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?

[Hasseigaku]

People should be able to open a restaurant of whatever cuisine they want, but the problem illustrated by the article in question is that when the opportunities available are finite, it's generally white people who get the majority share of the prestige and the money at play.

It's perfectly reasonable to criticize major funding being dumped into a Chinese-themed restaurant run by a white chef because in the real world dollars available for restaurants or restaurants of that particular cuisine are finite, and so it could be potentially taking an opportunity away from a non-white chef.

Obviously all of this is exacerbated by the fact that many white people have the benefit of a higher class, and thus more opportunities to meet people with money and connections or have the money to go to prestigious cooking schools or the luxury of taking a year off and be able to work for pennies in fancy restaurants.

 

[Senator Rains]

This sounds more like structural racism in book publishing/general journalism rather than straight up "cultural appropriation".

I don't think that term works very well for food anyway. Even first generation immigrants adapt and change their cooking to their new places of living when they run a restaurant. (like, look at Pizza in the US or Kebabs in western Europe, a lot of different Asian cuisines as well).

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That's the point I took as well. If you asked a mexican or a chinese chief about their problems, they won't say "white chefs are stealing my food".. they'll say they want the opportunities white chefs have.

Real cultural appropriation in food is when a british person says curry is british, or when an Israeli says falafel is their dish. And even then it doesn't deserve more than a scoff (imo)

 

[Jack Bonjour]

It's okay for white people to cook dishes from other cultures, but I don't think white people should be opening up and running Asian restaurants for example, or publishing Indian cookbooks or putting out YouTube cooking videos for anything that is not white culture food.

In a way the same goes for nationality as well. An English person shouldn't be putting out cooking videos or cook books for Italian or French dishes for example.

I think national dishes deserve more respect, but white people tend to piss all over them by trying to take over another cultures recipes that have been handed down for generations.

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Hard disagree. What is "white culture food" exactly? Because Spanish, French, Italian and German cuisines are not the same and they are all "white culture food". Where should we draw the line? Should it be national, regional, local even? Do we take into account different national identities in countries where those exist?

Where you come from or where you were born does not dictate your skills at cooking. Someone from another country can be as good as a local at certain dishes, if not better. If they use the right ingredients and follow the recipe (treat it with respect, like CortexVortex said), what's the difference between a Quiche Lorraine made by someone in Spain or someone in France? The same would go for dishes from anywhere around the world.

That's the point I took as well. If you asked a mexican or a chinese chief about their problems, they won't say "white chefs are stealing my food".. they'll say they want the opportunities white chefs have.

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100% agree. The problem comes with the system not allowing for equal opportunities due to racism and privilege, not with people from other cultures cooking your food.

 

[Hasseigaku]

I have to agree with this. It's how we get new kinds of food to experience.



All of this is true, and has been since before history. That doesn't change that both arts, language and food benefits from cross pollination. It mixes genes from different cultures, and leads to evolution. Pure colonialistic appropriation is the ugly side of that coin, and should absolutely be pointed out. But in the grand scheme of things, new things will emerge that are in themselves good. Kebab Pizza is an affront to both italian and turkish cuisine. And it's tasty as hell.

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I'm not saying there's no benefit, I'm saying that there are more subtle forms in which the dominant culture can strip out the cultural heritage of something to a degree to which the people who worked hard to create it benefit far less than the dominant culture.

It's important, I think, to work hard to make sure that some aspect of where it comes from remains embedded into the way it is presented and made. I think it is extremely valuable, for example, to have people who are culturally in touch with the origins of that food to be deeply involved it its evolution.

And I think, unless people work hard to actively give opportunities to people like that, there is going to be a tendency towards them slowly getting pushed out because of our racial, cultural, and class biases. I don't think I like the idea of the future of Chinese-American food being solely shaped by people disconnected from that heritage. New cultural traditions can add richness, but momentum is always going to be on the side of the connection to its roots being lost.

 

[Untzillatx]

I was just posting this. Saw it in the BA thread a few weeks ago. I'd recommend everybody read it. It highlights a different facet of the same issue. In addition to white voices and viewpoints being elevated when it comes to cuisine, it also highlights how PoC often struggle for recognition and legitimacy when it comes to cooking "white food."

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First time in my life I've heard the term "white food". Is that American jargon?

