
Eating for Peace: How cuisine bridges cultures - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/62/systems/eating-for-peace
======
ouid
I guess I'm far more interested in the converse. My grandmother keeps a more
or less kosher house, cooking according to some pretty narrow rules. Over the
years has only assimilated a few other ethnic cuisines into her palate.

The divide that I have noticed most strongly is that she seems to have split
society into barbaric, rice-eating cultures, and the noble wheat/potato
eaters. I'm pretty sure she doesn't even know how rice is cooked. She would
never say it like this, but her aversion to cuisine does happen to correlate
with groups that she will make casually racist comments about. The most
prominent example being the Japanese, with Mexico being a close second.

I've been wondering for a while how closely correlated racism and food-racism
are. Are picky eaters more likely to be xenophobes? Certainly I cannot imagine
myself ever saying anything negative about Thailand or Ethiopia, but I don't
feel anything like that empathy for China, or people who consume ketchup.

~~~
throwaway_98554
As another poster mentioned, "people will find just about any reason to
believe they are better than other people".

Your intuition about racism/xenophobia is probably correct. But that's not the
interesting question, given how widespread it is. What is more thought-
provoking is why did this kind of behavior evolve? What was the advantage? Is
it still advantageous today?

~~~
craftyguy
> why did this kind of behavior evolve?

It's just an extension of the competitive nature of humans/social animals.
Social animals despise animals of the same species that are of different
social groups. They all want their social group to prevail, and will attack
(actively or passively, e.g. by refusing culture) the others. Humans like to
think they are above this 'primitive' instinct, but I think the vast majority
of human behavior can be summed up by this.

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mturmon
If you're interested in this concept, may I recommend the documentary film
_City of Gold_ , about the LA-based food critic Jonathan Gold, who rather
famously was the first food writer to win a Pulitzer prize.

[The film: [https://variety.com/2016/film/production/jonathan-gold-
food-...](https://variety.com/2016/film/production/jonathan-gold-food-
critic-1201724814/) \-- Gold's approach: [https://www.gq.com/story/jonathan-
gold-gutsiest-food-critic](https://www.gq.com/story/jonathan-gold-gutsiest-
food-critic)]

Gold takes a very democratic and open-minded attitude toward reviewing. He has
been one of a handful of writers that were early appreciators and promoters of
various now-common food trends - food trucks and strip-mall food joints, niche
ethnic/regional foods, unusual meats and ingredients.

But, clarified by a pair of quite touching anecdotes that, like parentheses,
open and close the film, Gold's real guiding light is not foodie culture -- it
is the ability of shared food to bring people together, in a metropolis that
is ever more diverse. The first anecdote is about his sorrow after the LA
riots of 1992, which devastated the Koreatown area where he lived at the time.
And the second is a book reading at what looks like Skylight Books in Los
Feliz, where he says that perhaps some of these tensions could be healed at
the micro-level if we "could just invite someone over for dinner."

We all know there are structural problems as well, but the problem of ethnic
tension and misunderstanding operates at many scales and many strategies are
needed. Perhaps this is one.

~~~
CaptainZapp
Reminds me of Tony Bourdain.

May his soul rest in peace.

~~~
mturmon
True, they have some shared motivations. Here’s Jonathan’s appreciation of
Bourdain: [http://www.latimes.com/food/jonathan-gold/la-fo-gold-
anthony...](http://www.latimes.com/food/jonathan-gold/la-fo-gold-anthony-
bourdain-20180608-story.html#)

~~~
CaptainZapp
Thanks!

I'm currently in the Czech Republic, where the LA Times is blocked. I'll
certainly read it when back in Switzerland (where it's accessible just fine).

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pm90
We often take for granted how lucky we are here in the US that many people
from different cultures come here and sell their food in restaurants, food
trucks, bars etc.

~~~
octorian
Yet, typically, each country/culture is reduced to a single cuisine.

The exception to this is when you're lucky enough to live in an area with a
sufficiently large immigrant population from a particular part of the world.

I've especially noticed this w.r.t. various Asian cuisines in California,
versus anywhere else in the US that I've lived.

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adfm
Wouldn't it be something if solving world peace were as easy as getting the
Donald to grab a combo plate at the Halal Guys on 6th and 53rd on his way to
see his friends at Fox while at home for the holidays?

Just kidding. You can't solve the world's problems with a coke and a smile...
but it would make a great photo op :^)

~~~
steauengeglase
It's not a panacea, but nothing is. When you have almost nothing to start
with, there is always food.

I'm from the south and the foodie boom has been an enormous benefit for us.
For most of my life there was a hard push to make a distinction between
"southern food" and "soul food". It was a push from both ends of the political
spectrum, as older white critics tried to keep it "white" and black critics in
the 60s and 70s tried to get the taste of repression and feelings of stigma
out of the menu.

It led to a lot of weird scenarios where a critic might call a plate of greens
from Oakland "enlightened" and the same plate in Memphis "limp, servile, and
impotent". That's still a thing. From a purely rational viewpoint this seems
ridiculous, but from the cultural standpoint it makes sense. Still, it's
reification, anthropomorphism, and all that jazz, like Harriet Beecher Stowe
calling loblolly pines lazy and immoral.

The foodie boom offered a lot of mutual pride for a region that has always had
an inferiority complex. As the lines blurred it was less "black" and "white"
food and more "our" food. Everyone grew up eating collards, grits, cornbread,
catfish, and okra. We all ate BBQ and drank sweet tea on the 4th. We all
remembered eating tomato sandwiches with pepper and salt on cheap white bread
as a kid. We all had pimento cheese. It was the one thing we weren't obligated
to feel shame and resentment about in a region that is nothing but shame and
resentment.

Not that it's all peach cobbler. As a retired shrimper friend of mine said
after seeing a $24 bowl of shrimp & grits, "Man, this is what we ate when we
couldn't afford food and now they are pricing us out of it."

Food is important.

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contingencies
There's an equally fascinating article in the same issue regarding the import
of chilli to Sichuan @ [http://nautil.us/issue/62/systems/why-revolutionaries-
love-s...](http://nautil.us/issue/62/systems/why-revolutionaries-love-spicy-
food-rp)

