December Days 2029 #09: Allez Cuisine!
Dec. 9th, 2020 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradept[O hai. It's December Days time, and this year, I'm taking requests, since it's been a while and I have new people on the list and it's 2020, the year where everyone is both closer to and more distant from their friends and family. So if you have a thought you'd like me to talk about on one of these days, let me know and I'll work it into the schedule. That includes things like further asks about anything in a previous December Days tag, if you have any questions on that regard.]
Borrowing a question asked of a different person:
A question like this usually wants me to answer with something like "oh, I really want to try the cuisine of $ETHNICITY or $REGION," with a usually-unstated underlying assumption that one wants to experience and eat the "authentic" cuisine of that place or that people, where "authenticity" often means "in the place, prepared by the people of that place and/or ethnicity," in the same way as someone saying "Champagne only comes from a particular region in France, everything else is sparkling wine." Which, in itself, suggests that a certain level of privilege or wealth has to be obtained so as to travel to the region and have the thing itself. Which itself moves in the direction of confirmation bias, that an experience sought has to conform to what has already been assumed about it, or else it will be discarded as "inauthentic." At least for the United States, that often tends to move in the direction of "a place that has only one location is more authentic than a place that has many, a food created using local/regional ingredients is more authentic than one created with ingredients from abroad, a person who matches the traditional-historical people who have made this food is more authentic that someone who does not, a person living in the region is more authentic than someone who grew up in the region is more authentic than someone who did not, and a family recipe handed down over time is more authentic than a thing created by a professional which is more authentic than a thing created by a corporation." Which causes all sorts of fights about the authenticity of something based on things that have nothing to do with the taste, smell, or preparation of the food, and several more about how far one is allowed to stray from the Platonic ideal of the food before accusations of "inauthentic" cooking come out. Which, I suppose, leads to a useful response when something is accused of being inauthentic: "Authentic to what?"
To develop that context more, I'm going to point atconuly being annoyed at the assertion that the United States has no native food culture. Such an assertion in that form erases that our First Nations are still very much here and have their own culture and food practices. conuly mentions what a can of worms Native erasure would be to discuss, and so didn't, but is entirely aware of that aspect. So, I'm told that right and proper fry bread is a wonder to behold and experience. I presume fry bread is specific to certain nations or tribes, though, and that they differ in what ingredients go into the bread and the method by which it is prepared. So if you're looking for authentic fry bread, the question then comes back, "authentic to whom?"
Packaged into a less terrible form, the assertion is that because, barring the First Nations, everyone else on the land is an immigrant from some other space, and because all of those cultures and food practices and people retain their ties to the place they came from, purists have a big flap about how its not being done authentically when it's done in the U.S., because there were changes to how it was done in the country of origin. Which leads to the assertion that there never developed a distinct food culture of the United States, because everyone is apparently always trying to faithfully recreate something else and failing miserably. Or, equally aggravating, that because the ingredients for U.S. foodstuffs are sourced globally and always have been, rather than using solely things that grow in the United States, there's no uniquely U.S. food that only exists here.
I agree withconuly that both of those ideas are nonsensical. Cuisine has always been global, and often times swings wildly between greedily trying to incorporate the newest thing into itself and trying to exclude anything that seems "foreign" or "alien" in favor of an idealized version of appropriate food for citizens. The United States isn't unique in being able to do both at the same time, but it's also very good at reminding us that economic class is often the defining point between epicuriosity and epiconformity. Historically, wealthy people have had first access to foods from other places, prepared in the fashions of the places those foods are from, as a way of signaling their wealth and prestige. Eventually, ingredients that were reserved for the rich eventually work their way down to lower classes, even if they're not as fine or as premium, and at a certain point, ingredients become available to the masses, the ingredient loses its prestige, and then some other ingredient or preparation method becomes the thing that is the sign of wealth. And then, eventually, we end up as the sign of wealth being that you can afford the really expensive shit, which sometimes means "the highest quality stuff", sometimes means "the rarest stuff", sometimes means "the most ostentatious stuff", and sometimes means "the stuff with the name on it that declares you had more money than ideas on what to do with it." And, as happens with changes in time and distance, the preparation methods and the ingredients used change, and the thing that's produced might have the same name as the thing it derived from but is made differently. So you get a food culture that often looks at a thing, and sometimes it tries to replicate it faithfully and fails, but fails deliciously, and sometimes it looks at a thing and says "well, can't afford any of that fancy stuff, but if this is what it says the intent is, we can use these local (and thus cheaper) things instead" and it creates something delicious that way. Or it cooks a thing in the "wrong" vessel, and creates something delicious, or, or, or.
