrenched tea is in everyday Indian life, but if it weren't for the British, we wouldn't be drinking tea on a regular, non-medicinal basis.

Edit: It wasn't a British 'invention' by any means, of course, but they did play a decisive role in making tea what it is in India.

 

[Cyclonesweep]

Food is a very collaborative thing. I don't think you need to be of any specific ethnicity to cook food "ethnic food".

If a white person makes a recipe for something authentic and it's not, that's one thing. But a recipe is a recipe.

Now if ethnic chefs are having their recipes unheard that's a different issue

 

[Pet]

There's no reason why a white person can't be an authority on, say, Chinese food. But systematically denying Chinese people a platform on which to share their recipes and food culture in a new location is fucked up.

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Exactly.

I, for one, consider myself an expert on Japanese food ;p


(Seriously though, I think that it can be harder to truly "understand" some cultural/historical meanings of dishes, ingredients used, etc. In my experience, Americans don't really like to talk about how suffering or negative things impact recipes. It doesn't change how delicious the food is or who it is prepared by though or how smiled they are at it.)

I can't speak for China, but India was introduced to tea by the British. A lot of effort had to be put in to make India a tea-drinking nation, during and shortly after British rule. It's a surprising fact even for most Indians, given how entrenched tea is in everyday Indian life, but if it weren't for the British, we wouldn't be drinking tea on a regular, non-medicinal basis.

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I can.

Tea came from China.

The British were introduced to tea from China and have been fucking it up ever since ;p.

 

[RastaMentality]

I feel like it's completely fine for white folks to make other food in restaurants. Just don't drive other people out of business or be insensitive in your execution.

But with sites like the fucking NYT? They should fully be able to hire from one of the tons of ethnic cooks across the country.

People like Maangchi blew up and have several 5M+ viewed videos because theres a massive market for authentic uncompromised recipes prepared by people with direct experiences. Even from white people trying to prepare global dishes!

 

[Deleted member 64609]

I like how there are responses promoting the myth of "meritocracy" in America even though the OP clearly debunks it, in this specific area no less.

Appropriation of food and recipes is the best thing that has happened to us, culinarily speaking.

Not giving minority chefs a platform is an issue, having white people prepare an Asian dish is not.

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Who is "us"

 

[Zelenogorsk]

Tea came from China.

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and that's the tea

 

[WascallyWabbit]

As a Chinese American, I really wanted to learn more Chinese cooking and someone who really did the research and spent years traveling and even being the first non Chinese to study in their culinary schools, someone like Fuschia Dunlop has been incredible. For someone who doesn't read Chinese that well, I couldn't exactly get a cookbook from there.

I have no problem with someone like her making money off really bringing the culture to the west. Not to mention her book about her experiences there is a great beginner guide on understanding Chinese cuisine and how it affects the culture

Speaking on the broader issue, I'm not sure how I feel about food "appropriation" in this sense. They're recipes, they get shared by many cultures and co mingled. Though I feel like we should support POC in these fields, but the masses are going to pick the easiest approachable recipes and writers. Like the people on here or are going to read this article don't seem like the problem.

 

[skycamefalling]

I like how there are responses promoting the myth of "meritocracy" in America even though the OP clearly debunks it, in this specific area no less.



Who is "us"

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Humanity.

 

[smurfx]

food is one of those things where i don't really care who is cooking it as long as its good. people get way too hung up about food being authentic since food is always evolving and new recipes are always being made.

 

[Muu]

You're gonna have a hard time deviating from white chefs when you're looking at recipes in english. There's a ton of recipes from Japanese people, for example, if you're willing to navigate through Japanese recipe site giant CookPad.

 

[StallionDan]

The one thing that truly bugs me is seeing British people, specifically Caucasian saying how the UK are very well known for their curry... Right. I see many of them also doing editorials online for South Asian cuisines as well, but at least its changing now with YouTube being far more adopted elsewhere over the past decade or so.

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UK curries aren't the same thing as what is made in India, many of them were created here. Is basically inauthentic Indian food that is tailered to UK.

