Hand
04-13-2016, 07:24
Is this a continuance of the micro-aggressed pansy generation or something completely different?
So you walk into the new Korean joint around the corner and discover that (gasp) the head chef is a white guy from Des Moines. What's your gut reaction? Do you want to walk out? Why?
The question of who gets to cook other people's food can be squishy — just like the question of who gets to tell other people's stories. (See: the whole controversy over the casting of the new Nina Simone biopic.)
For some nonwhite Americans, the idea of eating "ethnic cuisine" (and there's a whole other debate about that term) not cooked by someone of that ethnicity can feel like a form of cultural theft. Where does inspiration end? When is riffing off someone's cuisine an homage, and when does it feel like a form of co-opting? And then there's the question of money: If you're financially benefiting from selling the cuisine of others, is that always wrong?
Continued... (http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/03/22/471309991/when-chefs-become-famous-cooking-other-cultures-food)
So you walk into the new Korean joint around the corner and discover that (gasp) the head chef is a white guy from Des Moines. What's your gut reaction? Do you want to walk out? Why?
The question of who gets to cook other people's food can be squishy — just like the question of who gets to tell other people's stories. (See: the whole controversy over the casting of the new Nina Simone biopic.)
For some nonwhite Americans, the idea of eating "ethnic cuisine" (and there's a whole other debate about that term) not cooked by someone of that ethnicity can feel like a form of cultural theft. Where does inspiration end? When is riffing off someone's cuisine an homage, and when does it feel like a form of co-opting? And then there's the question of money: If you're financially benefiting from selling the cuisine of others, is that always wrong?
Continued... (http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/03/22/471309991/when-chefs-become-famous-cooking-other-cultures-food)