This got a report for xenophobia and, to my mind, it is xenophobic. It could totally be interpreted a different way where it’s inviting you to consider the cross-cultural nature of cuisine that gets boiled down into a single name, but it seems like most people, myself included (having seen how some other “Yes, but” comics go), don’t.
I think it’s worthwhile to leave this post up because the comments surrounding it are worthwhile and actually transform this into something insightful.
Japanese are generally rather xenophobic, so a “japanese restaurant” abroad only having anything else is quite the irony.
People from anywhere can cook authentic food from anywhere else as long as they know what they are doing, so this is bs
It reminded me of this asshole, who happened to be Italian, claiming that a professionally trained chef could not cook proper Italian food because he was Mexican
Even the concept of food being “authentic” or “inauthentic” is pretty dumb. Pretty much every food short of raw foraged ingredients is the result of cultural exchange.
You could argue that an Italian cooking with chilis or tomatoes is inauthentic and that the resulting food is more Mexican than it is Italian.
Extending the concept from ingredients to techniques, you could argue that every food that relies on the cold chain (refrigerated/frozen storage and transportation) is an American food because the cold chain was created by an American.
its about expectations. I grew up in California and have some specific expectations about Mexican food. they are different than if I was raised in Jalisco. I went to a “Mexican” restaurant in Budapest and their interpretation of Mexican food is VERRY different.
Mexico, like the vast majority of countries, has wildly different food styles by region city so anyone who immigrated elsewhere will start with their local style and then adapt it. In the US there are a ton of Mexican restaurants that vary significantly. I find it interesting how Americanized Chinese food is actually very consistent between restaurants compared to Mexican food.
I remember watching a video somewhere that touched upon this. IIRC, whenever a Chinese immigrant came to a city in the United States with a large Chinese population, such as San Francisco, they would seek out people from their hometown and would often be directed to benevolent societies. These societies help provide means for the immigrant to start looking after themselves, by offering different professions folks can jump into. Often times that would include providing recipes for dishes they could fix up at restaurants.
I think the video was a documentary about General Tso’s chicken.
-editted for accuracy-
Okay I made a quick pop in to Wikipedia just to check, and I can tell you that General Tsao and General Tso were different people. Several different people in fact, some fictional and others real, but they don’t overlap.
It’s “General Tso’s Chicken” and has been a NYT Crossword clue, which got me started with “in case you ever need it for a crossword clue,” because I know accurate spelling is not really necessary here.
I mean spelling Chinese names in romaji (romachi?) is a crapshoot to begin with. The only consistent English spelling in “General Tzo” is “General”
I agree which is why I checked Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Tsao
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Tso
The list for Tsao includes a fictional character, but the chicken recipe is associated with Tso.
A person doesn’t have to be from a particular country to know how to cook their cuisine.
True dat - I’m proud of my thai food, haole that I am.
What’s your secret? I make larb but that’s not Thai so much as it is SEAn. I quite desperately want up make a good gra pao veggies/pork, but all I have l figured out so far is to grow Thai basil.
No particular secret, I get a lot of recipes from youtube channels. Yeung Man Cooking makes pretty good panang curry and khao soi. My favorite pad thai recipe is from the Vegan Black Metal Chef’s first video way back in 2011 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeZlih4DDNg
I’m not vegan so I usually add chicken breast. Never tried making larb at home but I love it. I just buy the ingredients. The one year I tried to grow basil at home it all died lol.
larb is so easy. i will take a photo of the spice pack later and update this, if i have still forgetten in four hours bug me. you use that, fish sauce, and lime. add it to your meat (ground beef because poverty is fun!), cook it on med-high to high on your cast iron if you don’t have a wok (if you have a wok idk i don’t have a wok) then add some cilantro and scallion greens as a garnish. sometimes we’ll do larb lettucewraptacos with rice, sometimes just chop up some lettuce and make a rice bowl. it is very complicated.
i don’t know if there’s a specific region this style ties to, but i learned it from some Lao clients.
The only larb I’ve had in restaurants is ground chicken, which isn’t common at regular grocery stores. That’s why I haven’t tried making it. But I’ll try using ground beef, which I happen to have.
SPICE PACKET THANK YOU Okay give me a minute it’s not uploading and I’m not taking another photo
THERE. a little of this goes a long way. It’s both kinds of spicy (very flavorful and kinda hot) so enjoy. I use it on ground beef and ground pork, but also we got this great asada cut from the carneceria I want to try it with
Not enough Latinos/Hispanics.
Found the American
I go to a Japanese restaurant to eat Japanese food. Not to eat a Japanese waiter or chef.
Where would I go if I wanted to eat a… the other thing you said…
Probably Japan
I’m Korean, and I get where this is coming from. You do things right, and it’s all good. But if you use teriyaki sauce in bibimbap, I’ll fucking burn the place down.
I am Turkish.
I go to Turkish restaurants.
Lots of Arabs working there.
Same food has become part of their culture too over last few centuries living side by side.
Some of our food is straight up borrowed from them, in fact.
Pretty sure one used to live/work in Turkey.
They cook it well.
I like it.I assume similar?
> huh, turks are not arabs?
> i suppose they be greeks then
