this question of ‘who gets to cook what’
November 25, 2018 3:32 PM   Subscribe

So what is Andrew Zimmern — the award-winning, Minneapolis-based star of the Bizarre Foods television juggernaut, famous for trying anything with a smile and for encouraging others to do the same — doing opening a chain of Chinese restaurants? That’s the question not just at the heart of the Fast Company interview (YT video), but also one that’s currently at the center of the conversation about culinary appropriation in American food: Who gets to represent whose food, and to what audience? (Eater)
posted by devrim (53 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- frimble



 
Wow, uh, “Lucky Cricket”? Couldn’t do better than that, huh
Plus we have a T-shirt that says ‘Get Lucky’ in Chinese on the back.”
“““Great,””” an attempt at edginess that is so fully immersed in whiteness that it does not even recognize the possibility that slang could be different in another language

My wife, some time ago, once mused that the Borg in Star Trek would make a great allegory for the cultural ramifications of “whiteness,” as opposed to being “English” or “Italian” or “German.” This restaurant idea feels like a logical conclusion, on some level.
posted by DoctorFedora at 3:39 PM on November 25, 2018 [14 favorites]


Incidentally, everyone should use this as an excuse to go watch the Netflix series Ugly Delicious, because it is an amazing look at various foods but also the sociological circumstances that surround them, especially when it comes to white people deciding that Asian food needs to be “elevated” by a white chef in order to be worth charging full price for.
posted by DoctorFedora at 3:42 PM on November 25, 2018 [18 favorites]


Yes, Andrew Zimmern, a New Yorker, please save us poor benighted Midwestern folks from ourselves by teaching us how Chinese restaurants really should be, you pompous ass, I wouldn't be caught dead in one of your restaurants.
posted by axiom at 4:08 PM on November 25, 2018 [10 favorites]


Andrew Zimmern, a New Yorker

Hasn’t he lived in Minnesota for like 25 years?
posted by uncleozzy at 4:20 PM on November 25, 2018 [2 favorites]


One of my favorite things about his show is that he's used "It tastes like the ocean" as both a positive and negative description. Multiple times.
posted by brundlefly at 4:25 PM on November 25, 2018 [1 favorite]


If I wanted to go for some really great regional Chinese, Minneapolis would be a start. https://hmongtownmarketplace.com/
posted by PinkMoose at 4:34 PM on November 25, 2018 [4 favorites]


Andrew Zimmern can cook whatever food he wants. He doesn't, however, get a pass on trying to determine "authenticity" through his wannabe chain.
posted by pykrete jungle at 4:47 PM on November 25, 2018 [3 favorites]


So I’ll wade into this hate fest with a couple thoughts. If you read the Eater article above you’ll see that he’s specifically going to malls in middle America. Think PF Chang’s. I don’t think there is anything wrong with trying to introduce a wider swatch of people to a more authentic Chinese cuisine experience. As for who is allowed to cook this food I know Zimmern doesn’t see himself as a great white savior. Besides, are we going to say only Japanese are allowed to make sushi, only Mexicans can make tacos, only Italians can make pizza? Now take a step back and see what those things actually are in the US and how authentic are they? How about Korean/Mexican fusion burritos, who gets to make those? Should we expand out, only African Americans get to play the blues, Europeans classical etc etc. You see how problematic this gets?

As an aside, I have a friend who has worked with Andrew for close to twenty years and anther friend who does all his design and branding work. He is apparently an amazing client and all around nice guy. I know love to hate on this here in the blue but just because something is easy to hate on doesn’t mean we should do it.
posted by misterpatrick at 5:06 PM on November 25, 2018 [31 favorites]


Yes, he can cook whatever he damn well pleases.