Chinese dishes are the same, the stuff served in UK restaurants and take-aways isn't traditional Chinese food in vast majority of cases, they were made in and tailered to the UK.

 

[Deleted member 37151]

I don't think there's much wrong with taking a dish from a country and adapting it. Happens in all cultures. A lot of Japanese and Thai food is taken from China and then a local twist is added.
You go all around Asia and can order terrible, terrible pasta cooked by local people that have never had the real thing.

I'm British, but not ethnically so. I prefer a lot of the bastardised British versions of dishes to the 'true' version

 

[Cockmagic]

As someone who loves Indian food, I've found online recipes of said food to be extremely lacking. Of course, it's always a white author who probably has no clue how to cook actual Indian food.

 

[Pet]

You're gonna have a hard time deviating from white chefs when you're looking at recipes in english. There's a ton of recipes from Japanese people, for example, if you're willing to navigate through Japanese recipe site giant CookPad.

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Also there's Just One Cookbook for Japanese food.

Maangchi does Korean food.

I've never looked for a site on Chinese food or Taiwanese food but I'm sure they exist.

 

[gutter_trash]

one reason is that some families pride themselves keeping their recipes a secret.

Have a kick ass restaurant but not reveal the recipes or the secret sauce

 

[RastaMentality]

As someone who loves Indian food, I've found online recipes of said food to be extremely lacking. Of course, it's always a white author who probably has no clue how to cook actual Indian food.

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I made chicken tikka masala last week and was pretty surprised how watered down some of the recipes were. Finding out from an Indian site to add fenugreek leaves (methi) was a pretty big game changer for the dish's flavor.

 

[Chikor]

There's no reason why a white person can't be an authority on, say, Chinese food. But systematically denying Chinese people a platform on which to share their recipes and food culture in a new location is fucked up.

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Yeah, I think when you have situation like the graphs in the OP, you have a problem, even though you can usually justify individually people writing about food from a country they were not born at.

The one thing that truly bugs me is seeing British people, specifically Caucasian saying how the UK are very well known for their curry... Right.

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I think it's certainly well known.
I also think it's generally good. Obviously you can't compare it to India, but honestly, anglo Indian cuisine is its own thing and I personally quite like it.

 

[Platy]

Asian cookbooks written by Asian cooks still have trouble getting through publishers despite the growing popularity of Asian food in middle class America.

Everything in cookbooks is mostly filtered through how comfortable it makes middle America white women feel. Is this a problem? And do we need to change it?

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it is funny it is even a question
OF COURSE IT IS A PROBLEM

 

[IggyChooChoo]

I think a big part of the blame for why there are so many white interlocutors for other cultures' cuisines lies specifically with book publishers, who took Julia Child's Mastering the Art success as a model and never were willing to deviate much from it.

I was with the author until they mentions Rick Bayless. The man has spent decades highlighting real Mexican chefs and their expertise. I can acknowledge he is an outlier though.

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I like Bayless alright, but Diana Kennedy is the real ur-gringo interpreter of Mexican food to white audiences. That said, in my experience Mexican chefs and food writers tend to like Diana Kennedy, because in the 60s Mexico didn't see its own food as chic or sophisticated, so her compiling recipes from households and regions was pretty unprecedented and is viewed there as helpful. At least, that's the story I heard.

Also, once she dumped Rick Bayless out of her car cause he pissed her off:

In David Kamp's 2006 book about the foodie revolution, "United States of Arugula," there is a funny passage about Rick Bayless meeting Kennedy for the first time in Mexico. "She did everything but just chew me up and spit me out," Bayless recalls. "I'd never been so poorly treated by any person. She said, 'This is over, I think we're done,' and kicked me out of her car and left me on the road. I had to walk back to town."

From her side, Kennedy told Kamp: "I had just bought some land but not yet built a house, and he sort of trailed me there, and the day he arrived, somebody had cut down two trees on the land that I'd just bought, and I was furious. And then, you know, being young, he was sort of damned opinionated, and he kept saying things like, 'Well, why didn't you translate the Spanish titles in the tortilla book?' I said, 'Well, for goodness' sake!' He was being very brash, and I was getting annoyed, so that was it: I gave him the bum's rush."

