When I was about 5 or so, I used to go to my grandmother’s house during the day while my Mother went to work. I remember catching the bus and sleeping across my Mom’s lap until we got there, and then her hugging me and heading off to do whatever it was she did all day. (I was five. Clearly, I had no idea.)

Grandma was cool, but there was always a bajillion people at her house. She lived in the projects*, and spent a big portion of her day being “Mama”to everyone even though she was well into her 50s.

I remember, as a kid, how the big thing was for us to run across the street to the convenient store and get a Big Red pop and a bag of chips. All for $0.50. I mean, it was how we spent every afternoon. Because Grandma’s house was full of people, it was never hard for me to get a hold of two quarters – ahhh, two shiny, glorious quarters – so that I could be like the rest of the kids and sit in the middle of the grass and eat my funyuns or my munchos and my Big Red pop.

(I’m from the Midwest. We say pop, thank you very much.)

It wasn’t that I was Grandma’s favorite, but…. well, I was Grandma’s favorite. She invested a lot of time and effort into me. She taught me to read – she’d hand me the newspaper and make me read every page out loud – and she taught me how to be a little lady. She taught me how to love, as a young girl, because outside of that typical adoration that a young girl has for her mother, you learn that that thing that binds you to Grandma emotionally and you understand it even more so once she’s gone. That made her valuable.

However, I must admit. If there’s one thing I don’t remember, it’s going to a grocery store with Grandma. We just.. we never went together. At least, we didn’t go to a grocery store as I know a grocery store to be today. The only store I ever saw her go to was the convenient store across the street.

And now that I think about it, there’s a lot of things I don’t remember about that time with Grandma.

I don’t remember a lot of cooking going on. I don’t even know that I remember any fresh vegetables there. I mean, I remember my Great Grandma – my Grandma’s mother – having that gorgeous garden in her fenced-off backyard, but Grandma didn’t have that kind of backyard. The soil didn’t even have grass on it. It was just hard dirt. I know. I fell on it and scraped myself up a few times.

I guess that’s to be expected. It’s not like it was quality, “prime” real estate or anything. It’s not even like anyone cares to maintain the area. I guess.

I remember running to one particular house in the building in the back of the projects where the free lunch was given out. Bologna, milk, cheese, bread, and little mustard packets to dress the makeshift sandwiches. All the kids used to make a mad dash back there because they were always limited in how much they had and how many kids would be able to sit in there, and if you were last, you went hungry.

As a different woman today, I can acknowledge that that housing project community was a food desert. That even though Grandma was doing all she could to make sure I never went hungry, there was rarely a vegetable on the plate. Even though she meant very well and did the best that she could, I know I picked up a lot of bad habits from that time in my life.

In fact, it sounds a lot like this paragraph from the NYTimes blog:

Poor urban neighborhoods in America are often food deserts — places where it is difficult to find fresh food.   There are few grocery stores; people may do all their shopping at bodegas, where the only available produce and meat are canned peaches and Spam.  If they want fruits and vegetables and chicken and fish, they have to take a bus to a grocery store.   The lack of fresh food creates a vicious cycle; children grow up never seeing it or acquiring a taste for it.  It is one reason that the poor are likelier to be obese than the rich. [source]

When I hear people complain about the cost of fresh food and use this as an excuse to not eat it, it makes me think about those projects where so many people who were, actually, given money by the government to eat couldn’t even access the healthy food. My Grandma, while she might’ve been able to catch a bus to hit the grocery store, might’ve had difficulty doing this since she was the family babysitter. Her, four kids (one of them facing a mental disability), and countless bags with enough food to feed the numerous people that’d be in and out of her house to eat? On the bus? You’re joking, right?

Back to the point. All that food stamp money in the projects, and no fresh food in the area to spend it on.

Whenever we talk about problems with our food system, we often talk about access… and yeah, we might toss around the phrase “food desert,” but is that ever quantified? Are the ramifications of growing up in a food desert ever discussed? Do places like the Morris Brown projects ever come up for discussion? Or are they never mentioned because it’s assumed they don’t matter?

A while back, I wrote the following:

I can specifically remember a time when I lived in a food desert, and the only food store nearby was a gas station. My daughter was on formula at the time, and I used to purchase that in bulk and have that shipped. For myself, though, it was whatever I could get at the store. A bag of chips for breakfast, a bag of chips for lunch, a bowl of ice cream for dinner. If I wanted to go to the grocery, I had to either beg one of my girls to take me or call a taxi. I eventually called the taxi and cut back on groceries so that I could afford the ride, but… it was a lonnng time before I came to that realization.

It made perfect sense, though, that the grocery stores would be on the other side of town from me. The area where I lived was wholly college students living on that good ol’ beer and pizza diet… as evidenced by the abundance of pizza joints, sub shops and drive-thru liquor stores. The stores that a young Mom like me needed… were at least two miles away. With no car, that was quite the struggle.

But if you think about it, isn’t that how Capitalism works? When there is a demand, the promise of profit guarantees that there will always be someone willing and able to jump in and fulfill that need, right? In my neighborhood, there was a high demand for pizza joints and liquor stores. That’s what the college kids wanted. I was the random weird outlier with an infant in a college apartment complex.

Excerpted from The Myth of The Food Desert: Where The Root Went Wrong | A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss

The reason that food deserts exist is because it is assumed that the people in those geographic locations cannot afford the products that a fresh food-selling store would provide. This is also an automatic assumption of the projects, because the implication is “if these people had any money, they wouldn’t be living in the projects after all.”

That’s just how Capitalism works. Big C. Supply goes where the demand is located. If there’s no money, then clearly there’s no demand off which the investor can profit.

My question, really, is what do we gain from denying the realities of food deserts? How do we benefit from silencing the voices of the un-privileged? If we can identify that fresh food is expensive, why wouldn’t we want to hear from the people most affected by that? If we deny the fact that food deserts exist, you silence the input of those of us who have been affected by this problem the most. Those of us who have been on government assistance and live in still-impoverished areas offer up the critique of the system that says that the government is giving away money to be spent on the very things making us ill and preventing us from healing ourselves.

