today in questions that can't be answered in a handful of tweets: cultural appropriation of food

[emef]

Right, so, the question is: can you culturally appropriate food.

My immediate instinct is to respond "sure" but obviously the issue is: I know maybe a little more than average about food and I have a fairly decent idea how to unpack all kinds of aspects of food, but the notion of cultural appropriation is something for which I have few tools. So, idk. Be kind.

Anyway if you go with the definition of cultural appropriation as, culture A adopting someone culture B uses/does, and like, think of it as Not A Good Thing when culture A is dominant and is depriving, either directly or indirectly, culture B of its identity or even intellectual property, livelihood, or just the credit for having the awesome idea of using/doing the thing, then here are some examples of culturally appropriating food.

The thing that immediately came to mind was potatoes, because that's what I was reading about yesterday.

The potato plant is from the Andes, and in the first text I read, it is described as having been consumed by "indians" for millennia, until is was "discovered" by "Spanish conquistadors" and taken back to Europe (and then, blah blah, eventually dragged back across the Atlantic to, among other places, Quebec.) I shit you not, that is what the website of the Producteurs de Pommes de Terre du Québec actually says. The text then goes on and on about how Frederic the Great championed the potato in Prussia, and how instrumental Prussia's agricultural policy was, and then it makes an even bigger deal out of French agronome Auguste Parmentier.

So - with my limited social science knowledge, I feel unqualified to explain why/how the actual bringing of a plant from one continent might be described as cultural appropriation, because I'm not super comfortable claiming to know the first thing about the variety of people chilling in the Andes in the 15th century. BUT. The notion of describing the potato as being "discovered" by violent Spanish dudebros, and then making the entire topic of potato consumption about European insightfulness/creativity/sagacious choices, seems pretty cut and dry. At least, from where I'm sitting.

So yeah I hope I'm not misunderstanding the concept of cultural appropriation! Plz to be commenting, if I am. Also hit me with more questions about food/agriculture at any time.

Comments

[hedda62]

I would say (take with many grains of salt, something that at least in its non-Himalayan form can't be culturally appropriated) that the act of taking potatoes from South America to Europe isn't in itself appropriation. It's part of a whole conquistador-colonial nastiness, of course, but otherwise it's just "cool, new foodstuff." That word "discovery" puts the historians in the appropriation camp, but not necessarily the explorers themselves.

I tend to think of food-culture appropriation as having more to do with putting traditional foods (in particular, preparations of those foods) into a context where the dominant culture is "discovering" them and making them "better" and usually charging a hell of a lot more for them. Like making a version of papas a la Huancaina with expensive ingredients and serving it in your highly-reviewed restaurant and then talking down the original as unsophisticated. But the historical context makes it more interesting, indeed. Just I would to hate to cook only with the ingredients my ancestors used that grew in their continent of origin!

Michael Twitty is always good on appropriation and cultural sharing in the African-American context - and not overreactive, either, which I appreciate.