 

[DarthSpider]

I think it's certainly well known.
I also think it's generally good. Obviously you can't compare it to India, but honestly, anglo Indian cuisine is its own thing and I personally quite like it.

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And without British curry we wouldn't have Japanese curry, which I prefer over all of them (while still loving all of them).

 

[Zhengi]

I wouldn't mind (if even possible) seeing this list further broken down by authors who have longterm experience working in and around the cultures' foods they are writing about, vs them Americanizing it. Denying anyone who is not white a chance to write about their culture's food is of course another issue and one that needs to be looked down upon and changed.

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Who is denying them? Seems they are the ones getting all the opportunities over minorities to write about ethnic foods.

 

[StallionDan]

I made chicken tikka masala last week and was pretty surprised how watered down some of the recipes were. Finding out from an Indian site to add fenugreek leaves (methi) was a pretty big game changer for the dish's flavor.

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The irony as Chicken Tikka Masala is a British creation.

 

[CarpeDeezNutz]

I was with the author until they mentions Rick Bayless. The man has spent decades highlighting real Mexican chefs and their expertise. I can acknowledge he is an outlier though.

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I'm Mexican and my mom loves watching this dude for that very reason you mentioned.

 

[TaySan]

food is one of those things where i don't really care who is cooking it as long as its good. people get way too hung up about food being authentic since food is always evolving and new recipes are always being made.

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This is kinda how i feel about it too. I think it's great we see a new spin on great recipes. As long as minority chefs are not denied a platform which i think that's the main issue.

 

[Zoe]

I've never looked for a site on Chinese food or Taiwanese food but I'm sure they exist.

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Woks of Life seems legit.

 

[Hollywood Duo]

I think a big part of the blame for why there are so many white interlocutors for other cultures' cuisines lies specifically with book publishers, who took Julia Child's Mastering the Art success as a model and never were willing to deviate much from it.


I like Bayless alright, but Diana Kennedy is the real ur-gringo interpreter of Mexican food to white audiences. That said, in my experience Mexican chefs and food writers tend to like Diana Kennedy, because in the 60s Mexico didn't see its own food as chic or sophisticated, so her compiling recipes from households and regions was pretty unprecedented and is viewed there as helpful. At least, that's the story I heard.

Also, once she dumped Rick Bayless out of her car cause he pissed her off:

In David Kamp's 2006 book about the foodie revolution, "United States of Arugula," there is a funny passage about Rick Bayless meeting Kennedy for the first time in Mexico. "She did everything but just chew me up and spit me out," Bayless recalls. "I'd never been so poorly treated by any person. She said, 'This is over, I think we're done,' and kicked me out of her car and left me on the road. I had to walk back to town."

From her side, Kennedy told Kamp: "I had just bought some land but not yet built a house, and he sort of trailed me there, and the day he arrived, somebody had cut down two trees on the land that I'd just bought, and I was furious. And then, you know, being young, he was sort of damned opinionated, and he kept saying things like, 'Well, why didn't you translate the Spanish titles in the tortilla book?' I said, 'Well, for goodness' sake!' He was being very brash, and I was getting annoyed, so that was it: I gave him the bum's rush."

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Lol great story

 

[Titanpaul]

Yes, agreed - more authentic representation in media. Something usually is lost in translation...

No to some of the posts about keeping ethnic food in lanes and kept to specific peoples, yikes.

 

[Soliloquy of a Dogge]

Yes because White people know nothing about other people culture.

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Yes. This.

And usually destroy the authenticity and uniqueness of it in the process while appropriating it.

 

[wandering]

This topic is always a hard one for me, not only for its complexity, but because of the dismissiveness and talking past each other that inevitably ensues.

In a futile hope that people might listen, I'll just say this, speaking from my own perspective:

This isn't about individual people making food from other cultures, or even making money off of it, or local foodstuffs becoming popular abroad.

This is about systems of power, the context of racial baggage (especially in Western countries), and how those systems and that context are reflected throughout society, including in our cuisine.