But saying “I think I’m saving the souls of all the people from having to dine at these horseshit restaurants masquerading as Chinese food that are in the Midwest," is problematic. Cuz you know who runs many of those restaurants? Actual Chinese people! The idea that the white guy knows more about Chinese food than the people who grew up eating it is ignorant, insulting, and the very definition of appropriation.
posted by Frayed Knot at 5:14 PM on November 25, 2018 [25 favorites]


If this guy isn’t supposed to cook Chinese food, shouldn’t Yo Yo Ma be required to stop playing Bach?
posted by Ideefixe at 5:26 PM on November 25, 2018 [3 favorites]


Except that the Chinese/Vietnamese/Thai people cooking it are not cooking that cuisine as much as an Americanized version of it. Sure, they may know that cuisine and cook it but that’s not what they’re making for middle America. I’m not saying it’s a great thing but sometimes it takes someone more “familiar” to get people to expand their culinary horizons. Andy Richter did this with Pok Pok and now that is having a ripple effect with Thai food where you see Thai restaurants starting to serve more authentic Thai food. Or previously with Rick Bayless and Mexican food. Sure it’s not ideal but what are you going to do?
posted by misterpatrick at 5:28 PM on November 25, 2018 [3 favorites]


Zimmerman isn't going to make his food authentic. That's exactly the problem. He's said Lucky Cricket is going to be "the next P.F. Chang's." It's a chain of restaurants targeted for mid-American Malls. It's yet another Ethnic Applebee's.

And that's great. Have at it. P.F. Chang's is horrible, it can certainly be improved on. But to claim that only he can do this (which he literally does in the interview), that he's the only one who can make it more 'authentic' while insulting actual authentic Asian restaurant owners is disgusting.
posted by Frayed Knot at 5:36 PM on November 25, 2018 [5 favorites]


The thing about PF Chang's is that one of the founders is the son of Cecilia Chang, founder of the Mandarin in San Francisco.

So PF Chang's was 1) founded by someone who knows good Chinese food, 2) founded by someone trying to do something different than the mom-and-pop Americanized Chinese joints that every town has, and 3) focusing on adjusting Chinese flavours to suit midwest palettes.

So how again is this different from what Zimmern is trying to do (other than, you know, the actually ethnic background of Philip Chiang)?

The idea that some white guy needs to be the one who brings different cultures' flavours to the fly-over states is debunked by the very chain he's claiming to one-up? And he even throws Chiang under the bus in the Fast Company interview, claiming "he's a rich American kid on the inside."

The Eater article dives a lot in the authenticity argument and I'm glad they do. And there's also an entire argument to be had about white Americans' fertilization of "authenticity" - a trap I catch myself still falling in to. But Zimmern's tone-deaf comments about Chiang make me believe that he's nearly introspective enough to be the right person to try and pull this off.
posted by thecjm at 5:41 PM on November 25, 2018 [15 favorites]


Yeah, it’s cool that he wants to make Chinese food. There’s a lot there, to the point where “Chinese Food’ should rightfully be laughed out of the room as a gross oversimplification, like saying your restaurant specializes in “European food” so it serves paella made with currywurst or something.

Actually, wait, I need a better comparison because that sounds kind of awesome.
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:44 PM on November 25, 2018 [14 favorites]


I described him here once as a "disgusting asshole host", has that changed?
posted by lkc at 5:45 PM on November 25, 2018 [1 favorite]


I still can’t stop thinking about Ugly Delicious, though. Like the guy who makes and serves Vietnamese royal court food in America but has to compete on price, for food he should rightly be able to charge twice as much for, because of ingrained notions of what cuisines are “worth” paying full price for.

Like, it’s great that he enjoys doing it, and that it’s a source of pride! I just feel kind of bad that he has to be fueled by pride rather than also by making what he deserves.
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:48 PM on November 25, 2018 [9 favorites]


I like the idea of a chain restaurant that is more authentic than chains normally are. That's fine. I think his restaurant will do well because he is a known quantity and is known for "adventurous" eating so people will be more willing to try something different. He needs to be very careful his language.