We also shoot ourselves in our collective feet when we decide to downplay food deserts because it prevents us from ever finding a solution to the problem. What about offering incentives to investors – franchise, corporate and otherwise – who build in food deserts? Why can’t we do that? Why not offer incentives up the chain – tax incentives for security measures (since a lot of these places fear theft and property damage), incentives for the space of the store dedicated solely to fresh produce? We can’t do that because we’re too busy debating their existence. Y’all know I have a problem with that.

So, it saddens me to know that the big politicians that I vote for to get the big checks are not offering up the answers that we need to solve this problem in particular, especially since they’re never walking through (or helicoptering through, even) the projects (or a trailer park, or a low-income community in general) to see what struggles people like this face. Realistically speaking, they’re facing the same struggles that “middle-class” Americans are facing. Middle-class America , for the most part, just knows how to hide it better. If anything would’ve taught us that, it would be the up-spring of foreclosure signs in our very nice, quaint neighborhoods.

Photo/Image Credits: Caitlin Quade, Tulane University; Slow Food USA

When asked to name the heroes of food reform and sustainable agriculture, who comes to mind? Michael Pollan, Joel Salatin, Eric Schlosser, Peter Singer, Alice Waters maybe? Notice any patterns? The food reform movement is predicated on rather shaky foundations with regards to how it deals with race and other issues of identity, with its focus on a largely white and privileged American dream.

Still, what could be better than a return to family farms and home-cooking, which many of these gurus champion? The images are powerfully nostalgic and idyllic: cows grazing on sweet alfalfa, kids’ mouths stained red with fresh heirloom tomato juice, and mom in the kitchen rolling out dough for homegrown-apple pie. But this is not an equal-access trip down memory lane. While we would like to think the American dream of social communion around food is a universal one, this assumption glosses over the very real differentials in gender, class, race, ethnicity, and nationality that were enabled and exacerbated by specific communities (white plantation owners, for example) through the use of food.

This is not to say that activists in the sustainable food movement are unconcerned with issues of identity, but that their rhetoric tends to disallow discussions on race, history, and food in a number of ways. First, Pollan and others situate the current state of American consumption in a patriarchal paradigm. These writers speak about a disappearance of food culture that for the most part accompanies male privilege. For example, Pollan, in an article for the New York Times on cooking and entertainment aptly titled “Out of the Kitchens, Onto the Couch,” explores the relationship between second-wave feminism and the gender politics of cooking. He argues that Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique convinced women to regard their housework, specifically cooking, as drudgery. Friedan did not, in fact, construct this sentiment herself; she merely observed the existent trends in white women’s attitudes about food and housewifery. Pollan goes on to describe how Julia Child inspired his mother and other women like her, empowering them to channel their creativity into the kitchen. This is apt praise for the lively and engaging cook, but can Pollan not drive home the point that Americans need to cook more often without guilting American feminists?

Second, the emphasis on the local food economy, though admirable, has certain anti-global and overly nationalist undertones. Let us take the example of Joel Salatin, owner of Polyface Farms, featured in many of Pollan’s books, as well as the movies Food Inc. and Fresh!. Salatin is an ex-lawyer, of considerable means, who moves to the countryside, establishes a dynamic, organic, solar-powered farm, and sells top-quality animal products at top-quality dollar. If the nation is truly to scale up sustainable foods, we cannot fixate on the early image of the American farmer as white, male, and conservative. Instead, we must acknowledge (as USDA statistics tell us) that the face of farming is changing, and women and people of color will continue to grow in number as stewards of sustainable agriculture. Furthermore, we need to consider the real impact of foods we purchase, rather than mindlessly buying produce labeled “local” and “organic.” The United States supports a lot of global agriculture through its food purchases, and this is a relationship we should not break off entirely. True, we can do more to support efficient, environmentally friendly purchasing, but we should also not be too hasty to reject globalization.

Finally, the major voices in food are not talking about race and class as often as they should. Food justice is fundamentally a race and class issue. Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation elucidates labor practices that disproportionately affect people of color, but does not engage the issue of race specifically. Partly, this stagnancy is a matter of perception: after all, activists of color like Bryant Terry and Winona La Duke do brilliant work in their communities with regards to food justice. For some reason, however, their work goes largely underappreciated.

All social movements need a variety of voices, but I argue that food reform requires this diversity even more urgently because it is so universal in its reach. And if we can reach all those voices, then think of all the activists we will have as allies—feminists, anti-racists, interfaith leaders, and so on—interested and involved because food justice speaks to the needs of their communities and their call for action (activists: this is on you too—get on board!). As consumers of this kind of liberal rhetoric, we need to demand that the powers and big hitters in the food world diversify their representations. The food movement can only grow more powerful for it.

It seems like some people are constantly wringing their hands about how poor people eat (to wit: badly.) And the most popularly proposed solution is to teach them (“them”) more about nutrition! Or educate them in general.

Because obviously they just don’t know what they’re doing. And that’s why they eat so badly, and hence, why their health tends to be poorer!

And eureka! — you have a tidy solution that not only absolves financial and economic guilt, but, as a bonus, allows richer, more-edumacated people to assume the role of benevolent experts.

Here comes the part where I bust up that nice, warm bubble bath.

The reality is that people who don’t have enough money (or the utilities and storage) to buy and prepare decent food in decent quantities, cannot (and should not) be arsed to worry about the finer nuances of nutrition.

Because getting enough to eat is always our first priority.

That’s why Ellyn Satter (yes, her again) created the Hierarchy of Food Needs. Which looks like this:

The idea is that, before we worry about nutrition (i.e., “instrumental food”) we’ve first got to HAVE food. Enough of it. Consistently. And it’s got to be acceptable to us (which, for some people, might mean not coming from the garbage, or meeting certain standards of preparation) and it’s got to taste reasonably good. A little variety is nice, too.