I mean, it was probably created by South Asian immigrants living in the UK and adapting their recipes to available ingredients and British palates. Just calling it British seems misleading, and it's not like there aren't plenty of older dishes from the Indian subcontinent that would be mistaken for chicken tikka masala given how vaguely defined it is.

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People of South Asian origin living in Britain are British though.

Otherwise, only Native American dishes would be able to be called 'American', but no one doubts in calling Texan BBQ, the NY Pizza or Cajun dishes 'American'. They were all invented/brought by immigrant groups.

 

[apocat]

I'm not saying there's no benefit, I'm saying that there are more subtle forms in which the dominant culture can strip out the cultural heritage of something to a degree to which the people who worked hard to create it benefit far less than the dominant culture.

It's important, I think, to work hard to make sure that some aspect of where it comes from remains embedded into the way it is presented and made. I think it is extremely valuable, for example, to have people who are culturally in touch with the origins of that food to be deeply involved it its evolution.

And I think, unless people work hard to actively give opportunities to people like that, there is going to be a tendency towards them slowly getting pushed out because of our racial, cultural, and class biases. I don't think I like the idea of the future of Chinese-American food being solely shaped by people disconnected from that heritage. New cultural traditions can add richness, but momentum is always going to be on the side of the connection to its roots being lost.

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I don't disagree.

 

[Jack Bonjour]

First time in my life I've heard the term "white food". Is that American jargon?

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Must be an American thing. Or carbonara. Or ajoblanco.

 

[ReplacementPelican]

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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Why does that bug you? The UK's tradition of curry (and Indian food in general) is older than the Untied States is as a country, people grow up with it being a staple of their diet. It's not like people have renamed it into 'British food.'

 

[RocknRola]

Must be an American thing. Or carbonara. Or ajoblanco.

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Shit, could go for a bit of that for lunch right about now >.>

 

[Anti]

Is this anything new? White people have been doing this for centuries, come on...

 

[Deleted member 2328]

Cultures have always influenced each other, be it by violence or simply because others saw interest in cultural aspects and adopted it. While I do think it's paramount to recognize the origins of culture and its trends I don't think that should ever stop anyone from adopting and adapt aspects of it.
This is specially true with cuisine, where different variations of the same dish exist between cultures who adapted them to suit different tastes and sensibilities.
What I sometimes see that usually rubs me the wrong way from this debate are the stances of "this is ours so you can't do this" instead of "this originates from my culture and it's unfair no one is aware of that". Because of this the whole debate about culture appropriation never really completely clicked with me.

 

[Slayven]

I usually hate these threads because it goes from valid and sourced article to white fragility faster than the speed force "So i can't eat or cook ramen no more?" or the brother to "I don't see color " "I think everyone should share everything" completely ignoring the issues brought up especially about white privilege. People only hear "white people can't do this", when that isn't even in the conversation and the biggest western sin is telling white people they can't be center of everything.

 

[TheMango55]

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.

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This is hardly a unique feature of the Anglosphere though. We've all seen that horrific Brazillian pizza video, and the differences that American restaurants have in Asia. Every country changes foreign cuisine to suit the tastes of their locals.

 

[Shodan14]

What exactly is ethnic food? Does Finnish food count? Ukrainian? Georgian? Iranian?

 

[Slayven]

What exactly is ethnic food? Does Finnish food count? Ukrainian? Georgian? Iranian?

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Yes, why wouldn't it?

 

[Shodan14]

Yes, why wouldn't it?

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So it's just regional food?

 

[RocknRola]

What exactly is ethnic food? Does Finnish food count? Ukrainian? Georgian? Iranian?

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Technically all the food that can be historically attributed to a specific region in the world or a specific group of people, counts as ethnic. So, French food is just as ethnic as Ethiopian food.

However in the context of this thread and issue, which mostly centers around English (US/UK) speaking markets (though we can easily extend that to the Western world as a whole), ethnic tends to related to the exotic: so African, Asian and South American. Or in other words: any food that can be perceived as coming from a minority/foreign group and that hasn't (yet) had enough time to become a part of the local traditions (UK's curry for example).

 

[kami_sama]

So it's just regional food?

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It's food not native to the region you're currently in. Doesn't even need to be from outside your country.
But as RocknRola said before me, it's not as easy as that, there's nuances.

 

[Humidex]

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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Agreed on both counts. Also for an example, Fuschia Dunlop is a white Brit who happens to be a brilliant writer on Sichuan cuisine.