I think the sad thing about the cultural appropriation thing for him is it is kind of a trap that is the reverse for people from the actual culture. For years restaurants from many cultures have been been dumbed down for the US palate. Have you ever gone to a Chinese restaurant and wondered what was on the menu that was only in Chinese, or seen the giant family-style table of Chinese speaking people and just wished you could sit with them and have what they are having? Most average midwesterners probably don't but Zimmern might get them there.

As for Zimmern himself, I just don't like how he comes off in his shows. He just creeps me out, like someday we will find out a super creepy secret about him. He is so smarmy and watching him do the food porn thing grosses me out. (I can't watch Giada either. Watching and listening to people eat at all, ugh. But I love cooking shows. I am a land of contrasts.)
posted by Belle O'Cosity at 5:51 PM on November 25, 2018 [1 favorite]


Oh yes, now I remember he was interviewing Michael Twitty about his vegetarian kosher southern soul food and he kept trying to make him eat rashers, with Twitty having to repeatedly explain that even if he ate meat, he wouldn't eat rashers because he's Jewish.

then he had a segment about food trucks and berated someone selling spam musubis (as being nasty food that no one should eat b/c not real) while drooling on himself shoveling two giant blood sausages down his gullet.

So, yeah. This guy is a disgusting asshole. Just look away.
posted by lkc at 5:54 PM on November 25, 2018 [8 favorites]


I don't know why he even wades into the media talking about authenticity. If he's going after American malls (and let's set aside the hermeneutics of "midwest" in the US context - like somehow he's not going to open one of these restaurants in WA or GA or NY?) then authenticity is irrelevant. No one eats at PF Changs because they want to relive that amazing dinner they had one night in Hong Kong. They want Americanized Chinese food that's reasonably good in a clean, reliable, predictable, sit-down, table-service restaurant. Why even bring up the issue of authenticity? 99% of patrons don't know what hand-cut noodles in China are like. The dishes have to live and die by the palettes of American consumers.

I suppose it's aspiration marketing to those who care that somehow Lucky Cricket is more "authentic" but even that is pretty thin. No. One. Cares. About. Authenticity. especially at a chain mall restaurant.
posted by GuyZero at 5:54 PM on November 25, 2018 [3 favorites]


Lucky Cricket is maybe the 4th restaurant to occupy this weird suburban outdoor fancy strip mall space in the past 5-8 years, so if Andrew Zimmern thinks he can break the curse, power to him. Seriously, I tried to google the order of restaurants at this address because it is mind-boggling, and I failed. It’s is around the corner from several other failed and doomed restaurants, my favorite being Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar and Grill (because sure, a ridiculous celebrity chain cowboy bar in what is likely the Minneapolis suburb least likely to listen to country music was an amazing leap of faith/ignorance). At least Zimmern has done some local market research for this one.
posted by Maarika at 5:57 PM on November 25, 2018 [1 favorite]


he kept trying to make him eat rashers, with Twitty having to repeatedly explain that even if he ate meat, he wouldn't eat rashers because he's Jewish.


What. The. Fuck.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 6:15 PM on November 25, 2018 [4 favorites]


If this guy isn’t supposed to cook Chinese food, shouldn’t Yo Yo Ma be required to stop playing Bach?

Colonialism.
posted by elsietheeel at 6:18 PM on November 25, 2018 [20 favorites]


Oof - well after the edit window closed I realized I missed a much needed "not."

But Zimmern's tone-deaf comments about Chiang make me believe that he's not nearly introspective enough to be the right person to try and pull this off.