—Excerpted from “If only poor people understood nutrition!,” at The Fat Nutiritionist

News came today that Condé Nast–publisher of The New Yorker, Vogue, and Wired among other notable magazine titles–is closing Gourmet magazine.  The powerhouse title has been published since 1940 and is a veritable icon in food magazine publishing.

The loss will affect more than just the legions of foodies who won’t be able to read about the latest in cuisine and cocktail.  Over the years, Gourmet had also established itself as a regular and oftentimes leading voice in the realm of food politics.  Take a look at just some of the stories they have run in the recent past.   From the failures of federal regulations, to outright labor abuses and the rise of de facto slavery, Gourmet’s “Politics of the Plate” section has given dynamic and in-depth coverage of issues rarely covered at all in the so-called “mainstream” media.  To these important issues of human rights, global environmental sustainability,  and health, they have lent their journalistic integrity and commitment to social justice, creating something that was consistently readable, important, and ethical in its role as advocate for something better.

I, for one, will miss it.

Up until last fall, I lived in Bed-Stuy, and the only supermarket near me was so far away that I would just do my food-shopping on the way back from my gym — which happens to be in a completely different neighborhood.  The bodegas on either end of the block where I lived only sold white bread; fresh fruit and vegetables were completely out of the question. Fast food restaurants abounded. After 10 p.m., you had to stand outside the bodega and tell the store employee what you wanted through bullet-proof glass; they handed you your goods via a rotating carousel. If you were hungry at that hour — and I usually was, since I work evenings — there was no place to get food, except Papa John’s. (Ugh.)

Then my lease ran out and I stumbled into an apartment for slightly less than I was paying — in Park Slope, that notorious bastion of upper middle class liberalism and helicopter parenting. My mind was blown. It’s just two miles away, but the demographic chasms are ginormous. This is the whitest, most affluent place I’ve ever lived, and the nutritional options border on the cartoonish. There are supermarkets two blocks in every direction, a surfeit of top-shelf restaurants, the famous Food Co-Op, and the 24-hour bodega on the corner sells fresh herbs and organic kale. As dope this is for me now, I had to move to a completely different neighborhood in order to have regular access to fat-free milk.

The larger public health implications of these kinds of disparities  are obvious. The lack of access to a decent-sized supermarket is a growing problem here in the city, though it’s worse in other places:  there are just four chain supermarkets in all of Newark, New Jersey’s largest city; Detroit, a city with a population of just under a million, doesn’t have any.

When we talk about obesity and the way it correlates is poverty, we spend most of our time talking about pushing low-income consumers into making healthier choices and probably not enough time discussing how we can get food retailers to sell healthy food them in the first place.

Suffice it to say, I’m a big fan of this idea by Mayor Bloomberg.

The Bloomberg administration, in its ever-expanding campaign to make New Yorkers eat better, has already clamped down on trans fats, deployed fruit vendors to produce-poor neighborhoods and prodded corner bodegas to sell leafy green vegetables and low-fat milk.

Now, in a city known more for hot dogs and egg creams than the apple of its nickname, officials want to establish an even bigger beachhead for healthy food — new supermarkets in areas where fresh produce is scarce and where poverty, obesity and diabetes run high.

Under a proposal the City Planning Commission unanimously approved on Wednesday, the city would offer zoning and tax incentives to spur the development of full-service grocery stores that devote a certain amount of space to fresh produce, meats, dairy and other perishables.

The plan — which has broad support among food policy experts, supermarket executives and City Council members, whose approval is needed — would permit developers to construct larger buildings than existing zoning would ordinarily allow, and give tax abatements and exemptions for approved stores in large swaths of northern Manhattan, central Brooklyn and the South Bronx, as well as downtown Jamaica in Queens.

This is just one of the myriad (market-based!) ways that government can improve food options for the poor. A food program in Detroit is trying to set up a system where buyers using food stamps can spend twice as much on food if they purchase it from one of urban farms sprouting up throughout that depopulated city. And the White House is trying to make it easier for people to use food stamps at farmer’s markets. Even  junk food taxes could help, but we can’t just make unhealthy food purchases more onerous. We also have to make good, healthy food much, much more convenient.

(Image via Wikimedia Commons)

The New York Times ran a story last week on the now-famous Kogi truck, Los Angeles’ meal-on-wheels sensation: For a New Generation, Kimchi Goes With Tacos. The superdelicious mobile Korean fusion variation on the Mexican taco truck has been attracting Twitter-powered lines of eager eaters all around the city.

The article is interesting because it’s not just about Kogi, but the recent surge of second-generation Korean Angelenos who have played their own variations on traditional cuisines and taken it far beond the boundaries of Korean-dominated neighborhoods.

In addition to chef Roy Choi of Kogi, they talk to the people behind restaurants like Gyenari, gastropub Father’s Office (which offers what is possibly the best burger in Los Angeles), and popular ice creamery Scoops — all run by Korean Americans.

It’s a very interesting look at the changing culinary scene in L.A. What other city would dream up kimchi sesame quesadillas and bulgogi tacos? Now I’m hungry.

(Photo Credit (and additional review) over at My Modern Metropolis)

The un-anointed are always surprised at how good Filipino food is, offering well-meaning but condescending compliments I’ve long learned to accept with a smile and a lighthearted “I told you so.” Probably has a lot to do with that old stereotype that we Filipinos love dogs. For dinner. I once had a friend (a white guy, if you wondering) over for dinner in 6th grade. As my pops handed him a plate, he paused and stared at the rice and chicken adobo and asked “what is this, dog?” before he excused himself from the table. We stopped being friends shortly after.

Somehow, suddenly, we’ve become the flavor of the month. Filipino chefs have been making noise on the last couple Top Chef seasons (Dale was fucking robbed!). Still can’t forget George W.’s backhanded compliment about his personal Filipino chefs during dictator Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s last US visit. And now, with the Travel Channel’s Anthony Bourdain finally taking his No Reservations food/travelogue show to the Philippines, our sweet, salty and sour secret is out.

