pass this along

[kaigou]

A year (or two?) ago, there was a conversation online about the experience of growing up as an immigrant, with Mom's homefood for lunch and the reactions of (native-born, white) Americans to seeing the unfamiliar food. I cannot recall where that conversation occurred (community? someone's journal?) but if you do, pass along this link.

Is it Fair for Chefs to Cook Other Cultures’ Foods?, Francis Lam and Eddie Huang. Two immigrant sons hash out what it’s like to have your food shunned and celebrated in America

Some interesting, err, food for thought, in terms of how that childhood experience bears on the adult experience of two non-white American chefs/foodies and the question of -- when a non-American cuisine becomes 'popular' -- who has the right to cook it.

Comments

[mishalak]

My perspective is that I grew up often eating hippy health food. Other kids mocked me for this (and many other things), but I reveled in being different. In being "special". Now that people are coming around to more of my mom's way of cooking it makes me happy because I can more easily get food that satisfies my inner child. But then I never felt possessive of health food, like it belonged to me, since it was a creation of this community that I was not precisely part of. I suppose this is rather like someone who was in the health food movement for the save the earth back to nature part hating when corporations move into doing organic because they want only people who are pure enough to take part. Since I was never part of the purest set adulteration cannot upset me.