I don't think he's nearly there. I think he's a got a long way to go.
posted by thecjm at 6:25 PM on November 25, 2018


American Chinese food is distinctive enough that it's practically a type of its own. My understanding is that particular menu didn't exactly originate from a series of trial and error; rather it was made from the start (by immigrants) to appeal to American tastes and didn't try to retain too much authenticity. The "authentic" diet of Chinese people varies from region to region, sustenance to extravagance, but Zimmern on Bizarre Foods mostly seeks out the food on the necessity end of the scale. This is where white chefs from the west tend to go sideways and fail to treat their subjects with respect, even if they think they mean well. The kindest thing I can say is this restaurant idea seems like an odd choice. I have no idea if he's trying to thread a needle with this venture and will end up exceeding everyone's expectations, without offending anyone. It seems like a pretty big gambit that he'll be successful, and an even bigger bet that he won't deal with the inevitable appropriation pushback without embarrassing himself.
posted by krinklyfig at 6:27 PM on November 25, 2018 [2 favorites]


Here's a nice, nuanced companion piece by Luke Tsai, former (and much missed) food editor of the East Bay Express:
Cooking Other People's Food: How Chefs Appropriate Bay Area 'Ethnic' Cuisine
posted by aws17576 at 6:29 PM on November 25, 2018 [9 favorites]


A quote from Cooking Other People's Food: (great article btw aws17576)

There are real financial implications to this, as well. It's why Ramen Shop can charge customers $18 or $19 for a bowl of ramen — compared to, say, $10 or $11 a bowl at one of the comparably esteemed Japanese-run ramen shops in the South Bay. It's why the Oakland restaurateur Charlie Hallowell can charge $20 for a plate of kefta-style meatballs at his North African-inspired restaurant, Penrose, whereas Aria Grill, a traditional Afghan kebab shop in downtown Oakland, charges $12 for a similar, more heartily portioned dish.

The author of this piece seems like a smart guy so I would think he knows that going to an expensive restaurant is really only partly about the food.
posted by GuyZero at 7:02 PM on November 25, 2018 [6 favorites]


And he even throws Chiang under the bus in the Fast Company interview, claiming "he's a rich American kid on the inside."

the full quote is worse: "despite how he looks on the outside, he’s a rich, American kid on the inside, right?"

Chiang actually looks like a rich American old man on the outside, which is what he is. way back when he was young, he was a Chinese kid raised in Japan, he wasn't American until his teens. except for "rich," every detail and every implication is wrong. remarkable. the extraordinary discomfort and long silence from the interviewer after Zimmern says that line is something to see.

as is the part where the interviewer asks how, as a white man evangelizing Chinese food and culture across the Midwest, he will keep his project from being or seeming "othering." & Zimmern replies heatedly that look, mister, he's "OBSESSED" with China! guess that answers that.

despite how he looks on the outside. that's not tone-deaf, that's racist. in a very open-and-shut way that requires no consideration of difficult questions about cultural appropriation or restaurant worker demographics to be able to see.
posted by queenofbithynia at 7:10 PM on November 25, 2018 [23 favorites]


There is definitely some straight up racist trash he’s slinging around, unintentional or otherwise. I don’t think people should be forbidden from cooking foods associated with different cultures, but there’s a serious problem when what you’re really trying to sell is this notion of “authenticity.” There’s been this toxic and long standing belief that you need white dudes at the helm in order to tap into “true” America, and that is just wrong on so many levels. I’m ethnically Japanese and grew up in one of the most densely Chinese neighborhoods in the U.S., but I am and look American as hell, and trying to establish innate “American-ness” as somehow separate from someone’s looks or background is both stupid and insulting.
posted by Diagonalize at 8:37 PM on November 25, 2018 [11 favorites]


I'm having like five different reactions here. (Always been basically indifferent to Zimmern.)

(a) His comments about Chiang--totally racist.

(b) Mefites who think that what gets served at Midwestern takeout joints generally represents Chinese people's attempt to accurately represent their own culture...um. Wow. This is how cultural appropriation debates can really trip one up, when one doesn't even know what one doesn't know.

(c) If an American guy wants to try, in America, to nudge that style of cuisine closer to something recognizably Chinese, who cares?

