Cultural appropriation of “rustic” and “ethnic” foods by upper class white people, at the expense of the people who have carried on cultural traditions that kept their ancestors alive during the most difficult of times is a major problem across the world.
Understanding Food Gentrification’s Impact on Hunger - wnycstudios.org
“Food gentrification” is a term used to describe how previously affordable and staple ingredients can suddenly become “cool,” costly, and ultimately out of reach for poorer communities that once depended on them. The trend presents particular challenges for more than 41 million Americans who live in food-insecure households, according to writer and feminist, Mikki Kendall.“
The Gentrification of Southern Food - pastemagazine.com
“It’s not that white restauranteurs lack culinary talent — but whoever has access to capital controls the narrative. People crave authenticity, which is often associated with poorer cultures and cuisines. Those said cultures are then appropriated by whoever has agency — and usually, money. And when they succeed, the so-called balance grows all the more disproportionate. Trendy spots in Atlanta, Birmingham, Charleston and Nashville cover fried chicken in gourmet breadcrumbs, and white-owned barbecue restaurants are lauded as the best in incredibly diverse cities.“People are embracing Southern food, but with a white face,” Boyd said.”
Cultural appropriation: Why is food such a sensitive subject? - bbc.com
“For many people - particularly those from ethnic minority backgrounds - food can be both personal, and political.Second and third generation immigrants often have “a sense of loss of their own culture - their attire is western, their language is western, and food is almost the last of the cultural domain that they retain a vivid memory of”, Krishnendu Ray, a sociologist and professor of food studies at New York University, tells the BBC.
“There is a tendency to ‘ghettoise’ Chinese, Mexican and Indian American chefs into cooking ‘their own food’, whereas white chefs tend to find it easier to cross boundaries”, and are seen as “artistic” when they do. “
The Gentrification of the Taco - ozy.com
“Tacos have been around for — well, as long as Mexicans have been around. Or at least that’s how taco expert and best-selling author Gustavo Arellano puts it. And while the practice of putting food inside a tortilla goes back to the time of the Aztecs and Mayans, that meal wasn’t called the taco until the late 19th century, when migrants flocked toward opportunity in Mexico City. The taco made a cheap, portable meal for the working class. According to Jeffrey Pilcher, a University of Toronto Scarborough professor and taco historian, a different opportunity rested within flaky, warm tortillas – specifically for women. Women could sell them on the street and make their own incomes. The taco itself proved adaptable, with the fillings varying from region to region.
So how did we go from 5¢ tacos to a $100 taco trio at the Four Seasons? The answer starts on the outside — with the prefried, U-shape shells you know and love. No need to roll fresh, hot tortillas anymore! That hard shell carried Mexican food even farther out of Mexican communities. The result was, let’s face it, the illegitimate-child version of the taco, but it did give Americans their first chance to salsa. Appropriation in hand, America shook the taco from its shell and slapped on a Givenchy dress. Using fancier cuts of meat, and higher-end protein, anything that rolled was called a taco. This new curation pushed street food onto a pedestal of bourgeoisie importance — and onto the menus of date-night restaurants everywhere.”
Gentrification of Food: Why we need to stop calling immigrant cuisine ‘ethnic’ - independent.co.uk
“Most recently, Filipino food was declared the next big thing. Why? Because Anthony Bourdain says so. More specifically, pork sisig - a dish of crispy, sizzling meat using portions of the head and the liver - will turn Americans, and eventually of course Britons, to the nation’s food. In an interview with CNN, he called the food “ascendant”, “underrated” and, patronisingly, a “work in progress”.
“While entirely well-meaning, Bourdain’s comments are the latest from a Western (usually white) celebrity chef or food critic to take a once scoffed at cuisine, legitimise it and call it a trend. It all ties into race and colonialism. It’s why French or German food is never called “ethnic”, but almost always Indian, Chinese and Thai. It’s why snails are seen as sophisticated, by Filipino balut, a boiled developing bird embryo, is baulked at.
This is a phenomenon documented by Krishendu Ray, associate professor of food studies at New York University and the author of The Ethnic Restauranter. Since the 1950s, the term “ethnic” has equated to “foreign” but more importantly that which has less value. Studying the restaurants of the US, he found owners selling cuisine regarded as ethnic, and therefore not Western European, were unable to charge the same rates as their Western counterparts despite their dishes involving comparative levels of skill - as anyone who has tried to make an Indian curry from scratch will know. “
How Soul Food Has Become Separated From Its Black Roots - huffpost.com
“When you think about high-end restaurants having things like fried chicken or grits or biscuits on the menu, these are foods that are deceptively difficult to make,” Dr. Marcia Chatelain, a Georgetown University professor of history and African-American studies, told HuffPost. “African-American cuisine is sometimes disregarded because it comes from the context of people who were enslaved or people who were poor and doing the best with what they had. The technique and the precision necessary to make these foods good is sometimes obscured.
”One of the most egregious examples came in 2016, when high-end department store Neiman Marcus came out with a new holiday offering. For the bargain price of $66 — plus $15.50 for shipping! — customers could purchase four trays of pre-cooked and frozen collard greens that had been “seasoned with just the right amount of spices and bacon.”Beyond the questions of authenticity, Neiman’s greens spoke to another major consequence of soul food’s commodification: price increases. The department store advertised collard greens to customers who were willing to pay more than $80 to get the dish to their door — and the product sold out. But go to an authentic soul food restaurant, like Peggy’s in Memphis, Tennessee, and you’ll find a side order of greens runs about $3.50. Even in a more expensive city like New York, a side of greens costs one-tenth of what it did at Neiman Marcus; Harlem mainstay Sylvia’s offers its collards for $6.50.“
A lot of it is just context. Once you have a white tablecloth restaurant and nice decor, and you’re in an ‘amenable’ part of town, you can add a premium to anything, and people will pay it,” Miller said. “You could not get away with that kind of pricing in a soul food restaurant,” he added, because “soul food is associated with poverty. So it’s like, why are you charging this much for this food?” Moreover, patrons at an authentic soul food joint “are probably going to be working-class, not the hipster crowd.”What that means, though, is that these foods have become less accessible in the spaces and neighborhoods established by the communities that invented them. “It’s one thing to highlight the food, but when you separate it from the material, economic, social, political and racial realities that created it,” things get dicey, Chatelain said.
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