Above: a screenshot from the digest, promoting this interview.
This whole issue is weird and difficult for me, happening as it does, against a background of the Chinese government's stealth campaign to Asianize Western occult practice. By way of explanation, I am a long-time practitioner of Tarot, the Enneagram, and holistic healing as influenced by the Western mystery school (Think Order of the Golden Dawn).
Mind you, the Chinese are reacting to the evangelical cum dominionist campaign to engineer a takeover of their cultures' religious traditions. I won't call it a Christian takeover, because it isn't based on the teachings of Jesus.
So, now, here we are, with food folx wanting to "new American" our food, and thus our culture.
I'd prefer to see the quest for inclusion framed differently.
The current framing is, "What is part of American food?" When you put it that way, literally everything is part of American food. Our national culture, our regional cultures, our ethnicities -- all of it gets thrown under the bus.
Pretty soon, you don't remember why you're eating what you're eating, and the physiology that's unique to your ethnicity ceases to be a factor in your choices. Trends, not scientific or cultural intelligence, are why we eat what we eat.
No wonder we end up in doctors' offices with unspecified complaints that can't be traced to our hyper-healthy diets.
The framing I believe we must embrace is, "What is American food part of?"
This way, American cuisine is not some bigger and better behemoth that must be cut down to size. It is simply a cuisine that stands beside other national cuisines.
Well, what of pizza and spaghetti? Tacos and nachos?
Sorry, but I don't hear anyone calling those foods anything but what they are: Italian and Mexican, respectively.
Could it be that, say, gojuchuang, is not good for Americans whose families have been here for many generations (I am multiracial -- White, Native American, Pacific Islander, and Black)? Could it be that our physiologies require something else -- and that we deserve every bit of the respect and consideration being demanded by newer folx who can't metabolize ketchup and mustard?
Yes, it could. So, let's please see fewer attempts at annexation, and more efforts toward cooperation.