(d) BUT if he's going to do that, he really can't use any of the Orientalist badging/marketing that Chinese people might get to use. This requires delicacy and judgment that I'm not sure Zimmern has.
posted by praemunire at 8:57 PM on November 25, 2018 [9 favorites]


Have you guys ever been to the disappointment that is Walt Disney cuisine? Don't get me wrong - it is excellently prepared, but like all things house of mouse - it is sanitized to the most stereotypical saltimboca that you can find. In every ethnic house of mouse restaurant, they make the absolutely best middle of the line mediocre meal you've ever had. They've perfected full-flavor bland paired with great but forgettable red or white wine of your choice.

Why do they do this? Because not everywhere has choice. And for many folks, coming to Disney represents the first and only time that they may try something authentic to a fault, culturally significant enough to now be largely passe in bicostal culinary communities.

Yes, in the midwest you can find Chinese food, but for many they don't know or trust it. The road to the ivory tower coastal elites is paved with bok choy. Don't hate this guy for bringing food to the masses. Take what he's started as a building block - and seize the opportunity to get these folks a deeper culinary appreciation. Then, while you break bread with them - or rice noodles - introduce them to the progressive and liberal agenda.
posted by Nanukthedog at 9:04 PM on November 25, 2018 [1 favorite]


A lot of people talk about authenticity. "I found this great, super authentic Armenian place!" or "the food at that new Thai restaurant isn't very authentic". It drives me nuts. What does authentic mean? That it complies with some standard of what has been decided constitutes the ingredients, styles and cooking methods of that cuisine? Who decided that? When did they decide? Was it a decision reached by consensus? Were the people who actually cook that cuisine consulted?
It's a meaningless term. It attempts to freeze a cuisine in amber, trying to constrain it to a set of ingredients, styles and methods that are familiar to or expected by that particular observer. Food culture changes over time and always has done. It's influenced by new discoveries, new immigrants, new agricultural techniques, fashion trends and an infinite number of other things. Is Italian food with tomatoes inauthentic? There were no tomatoes before Columbus. How about Szechuan food without chilies? Ditto Columbus. English food without pickle? Obviously an Indian influence at work there. Or who would claim that chicken tikka masala isn't a quintessentially British dish? One could say "ah, but the Italians have been using tomatoes for hundreds of years!" Fair point. When's the cut off date? How many years does something have to be used before it's authentic? 300? 100? 50? 25? It's a completely arbitrary number.
That's not to say that it's a worthwhile endeavor to just mix up any old thing. There's a reason "fusion" is often called "confusion". Ingredients have to be combined for a reason, not just thrown together in an attempt to do something cool or to take advantage of the latest food trends. Do those two things you're mixing together make sense together? Is it respectful of the ingredients and flavours? If the answer is yes to both, then I say mix away! If not, just leave it alone.
The question isn't, or shouldn't be, "Is it authentic?" The question should be "Is it good?"
Cultural appropriation...another thing. When is it ok to use someone else's culture? Does anyone have an answer?
posted by conifer at 11:14 PM on November 25, 2018 [6 favorites]


Oh ho, a cultural appropriation thread! That means it's time to ask a dozen indignant rhetorical questions! Why don't we start with "Doesn't this mean that [minority group] can't be allowed to do [white people thing], eh? Eh?"
posted by ominous_paws at 12:27 AM on November 26, 2018 [13 favorites]


This is one of the most fruitless arguments on the internet. Neither side is going to change the other's mind and people are going to keep cooking and profiting from whatever the market supports. Vote with your feet or organize a boycott. The 1% of people who lose sleep over this will debate the merits of their own side and the rest of the world will keep eating food.
posted by Telf at 2:12 AM on November 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


What can be missed in this discussion, for people not from Minneapolis and it's environs, is that there are many good, authentic Chinese restaurants in the area. Minneapolis really doesn't need a white saviour for authentic Chinese food
posted by pwschatz at 6:13 AM on November 26, 2018 [3 favorites]