Though I only catch it when it happens to be on, I’m a fan of Bourdain’s show. Yes — there’s a tourist, exoticizing element to it, but you can’t front on Bourdain’s presence and palate. And when he says that our lechon is the “best-cooked pig in the world,” it almost makes me want to eat pork again.

Of course, an hour isn’t enough but the representation is respectable: Tapsilog in the opening breakfast scene, followed by street vendor foods (Chicken balls, Tofu w/ Tapioca Syrup), Pancit Palabok (”Not the greatest thing ever, but good” – and I agree), before moving onto provincial dishes such as Sinigang. Kalamansi rightfully gets its own quick feature. And when sisig makes a cameo (and is pronounced correctly) it becomes official that this episode is a pretty big deal. A redemption of that borderline-racist episode of Bizarre Foods that featured Filipinos eating bugs like it’s our national dish.

Funny though, how our history of forced colonization and foreign domination gets reduced to “influences” as if we’re just willingly eclectic like that. American cultural influence and military presence is highlighted for a brief segment, but somehow leaves out the biggest part of the story: The Philippine-American War. It’s true that our national cuisine has incorporated many others, but I’d much rather this story be presented truthfully than liberally. That we, resilient and crafty people that we are, make masterpieces from scraps (on that Jeepney shit) – you can force your shit on us but trust that we’ll flip it (uh, no pun) and make it our own.

In defense of my squarish, bowl-cutted compatriot Augusto (who hosted Bourdain’s provincial excursion), although he wasn’t our most cultured representation, he’s also a reality for many of us. Hearing him fumble a response to Bourdain’s question “Who are the Filipinos?” was excruciating to watch. “I’m not fully Filipino, but not fully American” he says, lamenting his assimilation as a New Yorker trying to “find his roots.” Which is cool, but dude, you’ve never had lechon in your life? Really? Having your culture explained back to you by an outsider is not the business, but I guess if it’s gonna be anyone, it might as well be Anthony Bourdain.

Not that we need the validation, but it’s refreshing to know that we’re at least getting the respect we deserve. Perhaps folks will patronize our restaurants enough to keep em open for more than a year. Shit, perhaps some of you Americanized-palate ass Filipinos will recognize the real and learn to eat that ampalaya without that bitterface.

And maybe, just maybe, my kids wont be mockingly called dogeaters.

The tomato comes from Peru and spaghetti was probably a gift from China.

It is, though, the “foreign” kebab that is being kicked out of Italian cities as it becomes the target of a campaign against ethnic food, backed by the centre-right Government of Silvio Berlusconi.

The drive to make Italians eat Italian, which was described by the Left and leading chefs as gastronomic racism, began in the town of Lucca this week, where the council banned any new ethnic food outlets from opening within the ancient city walls.

Yesterday it spread to Lombardy and its regional capital, Milan, which is also run by the centre Right. The antiimmigrant Northern League party brought in the restrictions “to protect local specialities from the growing popularity of ethnic cuisines”.

Luca Zaia, the Minister of Agriculture and a member of the Northern League from the Veneto region, applauded the authorities in Lucca and Milan for cracking down on nonItalian food. “We stand for tradition and the safeguarding of our culture,” he said.

Mr Zaia said that those ethnic restaurants allowed to operate “whether they serve kebabs, sushi or Chinese food” should “stop importing container loads of meat and fish from who knows where” and use only Italian ingredients.

Asked if he had ever eaten a kebab, Mr Zaia said: “No – and I defy anyone to prove the contrary. I prefer the dishes of my native Veneto. I even refuse to eat pineapple.”

—Richard Owen in his article “Italy Bans Kebabs and Foreign Foods from Cities” writing for The Times Online

Finally, somebody summarized the myths that non-Chinese Americans have about Chinese food. Most of what White Americans consider “Chinese food” is mostly eaten by white people, and would be more accurately described as “American food” (and perhaps even “white people food”).

Jennifer 8. Lee has a great video on TED Talks titled, Who was General Tso? and other mysteries of American Chinese food.

Here are some important points from the video:

• General Tso’s chicken is unrecognizable to people in China. It is the quintessential American dish, because it is sweet, it is fried, and it is chicken.
• Beef with broccoli is of American origin. Broccoli is not a Chinese vegetable; it is of Italian origin.
• Chop suey was introduced at the turn of the 20th century (1900). It took thirty years for non-Chinese Americans to figure out that chop suey is not known in China. “Back then”, non-Chinese Americans showed that they were sophisticated and cosmopolitan by eating chop suey.
• “Chinese” take-out containers are American.
• There is Chinese French food (salt-and-pepper frog legs), Chinese Italian food (fried gelato), Chinese British food (crispy shredded beef), Chinese West Indian food, Chinese Jamaican food, Chinese Middle Eastern food, Chinese Indian food, Chinese Korean food, Chinese Japanese food, Chinese Peruvian food, Chinese Mexican food (which look like fajitas), Chinese Brazilian food, etc.
• If McDonald’s is Microsoft, then Chinese food is Linux.

These myths that most White Americans have about “Chinese food” are not trivial. Generally, false assumptions beget false conclusions and distorted worldviews. When most White Americans believe that American foods like chop suey, General Tso’s chicken, and fortune cookies are “foreign” and “Chinese”, some effects include:

• Most White Americans think that there is no such thing as “American food”, and that Americans are cosmopolitan and worldly, because they are exposed to foreign foods. For many White Americans, an example of “foreign food” is chop suey. This is ironic, because it actually reveals American insularity.
• When White Americans think of “Chinese culture” (and assume that all Chinese Americans have retained their ancestral culture), most White Americans think of “Chinese” American food like chop suey, General Tso’s chicken, and fortune cookies. However, chop suey, General Tso’s chicken, and fortune cookies are actually examples of how Chinese culture has been lost and replaced by commercialism.
• Many White Americans think that they are knowledgeable about Chinese culture (and not racist) because they eat at “Chinese” restaurants and order dishes like General Tso’s chicken. What many White Americans think as racial knowledge is actually racial ignorance.
• In American movies and TV, Chinese identity is often represented by chop suey. For example, in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Flower Drum Song (1961), which is arguably the only major Hollywood film with a predominantly Asian American cast as protagonists, the Asian American actors sang a celebratory song called “Chop Suey”. According to Arthur Dong, “Songs like ‘Chop Suey’ became an embarrassment for politicized Asian Americans. It didn’t matter that Flower Drum Song was based on a book written by a Chinese American; it was, in the end, a white man’s concoction.”
• In American movies and TV, Chinese culture is often represented by fortune cookies. Sometimes non-Chinese Americans infer from the nonsensical messages in fortune cookies that Chinese thinking is nonsensical, mystical, and inscrutable. (That’s racist!) However, fortune cookie messages are manufactured in the United States for commercial purposes, to entertain mostly non-Chinese recipients. The messages are not ancient Chinese proverbs.
• It is not uncommon for a White American to meet a Chinese American for the first time, and attempt to “relate” with her by informing her that he loves chop suey. This is offensive for multiple reasons. White Americans think of Chinese people as a stereotype (”Chinese” food), the stereotype is based on White American experiences rather than Chinese American experiences, the stereotype is not even accurate, the White American thinks that the Chinese person identifies with the racial stereotype, the White American thinks that Chinese ethnicity is represented by an American racial stereotype, etc.
• LFO had a song called “Summer Girls” with a chorus that includes the lines, “New Kids On The Block had a bunch of hits. Chinese food makes me sick.” Many White Americans conclude that they “don’t like Chinese food” after eating one type of dish, and that dish probably did not originate in China. Whatever negative associations that White Americans have about Chinese food should actually be blamed on American culture (and American preferences for deep-fried food), not foreign Chinese culture.
• Some White Americans use “Chinese food” as an example of Chinese people being unassimilable and not adapting to American culture. (Some White Americans even believe that the popularity of “Chinese food” in the United States shows how Americans accommodate and embrace minority cultures.) The reality is that “Chinese” American food is an example of how Chinese immigrants bend over backwards to create dishes customized for White American tastes.

Jennifer 8. Lee’s Italian friend was surprised to learn that fried gelato did not originate in China, and remarked, “It’s not? But they serve it at all the Chinese restaurants in Italy!” This incident illustrates the limitations of anecdotal experience as a source of knowledge. Even if the sample size is very large, anecdotal experience does not take into account selection bias. In this case, a biased sample lead to false conclusions about an ethnic minority group’s “culture”.

This incident also reveals that when the national culture is so pervasive, the cultural aspect of a practice that comes from the national culture is invisible to the ethnic majority. For example, White Italians do not see the Italian influence of fried gelato, only the perceived Chinese aspect of it. To Americans, however, the Italian influence of fried gelato is apparent, while fried gelato’s Chinese influence is not.

Similarly, Americans generally do not see the American influence of General Tso’s Chicken, only the perceived Chinese aspect of it. To non-Americans and observant Americans, however, the American influence of General Tso’s chicken is apparent, since it is sweet, (deep-) fried, and chicken. The dish known in the United States as “General Tso’s Chicken” is 100% American.

Perhaps the dish is also 1% Chinese, since the dish’s name was transliterated into English from the name of a Chinese person, and the people who serve it tend to be Chinese Americans.

However, fond memories of eating General Tso’s Chicken is a culture that is shared among more White Americans than Chinese Americans.

I read a while ago on someone’s blog that Food Network was one of the whitest cable stations and after a week of watching I have to agree it’s pretty bad. Most of the major celebrity chefs are white. Other than the new host of a show that features Latin food, it’s all white hosts. What happened to Martin Yan from Yan Can Cook and his heavily accented, chop-schtick antics? Even Al Roker went missing. It seemed like it was show after show of white men and women cooking their fusion-style, All-American dishes.

All week, Food Network showed clips of it’s upcoming show, Down Home with the Neely’s. Now, I’d heard the Neely name mentioned in at least three different shows, because they are a big name in BBQ. So yesterday morning the premiere episode came on, and I’m watching it. Part of me was skeptical right away, because this show seemed to be straight out of a program developer’s notebook on “Southern Black Family 101.” They showcased BBQ ribs, slaw, strawberry salad. Everything looked great, the food, the personalities of the Neelys seemed genuine, all good. Why am I crabbing?

I just hope that this isn’t going to be the sum total of what Food Network thinks is “Black” food. Just like “Asian” food is much more than Tyler Florence showing up at a family’s house to show them how to cook Korean food as he did in one episode of Food 911. So glad for Lisa that Tyler was there to show her how to make authentic Korean-style BBQ! Whew, poor Lisa would have been so screwed if Tyler wasn’t there to show her how to be more authentic Korean!!

And what made me wince in pain more than my stitches was when Pat Neely, in a little bit just before commercial break, announces that February is Black History Month.

Woah, Food Network, you sure fooled me. Really – February is Black History Month? What an ingenious time to introduce your one and only show featuring an African American family who actually COOKS! I’m just saying, it’s time to give that program assistant a huge gigantic raise!

(I have to say, HGTV, for some of your schmaltzy shows, you do a far better job of featuring hosts of all diversities, both as designers and in real-life families. And without the stereotypic “ethnic” design segregation. What a relief that your African American designers are not limited to only featuring African masks and animal prints in their designs, or that Vern Yip isn’t forced to place bamboo in every re-design. That they actually get to design what they want is refreshing).

Yes, it seems Food Network is very behind the times here. All the white cooks can do all kinds of different ethnic foods. Ingrid Hoffman only gets to cook Latin-inspired dishes since she’s Latina. And since Giada and Mario identify with their Italian heritages so they must cook everything Italian. Guess the philosophy of Food Network is if you want the freedom to cook whatever you want and cross those ethnic boundaries, don’t let it be known what your racial or ethnic heritage is – or you’ll be forever segregated into a cooking ghetto.

On the plus side, I have a whole load of new recipes I can’t wait to try!