I love it when non-Chinese friends develop an appreciation for authentic Chinese cuisine, when they take it upon themselves to learn how to cook it, and when it proliferates. But after years of Chinese Americans enduring scorn, disdain, and mockery for their food in this country; after all the dog-eating jokes and the kids being bullied for having "weird" lunches; after Chinese immigrants sweating over the stove to make money in a country that historically barred them from other jobs only to be relegated to the image of "cheap, greasy, and unhealthy" because they had to adapt to Western tastes; when, after all of that, you get this shit:

A White Restaurateur Advertised ‘Clean’ Chinese Food. Chinese-Americans Had Something to Say About It. (Published 2019)

The uproar over a Chinese-American restaurant that was opened in Manhattan by two white restaurateurs has become the latest front in the debate over cultural appropriation.

www.nytimes.com

That's cultural appropriation.

When "ethnic" food is seen as dirty and gross until a white writer for Eater magazine Columbuses a local joint and it becomes gentrified; when white restauranteurs have the capital, connections, and clout to profit off of a fetish for "exotic" cuisines while non-white business owners are relegated to the hole in the wall; when the world of the kitchen is built on the backs of brown people but white chefs continue to receive the lion's share of acclaim and prestige; when systemic inequality and Eurocentrism is still rampant in the culinary industry.....

That's cultural appropriation.

Acknowledging the existence of cultural appropriation and the harm it does doesn't mean you can't enjoy fusion food or share your personal recipe for chicken tikka. It means be aware that, as with many things, our cultural artifacts often aren't shared in a context of equal standing.

 

[DarthSpider]

Yes. This.

And usually destroy the authenticity and uniqueness of it in the process while appropriating it.

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This is a joke, right?

 

[thisismadness]

In general, I wonder how much of the english speaking web is written by white people. I'd guess a similar percentage.

 

[RastaMentality]

Even small stuff like "African" food recipes being so sparse that the entire continent is shoved together on the NYT. Ethiopian food and Nigerian food are so very fucking different but you'd never know by these categorizations.

 

[TheSaddestSort]

Rick Bayless is cool in my book. I will never be able to wrap my head around the fact that he and Skip Bayless are biological brothers though.

 

[entremet]

I think a big part of the blame for why there are so many white interlocutors for other cultures' cuisines lies specifically with book publishers, who took Julia Child's Mastering the Art success as a model and never were willing to deviate much from it.


I like Bayless alright, but Diana Kennedy is the real ur-gringo interpreter of Mexican food to white audiences. That said, in my experience Mexican chefs and food writers tend to like Diana Kennedy, because in the 60s Mexico didn't see its own food as chic or sophisticated, so her compiling recipes from households and regions was pretty unprecedented and is viewed there as helpful. At least, that's the story I heard.

Also, once she dumped Rick Bayless out of her car cause he pissed her off:

In David Kamp's 2006 book about the foodie revolution, "United States of Arugula," there is a funny passage about Rick Bayless meeting Kennedy for the first time in Mexico. "She did everything but just chew me up and spit me out," Bayless recalls. "I'd never been so poorly treated by any person. She said, 'This is over, I think we're done,' and kicked me out of her car and left me on the road. I had to walk back to town."

From her side, Kennedy told Kamp: "I had just bought some land but not yet built a house, and he sort of trailed me there, and the day he arrived, somebody had cut down two trees on the land that I'd just bought, and I was furious. And then, you know, being young, he was sort of damned opinionated, and he kept saying things like, 'Well, why didn't you translate the Spanish titles in the tortilla book?' I said, 'Well, for goodness' sake!' He was being very brash, and I was getting annoyed, so that was it: I gave him the bum's rush."

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I knew people who worked with Diana Kennedy. She treated ppl like crap.

To answer the OP, there are many threads here. Francophiles, Japanphiles, and so on are folks that show enthusiasm for culture. Nothing wrong with this.

As mentioned above, the model was Julia Child. We haven't really gotten away from that.

There are standouts, but it's hard to break through the white-dominated publishing industry.

Also, the food is always being remixed. It's not static. Did we forget that tomatoes weren't even in Europe until 1500 or so? Southern Italian cuisine is about tomatoes.