 

[entremet]

It's okay for white people to cook dishes from other cultures, but I don't think white people should be opening up and running Asian restaurants for example, or publishing Indian cookbooks or putting out YouTube cooking videos for anything that is not white culture food.

In a way the same goes for nationality as well. An English person shouldn't be putting out cooking videos or cook books for Italian or French dishes for example.

I think national dishes deserve more respect, but white people tend to piss all over them by trying to take over another cultures recipes that have been handed down for generations.

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I disagree here.

Opening restaurants is not a easy thing to do. It's capital intensive, low-margins and very risky. I don't see any exploitation if there's proper attribution.

For example, Chef Zack Pelaccio is a white dude that has studied extensively the cuisines of the pacific rim. His cookbooks are detailed histories of those cuisines from his POV obviously. It's great that many can visit his restaurants and see his interpretation of it.

Bayless was also mentioned before Another white chef. However, his restaurants, cookbooks, and TV shows display reverence and respect Mexican cuisines. He understands the roots of his cooking.

Food and cooking is a very complex art as well. It's always changing, being influenced, and influencing others. There's no real manual to say, Mexican cuisine. It's a hodgepodge. Even with regional cuisines, there are multiple variations. You can't take an approach to food that is algorithmic and made my robots. Food is too big for that. Moreover, thanks to the internet and cheap travel, we're more global than before, so there will more cross-pollination. Not just food but fashion, music, etc.

What we do need is more funding and business grants for those that want to open restaurants. Opening up restaurants is just way too expensive.

 

[Deleted member 58401]

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.

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I have a question here and I'm not being intentionally dense: don't we all steal from one another? KFC isn't exactly Chinese, nor is it the same here and there.

The point of the thread is still extremely valid (re: cookbook and recipe-makers), but it's less a case of white people not staying in their lanes - who cares what white people cook? - and more a case of inauthenticity in ethnic recipes.

In my opinion, it seems pretty easy to have sentence that say, "I put my own spin on the traditional by adding x, y, and z." or "for a more traditional take, add [ingredient]."

 

[StrapOnFetus]

Mmm, look at me lookin white making that good good international cuisine.

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[Zukuu]

If people want original indian recipe they can be found.
If they want an adapted version for their "taste" then it can be found.

Whatever you guys in the US call "pizza" has nothing to do with its original verison. Yet somehow both co-exist perfectly with each other and are an own variant. It's the same for virtually EVERY dish in existence. Hell, whatever is "indian curry" to begin with? There exist like a billion variant in indian of that as well. It's fucking food, so of course it does.

 

[Crimsonskies]

I totally agree I only take advice from Padma Lakshmi when it comes to cooking

Mod Edit: Objectifying picture removed

 

[Deleted member 30544]

There is no way that white boy Mexican food testes the same as real Mexican food, no way. And as a proof you have that god awful Taco Bell and their "this is not a taco" -tacos

 

[entremet]

There is no way that white boy Mexican food testes the same as real Mexican food, no way. And as a proof you have that god awful Taco Bell and their "this is not a taco" -tacos

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You're using poor examples. Mass-market fast food is not the same as what cookbook authors and some restauranteurs do, which is the scope of this thread.

Is McDonald's the most accurate distillation of American food? American food is always very diverse--you have Cajun-Creole, Soul Food, Midwestern County Fair, New England staples, Regional BBQ (Texas, North Carolina, Kanas City ) and on and on.

 

[nekkid]

I mean, it was probably created by South Asian immigrants living in the UK and adapting their recipes to available ingredients and British palates. Just calling it British seems misleading, and it's not like there aren't plenty of older dishes from the Indian subcontinent that would be mistaken for chicken tikka masala given how vaguely defined it is.

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But I'd consider those people British...

 

[Deleted member 4452]

As an aside, what's a good site for proper Mexican recipes?

 

[N64Controller]

As an aside, what's a good site for proper Mexican recipes?

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I use Rick Bayless or Pati Jinich

 

[entremet]

As an aside, what's a good site for proper Mexican recipes?

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I always loved Saveur. They have a huge focus on authentic recipes. Beware, though you may need to order stuff since they don't stick with supermarket friendly ingredient--they are going after the real deal.

Also, google Rick Bayless recipes.