Colorlines Magazine
November/December 2007 Issue
www.colorlines.com

This entire issue of Colorlines is worth a full, thorough read, but here are a few of the articles that caught my eye:

Wasting Away in Margaritaville (p. 10)

Exploring the construction of mega-casino, Margaritaville (a $700 million dollar joint venture between Harrah Casino and Jimmy Buffet), the article points out how the people living and working in East Biloxi have been shut out of the city planning dialogue.

Q & A: Etan Thomas (p. 16)

A refreshing peek into the mind of an athlete who embraces speaking out about social and political political issues.

Inner Peace (p. 48)

Article Tagline: “As more Americans take to the mat, Black teachers use yoga to uplift their community.”

Bomb Magazine
Winter 2008 Issue
www.bombsite.com

This entire issue focuses on discussing the contemporary art scene in Brazil. Not to be missed: Adelia Prado’s poems “Opus Dei” and “The Dictator in Prison”; the excerpt from the new novel Jonas, by Patricia Melo; the interview with Bernardo Carvalho, in which he says “There is nothing further from posing than art. On the contrary, literature is the affirmation of truth.”

Glamour Magazine
January 2008 Issue
www.glamour.com

3 Condi Surprises (p. 29)

Condoleeza Rice wants to run for Governor of California, and may possibly run for Vice President in the future. I have no words.

.

GQ
December 2007 Issue
www.GQ.com

Nine Minutes at Virginia Tech (p. 254)

A moving interview with Derek O’Dell, one of the few students that was wounded in the attack but managed to survive.

Give This Man a Pulitzer (p. 260)

A profile of Josh Marshall, the main man behind Talking Points Memo. The article also includes an interesting take on the downfall of mainstream media and the new rise of blogosphere based investigative journalism.

Year of the Pig (p .272)

Next time I head to New York, I know exactly where I am going to eat – the Momofuku Ssam Bar. GQ provides a vivid and hilarious profile of chef David Chang, maverick chef and culinary innovator.

Details Magazine
November 2007
www.details.com

I am so done with Details. And yet, even though I terminated my subscription last year, I still skim it on the newsstand. Why? Articles like this one:

This Man Doesn’t Want Your Sympathy (p. 106)

Tagline: “Ten Years and a $9 million settlement haven’t bought Abner Louima peace.” Excellent follow up piece, with a lot of wry commentary from Louima. A sample quote, in reference to how people react when they see he is living comfortably in Floridia: “People are disappointed because they expected me, as a black man, to be stupid,” he said, “to get all this money and blow it in two years like I won the lottery.” Also, excellent racial commentary.

The Atlantic Monthly
December 2007
www.theatlantic.com

Goodbye to All That (p. 40)

From the article:

Obama’s candidacy in this sense is a potentially transformational one. Unlike any of the other candidates, he could take America – finally – past the debilitating, self-perpetuating family quarrel of the Baby Boom generation that has long engulfed all of us. So much has happened in American in the past seven years, let alone the past 40, that we can be forgiven for focusing on the present and the immediate future. But it is only when you take several large steps back into the long past that the full logic of an Obama presidency stares directly – and uncomfortably – at you.

At its best, the Obama candidacy is about ending a war – not so much the war in Iraq, which now has a momentum that will propel the occupation into the next decade – but the war within America that has prevailed since Vietnam and that shows dangerous signs of intensifying, a nonviolent civil war that has crippled America at the very time the world needs it most. It is a war about war – and about culture and about religion and about race. And in that war, Obama – and Obama alone – offers the possibility of a truce.

Teacher and Apprentice (p.56)

Article Tagline: “Hillary Clinton tried to teach Barack Obama about power, but then he got ideas of his own. A story of nasty surprises, dueling war rooms, and the Drudge Report.”

Scents and Sensibility (p. 80)

Article tagline: “How the author helped Afghans build a thriving soap and body-oil business – and overcame the imcompetence of America’s aid establishment.” A must read, particularly for those of us who wonder where all this money we are spending on rebuilding and redevelopment is going.

The first time I ever heard of a fortune cookie was when I read Fifteen by Beverly Cleary. I was 8, and at the time was attending an American school in Shanghai. There’s a part of the book where the protagonist goes on a date in Chinatown, and I was fascinated. Chinatown sounded awesome: like a Disney version of the very un-glamorous reality of living in mainland China in the mid-80s. And what on earth where these “fortune cookies” they spoke of?

(Later in life I would become equally fascinated by another supposedly Chinese thing: those cardboard Chinese food takeout boxes I would see on American sitcoms playing on Hong Kong TV. Hong Kong was thoroughly wed to styrofoam, so cardboard seemed oddly barabaric to me.)

So if fortune cookies aren’t Chinese, where did they come from? According to the New York Times, one researcher believes they’re actually from – wait for it – Japan!

Her prime pieces of evidence are the centuries-old small family bakeries making obscure fortune cookie-shaped crackers by hand near a temple outside Kyoto. She has also turned up many references to the cookies in Japanese literature and history, including an 1878 etching of a man making them in a bakery – decades before the first reports of American fortune cookies.

The idea that fortune cookies come from Japan is counterintuitive, to say the least. “I am surprised,” said Derrick Wong, the vice president of the largest fortune cookie manufacturer in the world, Wonton Food, based in Brooklyn. “People see it and think of it as a Chinese food dessert, not a Japanese food dessert,” he said. But, he conceded, “The weakest part of the Chinese menu is dessert.”

Amen to that. Red bean soup? Bleah!

Early on, Chinese-owned restaurants discovered the cookies, too. Ms. Nakamachi speculates that Chinese-owned manufacturers began to take over fortune cookie production during World War II, when Japanese bakeries all over the West Coast closed as Japanese-Americans were rounded up and sent to internment camps.

Mr. Wong pointed out: “The Japanese may have invented the fortune cookie. But the Chinese people really explored the potential of the fortune cookie. It’s Chinese-American culture. It only happens here, not in China.”