I suspect that the restaurant is going to fail on its merits, Telf, because I don't believe that there's a market for a mall restaurant that traffics in "authenticity." I think people go to mall restaurants to get fuel to continue shopping, and they don't give a shit whether the restaurant is authentic (or even particularly good). But Andrew Zimmern is a food celebrity, and his status as a food celebrity is part of what's being discussed and negotiated here. And it matters that food celebrities are overwhelmingly white and that white food celebrities are assigned expertise and mainstream access that aren't usually available to non-white people. It matters that this might be changing, with the rise of food celebrities like Samin Nosrat and David Chang. This is about the inner workings of food media, which spills over into other places, like the economic opportunity that comes from being able to open chain restaurants. And the inner workings of food media is kind of racist, in ways that we need to discuss and change, because we need to discuss and change all aspects of our society that are kind of racist.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:35 AM on November 26, 2018 [6 favorites]


Focusing solely on the financial angle: family restaurants are a survival level business. No one gets rich slinging noodles in the corner immigrant family owned Chinese restaurant, no matter how delicious the food. But mall-chains do make money, lots and lots and lots of money. So ultimately this kind of thing is a way for a white man to extract money using information he learned from Chinese-American, immigrant neighborhood cooks, and using imaging he borrows from non-Chinese people's (mis)understandings about Chinese food and culture. This is a core way capitalism and racial inequality work together in the USA, and its effect is to further amplify existing inequalities. Inequalities that have a very real impact for the immigrant restauranteur who has no health insurance and lives trippled up in a tiny apartment or whatnot.
posted by latkes at 7:38 AM on November 26, 2018 [7 favorites]


then he had a segment about food trucks and berated someone selling spam musubis

BRB, writing a letter to Gov. Ige requesting that Andrew Zimmern be banned from the entire state of Hawaii for all time.
posted by tobascodagama at 7:52 AM on November 26, 2018 [4 favorites]


P.F. Chang's is horrible

I would argue that it may currently be horrible, but it was not always horrible. There's a cycle basically every restaurant that turns into a national chain goes through, where first they're actually pretty promising, maybe not haute cuisine but pretty good and kinda a breath of fresh air (compared to what's already there), and then pressure to keep pushing costs down downgrades them to alright, then to mediocre, and then eventually holy fuck why is anyone eating this. When it first came up, P.F. Chang's was better than you'd find at a similar price in most areas. The relentless drive to shave yet one more penny per diner off operating costs adds up, though.

More on the topic of Zimmern: dude has always weirded me out. I think in theory his show could be a way to introduce people to food from other cultures beyond what they'd get at a tourist restaurant, and if that's what it did I'd be 100% fine with it. In practice, though, it always felt like the point of the show was how every other culture is weird and gross and Zimmern is so brave for putting up with it.

It's like the anti-Bourdain (which, I know, they were apparently friends). Bourdain would go someplace to show you the food peoples' grandmas would make them, the stuff they really ate at home and not just what's in a restaurant. Zimmern would go to the same place and show you whatever was most likely to sound disgusting to white Americans regardless of whether it was even that popular or commonly eaten, which is less food tourism than it is watching a low-grade horror story about how terrible The Other is.
posted by tocts at 8:00 AM on November 26, 2018 [8 favorites]


I really loved Bizarre Foods, and I thought Zimmern seemed like a really kind and decent person on the show. I am deeply disappointed in him here. It's honestly not that hard to be responsible and respectful about this kind of stuff. 1) Acknowledge your privilege - "I'm really lucky that I had the opportunity to travel the world while doing my show, and I feel like I have a real responsibility to bring the things I learned about the world and about Asian cuisine in particular back to the average person in the US." - and 2) Bring underrepresented people with you into your success - "I reached out into the Asian immigrant communities we have here in the area, and I searched for people who have been cooking the kinds of food I want to bring to the restaurant for their whole lives. We get our dumplings from X, our poultry from Y, and I'm really honored to have hired Z as my executive chef. She's been doing a great job at Blah, and I know she will bring that lifetime of knowledge to our place."

