Question your understanding of "authentic" food.
Happy Wednesday! Many of our cultural traditions are defined by our relationship to food. As we enter the holidays, it's a good time to think about how, as Jami puts succinctly in today's piece, our perception of cuisine defines our understanding of culture. It's a great way to consider how you can authentically support the cultural diversity in your community with where you dine.
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Nicole
TAKE ACTION
Reflection: What makes you feel that food is “authentic”? Who in our culture is given authority on what kind of food is valuable?
Advocate and support the cultures and communities whose food you consume.
Advocate for the workers in our food supply chain, many of whom are enduring terrible working conditions during COVID-19.
Instead of asking “Which restaurant serves the most ‘authentic’ food” think, ask yourself “What community am I supporting by giving my money to this restaurant?”
GET EDUCATED
By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)
Across America, COVID-19 restrictions are increasing, due to its astronomical spread. In many states, that means restaurant owners have to figure out once again how to survive without indoor dining (TK). In response to the pandemic’s disproportionate effect on the restaurant industry, there’s been a large push to support small restaurant owners— especially immigrant and BIPOC owners—through our takeout orders and our GoFundMe donations. But with today’s wealth of options of “ethnic cuisine” available comes some troubling perspectives on what makes “authentic” food.
Foodies are often eager to seek the most “authentic” representation of whatever “ethnic cuisine” they want to eat. By authentic, they usually mean food that’s the closest to what you would eat in the country of origin. But the word authentic is fraught. In a deep dive on Eater, food writer Jaya Saxena dives deeply into our contemporary relationship with the idea of “authenticity,” and notes: “What consumers deemed “real” was heavily influenced by whiteness. Americans still largely consider European-influenced cuisine as the norm (see any “new American” menu for proof), and their opinions of what is authentic extend from that center point.”
A separate report from Eater NY studied over 20,000 Yelp reviews. The writer summed up her results succinctly: “The word “authentic” in food reviews supports white supremacism, and Yelp reviews prove it… According to my data, the average Yelp reviewer connotes “authentic” with characteristics such as dirt floors, plastic stools, and other patrons who are non-white when reviewing non-European restaurants” (Eater NY). On the other hand, reviewers considered European restaurants “authentic” when they had the hallmarks of upscale dining, like white tablecloths and fresh-cut flowers.
Such viewpoints are pervasive. Growing up in the Chicago suburbs, I learned what (white) Americans thought of Asian cuisine before I grasped what Taiwanese and Japanese foods meant to us personally. I internalized the myths that all Chinese food was unhealthy and cheap, for example, while Japanese food had social cachet. How we view cuisine often mirrors how we view culture. With little cultural and political representation in the United States, recent immigrant cultures are usually most visible through their food. Our conception of other cultures’ food is often filtered through what we are served at “ethnic restaurants,” without an understanding of the ways that dishes and customs change when the owners need to keep their lights on when they know their audience wants a sanitized version of their foods.
The question of “authentic” vs. “not authentic” also can ignore the effects of colonization, imperialism, diaspora, and the ways communities must adapt to their surroundings. The Korean, Japanese, and Taiwanese food industries, for example, were heavily influenced by American foreign policy. Instant ramen—a food we think of as being inherently Japanese—was invented because America shipped their surplus wheat to East Asia after the war, and the food was seen as being more nutritionally balanced than bread (International Institute for Asian Studies).
That’s why asking “is this food authentic?” isn’t the right question— especially when we rely on Yelp reviews for the answer. Wealthy chefs can claim authenticity when they spend tens of thousands of dollars in a foreign country, learn ancient methods from locals, and return to develop their own high-priced restaurants— but that isn’t what I want to support.
Instead of asking, “which restaurant has the most authentic food?” we can ask ourselves, “which community am I supporting by giving my money to this restaurant?” Is the restaurant owned by a large restaurant group, or is it a family operation? How integrated is the restaurant into the cultural community and the local geographic community? As consumers, we have power. What we pay for is literally what we value. Let’s use our power to invest in these communities.
This piece was inspired by What We Feed Ourselves, a project developed by my sister Cori Nakamura Lin (@cori.lin.art). This project examined food, culture, and acculturation through interviews from immigrant-owned restaurants, essays from local writers, and illustrations of different meals. The restaurants were all from East Lake Street in Minneapolis (the area near where George Floyd was murdered by the police). Thank you to the restaurants who participated in this project: Moroccan Flavors (@moroccanflavorsmpls), International Cuisine, Wiilo Food Distributor, Taqueria Las Cuatro Milpas (@las_cuatro_milpas), and Gandhi Mahal (@curryinahurrympls).
KEY TAKEAWAYS
With little cultural and political representation in the United States, recent immigrant cultures are usually most visible through their food.
Conversations about what food is “authentic” often center white Americans’ version of authenticity.
The idea that there is one “authentic” version of cuisine also ignores the effects of imperialism, colonization, diaspora, and assimilation.
RELATED ISSUES
7/22/2020 | Don't Americanize other cultures.
8/10/2020 | Respect the relationship between name and identity.
10/13/2020 | Support Chinatown during COVID-19.
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