The New York Times licks its typing finger and reels off Yet Another Curry Review, because after all these years, it’s so original. Even lamer, the movie is about a 2nd genner. You can take India out of Shelley Conn, but Shelley can’t take herself out of India — the Times won’t let her:

A cloying blend of Bollywood sentiment and Amélie whimsy, Nina’s Heavenly Delights is a lesbian-foodie fairy tale… the director, Pratibha Parmar, is more interested in pappadams than passion… Fetch the turmeric! … groans beneath ethnic stereotypes and half-baked performances. Blander than a cumin-free curry… cringeworthy dance routines (courtesy of a flamboyant troupe known as the Chutney Queens)… [Link]

One can only imagine how the Times reviewed Alfonso Cuarón:

A cloying blend of mariachi music and lucha libre whimsy, Y Tu Mamá También is more interested in tacos than pasión. Fetch the cayenne pepper! Acting worse than a two-dollar chimichanga and blander than a chili-free burrito.

Oh, it didn’t? Not even a whiff of exoticism?

… one of those Bildungsroman films… The director, Alfonso Cuarón, works with a quicksilver fluidity, and the movie is fast, funny, unafraid of sexuality and finally devastating. The film, which takes place in Mexico, follows two hormonally consumed teenage boys, Julio (Gael García Bernal) and Tenoch (Diego Luna), whose infantile macho games seem more like baby steps when they meet Luisa (Maribel Verdú), a sad-eyed young woman who is married to Tenoch’s older cousin. [Link]

Snark is great, but what’s with the baby talk? On the plus side, the Times has finally run a review as badly-written as its movie. Much respect. There’s a kind of beauty in that.

Update: Reviewer Jeannette Catsoulis writes back that the piece’s clichés were partly intentional:

… When reviewing a film in 200 words or less, I usually try to give readers a flavor (no pun intended!) of what to expect, and, to be honest, this film was one long cliché. I responded with clichés of my own, mostly out of irritation and disappointment. As for the curry/spice issue, I grew up in Britain (in Glasgow, which had made me more excited about the film), and was probably corrupted at a very early age. No excuse, however, for falling into the pit of knee-jerk regional metaphors — however well they seem to suit the tone of a particular film…

But most of the time the Great Curry Metaphor strikes papers unironically and with maximum kitsch.

I ranted about the lame Uncle Ben’s rebranding campaign back in April. Good to see I wasn’t the only one who thought MasterFoods’ (hehe) approach was totally tone-deaf. Check out this segment The Colbert Report did a while ago:

I remember well the moment when I began to understand the awesome power of ramen. It was during college, and I was sharing a dim dorm room with Steve C. Liu, a towering Trekkie whom everyone called “The Admiral.” Steve was a bit weird (I’m thinking of his obsession with Disney heroines), but he was blessed with a Taiwanese mother who regularly delivered him an endless supply of Asian snacks: odd concoctions of dried tofu, vast Tupperware containers of sticky rice, and stack upon stack of dried ramen.

One night, Steve invited me to join him. He boiled some water, dumped dry noodles in a pair of bowls and a few minutes later we were slurping up gorgeously black-pepper-flavored ramen. I think the brand name was, believe it or not, Kung Fu.

From that point on, my life was changed. I stocked up on ramen at nearby Asian grocery stores, buying spicy kimchi ramen from the Koreans and vacuum-packed udon from the Japanese. I learned to crack an egg into the still-bubbling liquid, to shred scallions into the mix, to sprinkle on toasted sesame seeds. I bought bowls specifically designed to hold noodles, and I watched the movie “Tampopo,” a Japanese comedy about the wacky world of noodle-makers, again and again. (My girlfriend eventually named her pet kitten Tampopo.)

My story, of course, is far from unique. You, too, probably first encountered ramen in college, where it kept your belly full for as little as 25 cents a meal. You’ve probably added all sorts of condiments to a basic bowl of broth. But on the occasion of the death of Momofuku Ando, the founder of Nissin and inventor of instant noodles, it’s worth taking a look at his creation’s far-reaching cultural influence.

First, a quick history (culled from Ando’s obits): In 1958, the nearly broke Ando observed that fried noodles reabsorbed liquid very easily, and began experimenting with flash-frying techniques. Soon, he had Chikin Ramen—which sold for six times the price of fresh ramen! The product’s popularity quickly brought the cost down, and soon instant ramen was fulfilling Ando’s greatest wish: “Peace will come to the world when the people have enough to eat.” (Okay, maybe not quite.)

In the 1970s, ramen arrived in the U.S., and by the next decade became shorthand for the impoverished-student experience. Def Leppard released a song called “Pour Some Sugar on Me” that heard-of-hearing stoners misunderstood as “Pour Some Shook-up Ramen.” Cathay Pacific began serving Cup Noodle on long-haul flights. Technology progressed, too: I recently found a tiny, magically hinged plastic spork in a packet of instant pho.

And perhaps most surprising of all, instant ramen paved the way for the hifalutin noodle bars that are the biggest trend in New York dining today (the most popular is, fittingly, named Momofuku). From hunger-killing substitute to gourmet delight—that’s quite a journey in 50 years.

But this week, forgo the fancy, get on down to your local Asian grocery and pick up some tom yum noodles, miso-flavored ramen, or even just plain old chicken Cup Noodles. As the New York Times wrote, “They attain a state of grace through a marriage with nothing but hot water,” so break out the kettle and prepare to slurp-slurp-slurp your way to heaven—where you will, without a doubt, find one very happy Mr. Momofuku Ando.

First came Green Card energy drink. Now comes a sandwich called “The Illegal.”

Apparently, there’s a deli across the street from New York City’s Citizenship and Immigration Services headquarters that has begun selling a sandwich by that name:

The “Illegal” — Sausalito turkey, Monterey Jack cheese, lettuce, tomato and a jalapeño-fi red guacamole spread — is not on the menu above but is advertised from its sign in the display case, which also shows a man going through a barbed wire fence.

They’ve been making it for about six months, according to Roberto Agapito, the soup-ladling, cutlet-cutting, potato-chip-scooping Mexican mastermind behind the creation.