Our Best Authentic Mexican and Mexican-Inspired Recipes

From homemade tamales and empanadas and Jalisco-style goat stew to guacamole and salsa, master Mexico's cuisine with our 76 best authentic Mexican recipes.

www.saveur.com

 

[Powdered Egg]

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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Even if I were the GOAT, I would not call myself an "Authority" on Chinese cooking if I were White. That's distasteful as hell.

In the inverse, if my black ass tried to put out a book as an "Authority on Irish Cooking" the idea would be laughed at from every publisher I pitched it to and the project would have 0 support.

 

[Devilgunman]

I love Thai food and I found most recipes written on the web in English to be mostly useless. When I want a Thai recipe, I go on YouTube to see the recipe from Thai chef. Don't get me wrong. I believe there are westerners who can cook great Thai food out there but I haven't personally met one.

 

[entremet]

Even if I were the GOAT, I would not call myself an "Authority" on Chinese cooking if I were White. That's distasteful as hell.

In the inverse, if my black ass tried to put out a book as an "Authority on Irish Cooking" the idea would be laughed at from every publisher I pitched it to and the project would have 0 support.

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One of the best pastry chefs I met was a black woman and she focused on French technique. She promotes herself as an authority in French pastry technique. She's never been laughed out of the room and very respected in her field.

You gotta own it, man. No one will toot your own horn.

 

[whatsinaname]

I don't really care that much for 'authenticity' to be honest. Let recipes evolve and change and fuse. Add local ingredients. Change prep methods. It's all good.

But don't go around making a Chana Masala and rebrand it as The Stew, something new you have discovered. Or tell people what the Right Way To Eat Pho is.

I mean, it was probably created by South Asian immigrants living in the UK and adapting their recipes to available ingredients and British palates. Just calling it British seems misleading, and it's not like there aren't plenty of older dishes from the Indian subcontinent that would be mistaken for chicken tikka masala given how vaguely defined it is.

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Made by an immigrant. Took two standard existing dishes, mix together - now it is something uniquely British and to be celebrated! They even wanted to give it a DOP status. -_-

(And it is not even clear it was first made in the UK.)

Doesn't Bon Appetit still not have a black woman in their main cast?

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They don't. And they are based in NYC. They have a guest who is really good (Hawa) but she's made like 3-4 episodes. And they once brought in a black employee as a taster (which is how they usually first introduce a new chef) in a video and turns out he was in admin.

 

[Deleted member 30544]

You're using poor examples. Mass-market fast food is not the same as what cookbook authors and some restauranteurs do, which is the scope of this thread.

Is McDonald's the most accurate distillation of American food? American food is always very diverse--you have Cajun-Creole, Soul Food, Midwestern County Fair, New England staples, Regional BBQ (Texas, North Carolina, Kanas City ) and on and on.

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A lot and also , the best of the restauranteurs that do great Mexican food in the states are Mexican-American. Same for cookbook authors.

Funny you mentioned McDonalds. Not only they are a US company selling US food (VS the example I just gave), but also , at least to me, it tastes 100% better in the US than outside , i was in Buffalo last October and got a quarter pounder.....was the best hamburger ever.

 

[Irminsul]

In the inverse, if my black ass tried to put out a book as an "Authority on Irish Cooking" the idea would be laughed at from every publisher I pitched it to and the project would have 0 support.

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But then if you did know a lot about Irish cooking, the goal should be that you are recognised and seen as an authority, not that others aren't, too, no?

 

[demosthenes]

For amazing Korean food, see: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/cook-korean-robin-ha/1122783706?ean=9781607748878

 

[Powdered Egg]

I would take that more as an indication of the intended demographic of New York Times rather than anything sinister of white people taking over other cultures.

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The "we had good intentions!" is all fun and games until there's zero minorities left in high end business.

 

[Rampage]

Food is a melting pot of ideas, there is nothing wrong with that. Using what you have locally to make a spin on a tradition dish smart and good for the environment.

BUT, it is insanely hard to find sources in english of traditionally made regional and cultural foods that have not been Americanized or Europeanized. That is wrong and needs to be correct somehow. The variety of foods from around the world is being lost by trying to define all food by a narrow pallete.

 

[808s & Villainy]

I mean, it was probably created by South Asian immigrants living in the UK and adapting their recipes to available ingredients and British palates. Just calling it British seems misleading, and it's not like there aren't plenty of older dishes from the Indian subcontinent that would be mistaken for chicken tikka masala given how vaguely defined it is.