And then, I mean, translating English phrases into Chinese characters for your tattoos or t-shirts has been sketchy since like the 90s, so I call complete and total bullshit on that.
posted by Rock Steady at 8:12 AM on November 26, 2018 [4 favorites]


Ok so wait, is his name Zimmern or Zimmerman?

I would've sworn it was Zimmerman on that Bizarre foods show...
posted by Grither at 8:12 AM on November 26, 2018


Or George Zimmer, founder of Men's Warehouse. Or the other Minnesota legend, Robert Zimmerman.
posted by slogger at 8:25 AM on November 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


There is also a chef named Andrew Zimmerman, apparently.
posted by Rock Steady at 8:28 AM on November 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


Zimmern is a dumbass and he’s racist to boot.

But the “authenticity” debate is not as complicated as people want it to be. When my Korean friend who grew up in Korea says “this Korean restaurant is not very authentic,” it’s pretty obvious what he means. When I eat a full English that falls short, it’s generally because it’s not authentic. Whoever put it on the menu didn’t know what they were doing or decided to use what they already had in the kitchen for economic reasons, ignoring the flavor profiles and harmony of the original and generally creating a substandard product.

I eat plenty of nonauthentic dishes that are a delight, but it’s not like a big mystery whether a Neapolitan-style pizza resembles pizza you can get in Naples or not. Most people are not from Naples or have not lived there and might make a mistake, which doesn’t mean there’s no such thing as authenticity. The desire to complicate the word “authenticity” generally seems to be motivated by a desire to say “I just want to eat without caring about that,” which is fine, but also not complicated.

Most mall “Chinese” food is not authentic on purpose. A wave of more authentic Chinese food in America would be in keeping with current food trends. It’s not fair that Zimmern gets to do this; it’s capitalism. In all likelihood his product will either shutter or degrade over time, just like P.F. Chang’s.
posted by stoneandstar at 8:54 AM on November 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


I know love to hate on this here in the blue but just because something is easy to hate on doesn’t mean we should do it.

I've had a lot of interactions with Andrew and think he's a lovely guy, but he's dead wrong here.
posted by maxsparber at 9:36 AM on November 26, 2018 [3 favorites]


When my Korean friend who grew up in Korea says “this Korean restaurant is not very authentic,” it’s pretty obvious what he means.
I think you're wrong about this. It really is pretty complicated.

So my former roommate was born in Calcutta, and she learned to cook with the ingredients that were available in Calcutta. When she moved to the US, she found that she didn't have access to some of the ingredients that she could get in Calcutta, and she did have access to other ingredients that hadn't been available to her previously. Her cooking changed. I don't think it became "inauthentic": I think it would be wrong and insulting to say that. I think it became authentic to her experience of being a Bengali person who lived and cooked Bengali food in the US.

The idea of authenticity assumes that there is a single, unchanging culture that is real and that cultural evolution, exchange, and adaptation are fake and bad. It ends up invalidating people's lived experience. If you want to say "this is the kind of pizza that you would get in Naples," that's fine. Say that. But that's different from calling other pizza inauthentic.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:39 AM on November 26, 2018 [10 favorites]


I was pretty apathetic about the whole thing until I saw THIS!!!

Birthday sprinkles on a shaved snow dessert just feels really wrong to me. But I also feel somehow this might become a thing, so I should ready myself the next time I'm getting dessert.

Anyone do this before? Is it actually good?
posted by FJT at 12:21 PM on November 26, 2018


Her cooking changed. I don't think it became "inauthentic"

I think someone made a related point in Ugly Delicious - cuisine in one's home country has changed a lot since since they left as well. What once was "authentic" could now just as correctly be called kind of old-fashioned.
posted by Think_Long at 12:40 PM on November 26, 2018 [5 favorites]


Yeah, "authenticity" is kind of a fake idea in a lot of ways. Like, apparently in Mexico, a hot dog is an actual taco filling, but somehow that feels less "authentic" despite the fact that it is apparently a thing that actual people actually do in Mexico.

