I disagree entirely about cultural appropriation of food as a concept, as the assimilation of food into a broader cultural soup is typically a mark of cultural association and an important benefit to society. Foods are one of those things that help bridge distance between different cultures. So many cultures around the world independently developed a tradition where sharing a meal with someone was the way that you made peace with them or offered friendship or partnership. Sharing food across cultures is one of the greatest aspects of humanity.
Nobody owns food or recipes. Many foods aren't even culturally native to the population that we associate it with. The potato was introduced to Ireland. Tomatoes are not native to Italy. Many of the spices used in cuisines around the world were introduced to those places by the spice trade. Globalism dating back 700 years has influenced cuisine all over the world.
Then you have things like beer or alcohol. Should a Brewer in America not be able to make a Czech Pilsner or a German Lager? Then should a Brewer in Japan not be able to make an American light lager which itself was a recipe by an American Brewer from his German ancestors...? Should a Texas distiller not be able to make Vodka because Võda is a Polish spirit and the Texans can't appreciate Polish culture? No it's just chemistry. Should a West Coast Brewer not be allowed to make a New England IPA? By copying the style but not preserving the cultural identity -- MassHoles and loving Tom Brady -- of the original Brewer are they stealing this unfairly? Budweiser is an American beer started by a German American 200 years ago and it's now owned by ... Like a Dutch multinational corporate that also sells Corona or something (the details might be wrong but you get the gist), which is itself a beer modelled after Budweiser but sold with some Latin American branding. The beers are popular all over the world. Bud is one of the most popular beer brands all over Europe, but when Budweiser released the "America Cans" a few years ago, the European Budweiser's kept the old branding. Is that appropriation by InBev, the foreign multinational selling shitty American light lager to club goers in Milan?
No. Recipes travel. Food travels. Food follows human migration and when you put up walls to food and saying that one person can't make a food or another person can't be an expert on a food, it's unnatural and is harmful to the human experience of sharing cultures and creating new cultures from that. When I grew up my polish grandmother made traditional polish food (which itself probably isn't even polish but probably some amalgamation of cultures given Poland's history) but most of the time she made Italian food... Not because she wanted to steal from the Italians but because it was cheap, easy, and could feed a whole family out of one pot. That cultural soup in America is also what has created so many wonderful new foods on this continent. Gumbo or Jambalaya are a wonderful mix of cultures, something that you uniquely get in America because you have 3 different cultures colliding In a single place and then necessity bringing them together to produce a wholely new culturally distinct food. Same with American BBQ. Same with Jazz music. Even American "Chinese" food which often is more American than it is Chinese. Our Chinese takeout place sells potato latkes, a meal youd often associated more with Polish Jews than Chinese. And why? Because the Jewish neighborhoods were next to the Chinese neighborhoods and at some point someone realized that potato latkes are good and they started selling them and they were a hit with their customers. Nobody owns potato pancakes, the Irish make boxty, Poles make latkes, Germans make kartoffelpuffel, the Chinese make potato pie or w/e it might be called in Chinese. Nobody owns it. It's a food everyone likes and everyone can make it, and you borrow a bit from one or the other to try to make a good food that sells to your customers.
People opening restaurants and calling them "Clean Chinese food" or something is not an example of appropriation, it's an example of bring a racist dick. It's saying that there's something unclean about Chinese food, something unclean about Chinese people. That's not appropriation, that's racism. It's not that it's an American making Chinese food it's that an American is passing a racist stereotype on Chinese people. Call that out, but not a chef studying cuisine and trying to make the best food they can.