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You can be British and not white. No one thinks curry and thinks "Oh yeah, a white person in Britain came up with this dish". The article is about white cooks massively and disproportionately being the "face" of dishes from other cultures

 

[Doc Kelso]

Even if I were the GOAT, I would not call myself an "Authority" on Chinese cooking if I were White. That's distasteful as hell.

In the inverse, if my black ass tried to put out a book as an "Authority on Irish Cooking" the idea would be laughed at from every publisher I pitched it to and the project would have 0 support.

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The implication that you have to have a certain skin color--or be from a specific region--to be an "expert" or "authority" on a cuisine is terrifying and completely untrue. You're implying that there's an intrinsic cuisine adeptness that comes from being from a region even if you're just not as good as someone else in the kitchen. A Japanese chef does not, by default, have a greater authority over Japanese cuisine compared to a Black chef that has studied Japanese cuisine.

If you're good at it, you're good at it. Especially if you've put the time and effort into learning the styles of cooking that created the need for that sort of cuisine in the first place--and even developed some of those recipes!

The problem is when people that are authorities from their respective cultural cuisines aren't respected or given as many opportunities as a white person.

Food is a melting pot of ideas, there is nothing wrong with that. Using what you have locally to make a spin on a tradition dish smart and good for the environment.

BUT, it is insanely hard to find sources in english of traditionally made regional and cultural foods that have not been Americanized or Europeanized. That is wrong and needs to be correct somehow. The variety of foods from around the world is being lost by trying to define all food by a narrow pallete.

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You run into the very real problem of people that are experts on regional and cultural foods simply not speaking/capable of writing in english. If you speak Japanese, for instance, there are some really good places on the internet to find solid recipes! The only real solution is to have someone work on translating those recipes and properly citing them; Which is a big ask for a lot of white people apparently.

 

[Danboard]

That's the point I took as well. If you asked a mexican or a chinese chief about their problems, they won't say "white chefs are stealing my food".. they'll say they want the opportunities white chefs have.

Real cultural appropriation in food is when a british person says curry is british, or when an Israeli says falafel is their dish. And even then it doesn't deserve more than a scoff (imo)

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Why apply such a narrow definition of what cultural appropriation is for food. By this logic, The backlash in 2016 where a Bon Apetiit video of a white Vietnamese restaurant owner authoritatively telling you how pho should be made and eaten is not cultural appropriation because the chef acknowledges pho comes from Vietnam. If we flip it around a white woman dressed as Pocahontas making "native" sounds is not cultural appropriation because she acknowledges it comes from native american culture.

Sorry if it sounded I was yelling at you as I agree with you on the first part but my pet peeve is Cultural Appropriation is at it's core an academic neutral term in which people use for false equivalences and straw men. Cultural appropriation as it's most basic core is a culture using another's cultural heritage. That means movies like Coco and Kung Fu Panda are cultural appropriation because it was made by largely American Whites or Asian couples in Asia proposing using wedding rings is cultural appropriation. We don't complain about those because we know they're not harmful.

What I do think is harmful cultural appropriation is taking our culture and not include us. When white people take your culture and make other white people the "experts" of it and hugely profit from it at expense of the marginalized who's trying to do the same thing that's negative culture appropriation. When a restaurant by the ethnic group gets complains that they charge too much for a specific dish and yet a white chef can charge double and get praised for the same dish is harmful cultural appropriation. Heck, people giving examples of white chefs being the authority of the specific ethnic food and yet most likely can't name a American minority with the same credentials is an example of harmful cultural appropriation. We get to create the seats in the table and yet we don't get to sit in them.

 

[Patapuf]

Food is a melting pot of ideas, there is nothing wrong with that. Using what you have locally to make a spin on a tradition dish smart and good for the environment.

BUT, it is insanely hard to find sources in english of traditionally made regional and cultural foods that have not been Americanized or Europeanized. That is wrong and needs to be correct somehow. The variety of foods from around the world is being lost by trying to define all food by a narrow pallete.

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While i don't disagree with your overall point, something not being in english doesn't make it "lost". It's just not in english.

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Excuse my pedantry. It's just that since we are talking about the regional/cultural part of food i thought it was worth pointing out.