"Authentic" is often used as shorthand for "done the right way by someone who cares enough to do it right," which can be a much more complicated and fraught minefield when you're in a country where ready access to the usual ingredients is anything but guaranteed. If you care enough, you can often find ways to get close enough that it rounds off to "right," but on the other hand, sometimes you don't bother to do any of the research and wind up like the dining hall at Penn State when I was in college, trying to make sushi with long-grain rice and wondering why it just won't stay together.
posted by DoctorFedora at 3:57 PM on November 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


Authenticity is complex, but I still think it's a useful concept. I think of it in terms of whose palate the food is trying to appeal to. Obviously, individuals have their preferences, but broadly, different cultures have different preferred flavour profiles. So in this sense, it's possible for someone to cook a traditional dish while missing some of the ingredients and still have it taste "authentic". Conversely, you can use all the right ingredients and still have it turn out "inauthentic"*. "Authentic" doesn't mean "good", either; there are plenty of bad restaurants in the cuisine's origin countries. One of my favourite things is to try dishes from one culture adapted by another; it's a good way to suss out what the preferred flavour profile of the target culture is.

*I have Sichuanese friends who complain Cantonese chefs don't make Sichuanese food properly. This was in a situation where all the restaurants were drawing from the same suppliers.
posted by airmail at 4:35 PM on November 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


I live in Minneapolis and I have never met a Chinese person with anything nice to say about Andrew Zimmern, and I know /a lot/ of Chinese people. It isn't being white that is the problem but his enthusiastic embrace of that whiteness and the obliviousness that goes with it.

This guy trashes restaurants and chains founded by Asians as inauthentic and makes weird comments about people's ethnic authenticity based on where they are born but I am sure he is super nice to anyone he works with/for.

The "question of ‘who gets to cook what’" is a valid, complicated issue but in this case it is just a deflection of extensive criticism of a guy people feel genuinely harmed by.
posted by seraphine at 4:44 PM on November 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


Post culinary school, during the height of my cooking, I found a French provincial cookbook. I had a freaking bible of a wine book, and about 5 or so history books on France. I went full Francophile.

I bought a map of France, and pinned it to the wall. I worked through a combination of ingredients present in various regional dishes, maps of trade routes, seaports and railways and I plotted industries, populations and wars.

France makes sense. I mean, I learned a ton on ingredients and inferred ( possibly in some cases wrongly) some things about soil type for produce other than wine. Normandy isn't just about the fish - but because of the fish, you have a source of protein that isn't land-based meat - hence you find a lot more milks and cheeses... I mean, if you could milk a fish, that might be a different story... but since you can't, the chowders and the stews and the bakes and the gratins all start to make a lot of sense.

Basically, French cooking starts to line up with regional ingredients and clear trade routes. But also, lots of it just outlasted... and yes, there are a lot of similarities between French and German cuisine - two nations that are not generally described in the same breath as having similar cuisines. But, go to northwestern France and you get a very different culinary palate from Paris...

So, that was something I did. I learned France - inside and out. I know what makes a meal Burgundy, and what things were added from a common stock. I get it. I get France.

I don't work out of that cookbook much anymore. My map is gone after a few years of display, but long before I had kids. My wine bible was lent to someone and forgotten (so was my discrete mathematics book though too, so...) All things come to an end.

I'd like to think I incorporated lessons and knowledge from my learning into my food, but - likely there is stuff I've forgotten. It isn't my heritage, my knowledge was strictly clinical cultural, not heritage cultural.

Anyway... I'm not a French chef... I do appreciate them though.
posted by Nanukthedog at 4:59 PM on November 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


Minneapolis being Minneapolis, the question of cultural appropriation was rephrased as “cultural elitism” but got big press in the newspaper today. Zimmern claims that his words were taken out of context, but I think the video was pretty damn clear.
posted by Maarika at 1:08 PM on November 27, 2018




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