Posted on 04/11/2016 11:15:10 AM PDT by TigerClaws
Recently, we started a conversation about food and race. Specifically, we wondered out loud, who gets to cook — and become the face of — a culture's cuisine?
Our question was prompted by a recent Sporkful interview with Rick Bayless, who has faced criticism over his long career. Although he is an Oklahoman with no Mexican ancestry, he has become one of the most prominent ambassadors for Mexican cuisine in America. Rick Bayless is a master of Mexican cuisine. He's also a white guy from Oklahoma. Over the years, that has made him the target of criticism. Who gets to be the ambassador of a cuisine? The Salt When Chefs Become Famous Cooking Other Cultures' Food
To be clear, this isn't about Bayless. (Though the acclaimed chef did hop into the comments section to weigh in.) The question of who gets credit for a cuisine — and how they are compensated and feted — is one that comes up again and again in the food world. We asked readers to weigh in with their feelings about this squishy topic.
As with many things involving race and class in America, there are no easy answers — and we're not expecting to find any clear-cut ones. We're more interested in starting a conversation.
Here's some of what we heard from you.
On one hand, many of you pointed out that cooking the cuisine of other cultures is a tangible way to connect. That's part of what makes America a literal as well as figurative melting pot.
It used to be a free country.
That cultural appropriation should be a two way street eh?
Cars, buses, phones, writing, The English language, elevators, clothes, A/C, HVAC....
This could get messy....
[Should I not cook Italian food when we have company? Should I roll my meatballs and cook my sauce in secret?]
Our men are dispatching a drone to hover outside your kitchen window right this second.
The drone will be armed with a Hellfire missile. Put down the Ragu and slowly back away.
If you overcook the pasta past al dente, we have permission to fire.
When Is It OK To Profit From Cooking Other Cultures’ Food?
Since this is America; I would say anytime you please. I must have missed when we took the turn where this is a subject of debate.
Here’s another one: I’m allergic to peppers, so I spice my taco sauce with ginger. Instead of lettuce I add snow peas, and wrap it in a tortilla made from home-grown corn flour, from corn variety developed by a white woman.
The best thing about America is you can eat different foods
Just think if you had to eat one type all the time
Let see if you are a mixture you get two kinds
This country is doomed
I cook anything, any style I want ... anybody doesn’t like it can FOAD.
Some of the idiots at NPR might be Jewish ...
No culture owns a food or spice or method of preparation.
What about nonwhites using electricity, airplanes, computers, etc. I want to know, is it OK??!!”
And playing American sports like football, wearing American sports shoes, living in houses built from American lumber and etc.
Let me guess. Only whites can be racist, and only whites can be guilty of cultural appropriation?
Otherwise, about 90% of everything non-European Americans do in the USA would be cultural appropriation (appropriated from white culture).
“We’re more interested in starting a conversation.”
The conversation starts and ends with, the question is racist and offensive. I believe in freedom :)
*directed at the author, not the poster*
Only white people can culturally appropriate? Are there NO black owned pizza parlors? Is it insensitive when a Chinese man makes me a hanburger? Can I buy a diet coke in a Thai restaurant run by Greeks in Germany?
What a pathetic group of people those liberals. Their lives are so boring and stress free they have to invent things to be upset about.
I make great fried chicken and potato salad, taught to me by a ginormous black assistant I used to have.
When I bring these goodies to various events, the blacks are rushing to get them while they last
I am Caucasian.
I’d get to have Indian corn with my Haggis and Scotch.
Yes, we’re doomed unless we find a way to commit the loons to institutions where they belong. If we don’t we’ll die as a nation of stupid.
Who owns Tex-Mex?
It's as free as we want to protect it and as taken away from us as we want to allow it. I've had enough of the taken away part.
If you cook food and people give you money for it, then it’s okay.
That’s pretty much it.
Does the NPR writer know the difference between Mexican food and Tex-Mex?
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