 

[nded]

You can be British and not white. No one thinks curry and thinks "Oh yeah, a white person in Britain came up with this dish". The article is about white cooks massively and disproportionately being the "face" of dishes from other cultures

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Keep in mind I was replying to someone that said it was ironic that another poster consulted a South Asian source for advice in cooking a "British" dish.

 

[Liam Allen-Miller]

As a white guy from Quebec I don't know that I have much to offer this thread, but I've always found Quebecois dishes sort of interesting. A lot of the origin points for traditionally Quebecois food involve heavy influence from the French, naturally. The question of authenticity on the part of our food revolves around the question of when someone begins to be a national of another region. Are all of our traditional dishes ultimately just French food, or does a single generational step turn that food into Quebecois food? I don't know where the line is, but I do think it demonstrates the transformative qualities of food as an art.

 

[Rampage]

While i don't disagree with your overall point, something not being in english doesn't make it "lost". It's just not in english.

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It is "lost" to western society which makes it easier for said foods to disappear into vault of things lost in time, instead of staying alive and relevant.

For better or worse, english is the current language the vast majority of history/propaganda is written in. If something isn't archived in english, the is high probability it is going to be lost to time. The only thing remaining with be the "english/western" versions of food that were inspired by the real thing.

This one of the areas where one can say "thank you Youtube". It is platform that make authentic dishes available because it is unsaturated by what western publishers thinks that will sell to predominately white cultures.

Edit:
Excuse my pedantry. It's just that since we are talking about the regional/cultural part of food i thought it was worth pointing out.

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It's good, I get what you were saying.

 

[Deleted member 6582]

We're talking only about English language recipes? I imagine this is true almost anywhere. It's easier for the more dominant demographic to get published because they represent a large portion of the audience. White America doesn't associate with your childhood growing up in India, they may not even know where to get some of the spices, but someone coming from suburbia and putting it in ways they know is going to resonate.

It's just a matter of cultural dominance, even the popular non-white authors probably skew their stuff a certain way to make it more appealing. And there is a market for "authenticity" it's just more of an enthusiast market and perhaps what this shows is that its size is overestimated.

And the publishing industry is a shitty power structure, I hope that doesn't need explaining. It's whole job is to be a gate of normality but anyone can publish online and I hope they continue to do so. I seriously doubt the millennial generation is big on cookbooks anyway.

 

[Ryuelli]

If you make a Chinese dish and say it's authentic "Chinese cuisine," but you're also not Chinese

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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.

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I lived abroad for awhile and was taught how to cook certain Korean dishes my friends of mine over there. Now that I'm back home, if I'm in the mood for them, I'll go to H-Mart, pick up the exact same brands found over there, and use the same recipes. Are the dishes "less authentic" just because they happened to be cooked by a white dude (even though the ingredients are the same)?

I don't think food has as much to do with race as it does to do with cultures you're exposed to, and I don't think that necessarily has to do with race. I grew up in Texas, much of what I can cook is Mexican or Tex-Mex related. If you asked me to cook, I don't know, a traditional "white person" food like Meatloaf, I'd have no clue where to start.

I think your viewpoint is a bit ridiculous to be quite frank.

I hear a lot of Koreans complaining about how the food in Italy tastes really bland and boring because its totally different from the bastardized cream carbonara they grew up with in Korea.

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Lol, love me some sugary garlic bread.

 

[nopressure]

Makes me think of the last time I watched a British cooking show. I think it was MasterChef like over a decade ago.

There was an Indian contestant that made an Indian bhindi dish and she was clearly happy with how it turned out - the white judge said the vegetable was cooked wrongly and was too slimy and disgusting and started ranting to an Indian person about how their Indian food is supposed to taste. I turned the channel off instantly.

 

[Deleted member 4452]

As a white guy from Quebec I don't know that I have much to offer this thread, but I've always found Quebecois dishes sort of interesting. A lot of the origin points for traditionally Quebecois food involve heavy influence from the French, naturally. The question of authenticity on the part of our food revolves around the question of when someone begins to be a national of another region. Are all of our traditional dishes ultimately just French food, or does a single generational step turn that food into Quebecois food? I don't know where the line is, but I do think it demonstrates the transformative qualities of food as an art.

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The French will never recognize the pizza-ghetti as part of their cuisine. Quebec created that monster, Quebec has to own it.