There's also the stereotype of the epiconforming U.S. person abroad, who wants to have their McDonalds and Starbucks on every corner everywhere, the hegemonic thing that assures the traveler that the thing they want will be there, wherever they go, prepared in the same way as home, so that they never have to be exposed to something different and they can stay in their cultural bubble and insist their culture should be patronized over yours. A Sibling Younger mentioned this on having taken a trip to Japan while as a secondary student and feeling a bit unsettled at how many people in their cohort went to the familiar rather than going to find something new. Admittedly, language barriers can be a thing if you're monolingual, but I both want to encourage the traveler to sample the local stuff, where possible, and to be understanding that sometimes what you want is a thing that you know exactly what it is and what goes into it.
So, I suppose, the answer to the question of "What cuisine would I like to try?" is local cuisine. In my life, I have rarely gone wrong when asking the locals about where to eat when I'm in a new place and have enough time to eat a meal. And while that seems dramatic if the travels I go on are cross-country, international, or some far distance from home, this rule works equally well if I'm going one major metropolitan area over, and sometimes even going from one neighborhood to the next. There's a small taquiera that's been in my neighborhood for years. I've looked at and known that it existed, but it's in a space where there are a couple different taquieras and some food trucks and a generally healthy dose of cuisine and dining from North and Central America close to each other. Someone else, raised in a different state, looked at that same building and said "We want to eat here," because they had a much greater exposure to knowing what a good hole-in-the-wall taquiera looks like, and this one had enough of the hallmarks to suggest it. So we ate there. And it was delicious. When I was in a different neighborhood than my usual one and needed a food, the person who lived in the same neighborhood for far longer made suggestions. (Turned out I couldn't indulge because they were cash-only and I didn't have the cash on hand.) When I went out to PLA the year it snowed in Philly and everyone who wasn't from a place that regularly experienced snow went "AaaaaAAAAAaaaAAAAaaa!", I asked the hotel front desk about a good nearby spot and got a recommendation. It was okay, but it definitely would not have been a place that I would have selected or known was there on my own. The convention center, however, was really close to a market with all sorts of food stalls and places, and oh, boy, did I never have a bad lunch there! I had more trouble choosing a place than enjoying what was there, and it was all good stuff. A different metropolitan area that I've been to has a full city block of food trucks to choose from on certain days and so when going for a conference there, there were all sorts of things to try, or to swipe a small bit off someone else's decision to try something and to know whether it was any good. I'm often thrilled to have people introduce me to their favorite eateries, and I try to be good about eating and enjoying food that's been cooked at home, too. (I might still be overreacting to being called a picky eater by the mother of a childhood friend, but also, experience has borne out that being willing to at least try a thing often means that you get to experience some really good stuff. And, occasionally, you learn how to say "No, thank you" after having had enough to form a reasonable opinion about it.)
So, if I end up needing a meal in your region, I'd really like it if you could tell me to go somewhere that the locals enjoy, or, if we're in a place where it can be done and you want to, cooking something that you enjoy would be good. (It'll be a while before that can happen, regrettably, but I look forward to it all the same.)
Borrowing a question asked of a different person:
What cuisine would you like to try?
A question like this usually wants me to answer with something like "oh, I really want to try the cuisine of $ETHNICITY or $REGION," with a usually-unstated underlying assumption that one wants to experience and eat the "authentic" cuisine of that place or that people, where "authenticity" often means "in the place, prepared by the people of that place and/or ethnicity," in the same way as someone saying "Champagne only comes from a particular region in France, everything else is sparkling wine." Which, in itself, suggests that a certain level of privilege or wealth has to be obtained so as to travel to the region and have the thing itself. Which itself moves in the direction of confirmation bias, that an experience sought has to conform to what has already been assumed about it, or else it will be discarded as "inauthentic." At least for the United States, that often tends to move in the direction of "a place that has only one location is more authentic than a place that has many, a food created using local/regional ingredients is more authentic than one created with ingredients from abroad, a person who matches the traditional-historical people who have made this food is more authentic that someone who does not, a person living in the region is more authentic than someone who grew up in the region is more authentic than someone who did not, and a family recipe handed down over time is more authentic than a thing created by a professional which is more authentic than a thing created by a corporation." Which causes all sorts of fights about the authenticity of something based on things that have nothing to do with the taste, smell, or preparation of the food, and several more about how far one is allowed to stray from the Platonic ideal of the food before accusations of "inauthentic" cooking come out. Which, I suppose, leads to a useful response when something is accused of being inauthentic: "Authentic to what?"