If you order an Illegal in Spanish at the Civic, the inevitable ensues.

Customer: “I’ll have an Illegal, please.”

Worker (pointing to guy next to him): “Here’s one.”

Laughter all around.

Agapito, who has been in the United States for 12 years, said he created it to honor the experiences of many of his fellow Latino immigrants.

I’m sure they feel very honored.

Ewww… In case you needed convincing that freshly-made guacamole is the best way to go, here comes word that Kraft Foods guacamole, sold in supermarkets, is basically green glue:

No wonder store-bought guacamole tastes like glue: It is glue! Okay, not really, but it certainly isn’t real avocados, either. As Los Angeles resident Brenda Lifsey discovered, the green glop sold by Kraft Foods is primarily composed of staggering amounts of coconut and soybean oils, corn syrup, modified food starch, and food coloring, with a minuscule amount of avocado thrown in. She was so upset that she took Kraft’s ass to court on Wednesday, and her lawyer says other faux-guac purveyors will soon be targeted as well.

Gross! While we’re on the topic, does anyone have a good guacamole recipe they want to share? We’re food lovers here at Racialicious.

Mealmakers across the country are discovering small ethnic grocers that once primarily served immigrant communities. Even in overwhelmingly white regions like Albany, culinary adventurers like DeFrancesco troll the aisles of stores like Lee’s, stocking up on whatever unusual sauces, candies and snacks strike their fancies. Tracking the growth of these grocers is difficult; most of them are scattered wherever immigrant populations appear and want foods familiar to their heritages, says Michael Sansolo, spokesman for the Food Marketing Institute in Washington.

But the growth hasn’t gone unnoticed. Major supermarket chains are dedicating more space to ethnic foods, Sansolo says. It’s an attempt to draw shoppers who may otherwise head for these specialty markets.

Demographically, it makes sense. Hispanics and Asians now represent about 18 percent of the U.S. population, and account for more than half of the nation’s population growth since the start of the decade, according to the Census Bureau.

Basically, at this point, we still see that anything aside from apple pie and hot dogs is relegated to “ethnic food” aisles. It would be nice to see a bit more integration at the grocery store , but perhaps it will take a while since clearly, the way that we discuss ethnic cuisine sets it apart. Certain ingredients are easily labeled “unusual,” with only “culinary adventurers” as takers (Are they really that unusual? Perhaps people who find themselves closed to trying food “not their own” are the unusual elements here?? ).

Ok, perhaps this is a small (even petty) thing to be analyzing, but I do think that this speaks to how Americans tend to be so confined in our thinking. So, if you are X ethnicity you are only meant to eat X food? And if you stray from that, then WHOA! You sure are adventurous!? I think I probably just take for granted that I live in a very diverse neighborhood where you can’t help but get familiar with a variety of cuisines….but I do recognize this is not the norm for others. Anyone want to head over to Stop and Shop, get some spicy daal, cilantro, dumplings, and have a wild and adventurous night?

Growing up in Hong Kong, I watched a lot of American sitcoms. I was always fascinated by things American families had on these shows that we didn’t have. Of course, Hong Kong’s technology was always at least 5 years ahead of the U.S., but there were certain gadgets we just didn’t have because there was no demand for them. Things like refrigerators with ice makers (so cool!) and wall-mounted phones in the kitchen with extra-long cords (how I longed to hide in the closet to chat on the phone!).

But I remember being particularly fascinated by episodes in which people would order Chinese food. What on earth were those cardboard contraptions with the wire handles? Or those things they called fortune cookies?

Most of you probably know (I hope!) that fortune cookies are about as Chinese as as a Burger King Whopper. But there are a lot of other foods marketed as “ethnic” that actually aren’t at all. Check out this interesting article from Chow.com. Here are some of the foods they “out:”

Navajo Frybread
What it is: Thick, round lard-fried dough, served with honey or powdered sugar, or wrapped around ground beef, taco seasoning, and shredded cheese (called an Indian Taco)
Faux origin: Navajo, traditional
Real origin: White U.S. influence, mid-19th century

Fried Chow Mein
What it is: Fried preboiled egg noodles, often served with vegetables and meat
Faux origin: Chinese
Real origin: Chinese-American, mid-19th century

Chicken Tikka Masala
What it is: Chicken pieces cooked in a tomato gravy, often containing cream
Faux origin: Indian
Real origin: British, 1950s–70s

Hibachi
What it is: Americans use hibachi to refer to two distinct things: a small aluminum charcoal grill, and the large multiperson hot-plate cooking technique used in certain Japanese-American restaurants.
Faux origin: Japanese
Real origin: Part Japanese, part 1960s American, with Japanese mistranslated origins

Pasta Primavera
What it is: Spaghetti with assorted vegetables, often in a heavy cream sauce
Faux origin: Italian
Real origin: Created by Le Cirque owner and maitre d’ Sirio Maccioni in 1976

Fortune Cookie
What it is: Thin, lightly sugared dough folded around a slip of paper
Faux origin: Chinese
Real origin: U.S. West Coast, early- to mid-20th century

If the whole New Demographic thing doesn’t work out for me and Jen, it’s good to know that we have backup options. Like working at Ninja New York, for example, a (I kid you not) ninja-themed restaurant here in the city. Yeah yeah neither of us are Japanese, but we’re yellow enough to contribute to the super-authentic dining experience of the losers who would dine there. From Grub Street:

Nina Cha found her calling when she answered a Craigslist ad that read, “WANTED: Ninjas who do magic.” We asked her about her qualifications, and she told us about her brushes with Frank Bruni’s wrath and Tara Reid’s posse.

Nina Cha
Ninja New York
25 Hudson St., nr. Reade St.; 212-274-8500

What kind of training did you get?
There were two months of extensive training before we opened. The first week they gave us the history of ninjas and what’s thought to be myth and legend. We had magic classes once or twice a week. And tastings.

Do kids get scared?
Some do, because it’s very dark and we have ninjas popping in and out.