To develop that context more, I'm going to point at
conuly being annoyed at the assertion that the United States has no native food culture. Such an assertion in that form erases that our First Nations are still very much here and have their own culture and food practices. conuly mentions what a can of worms Native erasure would be to discuss, and so didn't, but is entirely aware of that aspect. So, I'm told that right and proper fry bread is a wonder to behold and experience. I presume fry bread is specific to certain nations or tribes, though, and that they differ in what ingredients go into the bread and the method by which it is prepared. So if you're looking for authentic fry bread, the question then comes back, "authentic to whom?"Packaged into a less terrible form, the assertion is that because, barring the First Nations, everyone else on the land is an immigrant from some other space, and because all of those cultures and food practices and people retain their ties to the place they came from, purists have a big flap about how its not being done authentically when it's done in the U.S., because there were changes to how it was done in the country of origin. Which leads to the assertion that there never developed a distinct food culture of the United States, because everyone is apparently always trying to faithfully recreate something else and failing miserably. Or, equally aggravating, that because the ingredients for U.S. foodstuffs are sourced globally and always have been, rather than using solely things that grow in the United States, there's no uniquely U.S. food that only exists here.
I agree with
conuly that both of those ideas are nonsensical. Cuisine has always been global, and often times swings wildly between greedily trying to incorporate the newest thing into itself and trying to exclude anything that seems "foreign" or "alien" in favor of an idealized version of appropriate food for citizens. The United States isn't unique in being able to do both at the same time, but it's also very good at reminding us that economic class is often the defining point between epicuriosity and epiconformity. Historically, wealthy people have had first access to foods from other places, prepared in the fashions of the places those foods are from, as a way of signaling their wealth and prestige. Eventually, ingredients that were reserved for the rich eventually work their way down to lower classes, even if they're not as fine or as premium, and at a certain point, ingredients become available to the masses, the ingredient loses its prestige, and then some other ingredient or preparation method becomes the thing that is the sign of wealth. And then, eventually, we end up as the sign of wealth being that you can afford the really expensive shit, which sometimes means "the highest quality stuff", sometimes means "the rarest stuff", sometimes means "the most ostentatious stuff", and sometimes means "the stuff with the name on it that declares you had more money than ideas on what to do with it." And, as happens with changes in time and distance, the preparation methods and the ingredients used change, and the thing that's produced might have the same name as the thing it derived from but is made differently. So you get a food culture that often looks at a thing, and sometimes it tries to replicate it faithfully and fails, but fails deliciously, and sometimes it looks at a thing and says "well, can't afford any of that fancy stuff, but if this is what it says the intent is, we can use these local (and thus cheaper) things instead" and it creates something delicious that way. Or it cooks a thing in the "wrong" vessel, and creates something delicious, or, or, or.There's also the stereotype of the epiconforming U.S. person abroad, who wants to have their McDonalds and Starbucks on every corner everywhere, the hegemonic thing that assures the traveler that the thing they want will be there, wherever they go, prepared in the same way as home, so that they never have to be exposed to something different and they can stay in their cultural bubble and insist their culture should be patronized over yours. A Sibling Younger mentioned this on having taken a trip to Japan while as a secondary student and feeling a bit unsettled at how many people in their cohort went to the familiar rather than going to find something new. Admittedly, language barriers can be a thing if you're monolingual, but I both want to encourage the traveler to sample the local stuff, where possible, and to be understanding that sometimes what you want is a thing that you know exactly what it is and what goes into it.
So, I suppose, the answer to the question of "What cuisine would I like to try?" is local cuisine. In my life, I have rarely gone wrong when asking the locals about where to eat when I'm in a new place and have enough time to eat a meal. And while that seems dramatic if the travels I go on are cross-country, international, or some far distance from home, this rule works equally well if I'm going one major metropolitan area over, and sometimes even going from one neighborhood to the next. There's a small taquiera that's been in my neighborhood for years. I've looked at and known that it existed, but it's in a space where there are a couple different taquieras and some food trucks and a generally healthy dose of cuisine and dining from North and Central America close to each other. Someone else, raised in a different state, looked at that same building and said "We want to eat here," because they had a much greater exposure to knowing what a good hole-in-the-wall taquiera looks like, and this one had enough of the hallmarks to suggest it. So we ate there. And it was delicious. When I was in a different neighborhood than my usual one and needed a food, the person who lived in the same neighborhood for far longer made suggestions. (Turned out I couldn't indulge because they were cash-only and I didn't have the cash on hand.) When I went out to PLA the year it snowed in Philly and everyone who wasn't from a place that regularly experienced snow went "AaaaaAAAAAaaaAAAAaaa!", I asked the hotel front desk about a good nearby spot and got a recommendation. It was okay, but it definitely would not have been a place that I would have selected or known was there on my own. The convention center, however, was really close to a market with all sorts of food stalls and places, and oh, boy, did I never have a bad lunch there! I had more trouble choosing a place than enjoying what was there, and it was all good stuff. A different metropolitan area that I've been to has a full city block of food trucks to choose from on certain days and so when going for a conference there, there were all sorts of things to try, or to swipe a small bit off someone else's decision to try something and to know whether it was any good. I'm often thrilled to have people introduce me to their favorite eateries, and I try to be good about eating and enjoying food that's been cooked at home, too. (I might still be overreacting to being called a picky eater by the mother of a childhood friend, but also, experience has borne out that being willing to at least try a thing often means that you get to experience some really good stuff. And, occasionally, you learn how to say "No, thank you" after having had enough to form a reasonable opinion about it.)
So, if I end up needing a meal in your region, I'd really like it if you could tell me to go somewhere that the locals enjoy, or, if we're in a place where it can be done and you want to, cooking something that you enjoy would be good. (It'll be a while before that can happen, regrettably, but I look forward to it all the same.)
no subject
Date: 2020-12-10 07:28 pm (UTC)ANYWAY, it was not easy to find German food in Berlin! We had Italian (strange flavor profiles!), Spanish, Asian, steak/burger. Turns out that in Germany, German food is what you eat at home! The place to find German food restaurants is at beer gardens, and in our limited wanderings, we didn't stumble upon any. And not being major beer drinkers, we might not have given them much thought.
When we came back from our cruise, we were put up in a Hilton for the night. Behind it was a Heineken(?) beer garden at which several of our friends from the cruise were going, and they had good German food! Brats, wursts, etc. It was a wonderful way to end the cruise. We spent a few more days in Berlin before flying home and had lots more good food. Turns out Yelp is also good for finding places in Berlin and Dresden!
no subject
Date: 2020-12-10 07:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-10 08:27 pm (UTC)I'm sure there's a huge variety of "German" food, just like there's no one type of "American" food. So a lot of what we ate could technically be called German food because we were eating it in Germany, it's just representative of the globalization of food. Had we gone to Germany 30 years ago, the food would have been quite different because we wouldn't have had the globalization effect. Even if we'd gone 15 years ago when we'd first married it might have been quite different.
The beer gardens are stereotyped for their food types, and they embrace it with brats, schnitzels, curriewursts, things like that. And they do them quite well. Plus good beers. And the ship we were on for our river cruise frequently did German meals.
My wife has friends in Chicago who somewhat regularly go to Germany, and they said we have to try a type of beer called Radler. It's a wheat beer that a German inn owner invented. He had a pub in a forest when literally the entire French cycling team descended on him (so the story goes). They were drinking him dry and he was in danger of running out of beer when he started mixing the beer with lemon soda and calling it Radler, the Brits call it Shandy or Shanty. It's also known as Alsterwasser. Anyway, as I said, my wife and I are not really beer drinkers but we love this stuff when it's done well! I remember getting one at Saxon Switzerland (fantastic granite mountain formations!) where the vendor just mixed beer with Sprite - it sucked bigly!
Trader Joe's carries a Josephsbrau Radler in the spring/summer that I highly recommend. I have six bottles left, I'm going to have to make sure to stock more, now that I know it's a seasonal. I drink a bottle every month or two, so my stock on hand should get me through to the point that it's available again.