this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2024
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Your peers really talk about "European food"? Damn
To be fair the only food I know and talk about from the US is Tex-Mex
Conceptually, why not? People talk about "Chinese food" despite China being geographically the size of Europe and having at least 8 distinct and recognized styles of cuisine that are at least as different from each other as French is to Italian.
I think the difference there is that when americrackers talk about "Chinese food" they're very specifically and exclusively talking about the Americanized Cantonese cuisine that's available broadly. The other cuisines are entirely unknown as they do not exist outside of a small handful of restaurants in only a couple of major cities, and are largely only available on a phantom menu in those restaurants. The same also happens with "Indian food," which almost universally refers to an Americanized version of Mughlai cuisine, with maybe a couple Americanized items from Udupi cuisine.
Americanized Euro cuisines had a very diferent thing happen and just like there is no monolithic "Chinese Food" or "Indian Food," there is no "French Food" or "Italian Food." No nation, no culture, no cuisine is monolithic. The difference is that the cuisines of European nations were blended into a generalized version, rather than one specific cuisine being the only one represented.
The confusion and conflation of national cuisines that seems to frustrate people so has an unfortunate but material reason for existing. That reason being 20th century immigration patterns. Immigrants brought with them food and culture that was then smushed into a little generalized box blended on high as immigrants were largely segregated by national origin and particularly by language.
European nations were devastated by the two world wars, with immigrants from virtually every geographic area of every affected nation arriving in the US. Many immigrants from other continents were severely restricted or outright banned from immigrating to the US up until 1965. Virtually all Chinese immigrants up until the ban in 1924 came from Taishan City, Guangdong and consequently brought Cantonese food. Up until 1965, Indian immigration to the US was nearly non-existent due to blanket ineligibility for naturalization, and virtually all Indian-Americans either immigrated from Canada or descended from those who did. Indian cuisine in the US has largely been copied from British-Indian cuisine, which itself is largely a product of immigration from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and northern India, hence why north Indian cuisine is outsized in its representation.
I understand you're just making up a guy to get mad at, but it's hard to blame individuals for being unaware and uninformed about cuisine that's likely only available hundreds of miles away from their home, especially when virtually all other common national cuisines are massively blended versions of the entire nation's cuisine.
I'm not getting mad at anyone, sorry if it sounded like I was.
I understand the material reasons behind how people perceive foreign cuisine. The further away from a place the less granularity you hold for it in your mind most of the time. It's very common for Chinese and Japanese people to talk about "western food" which is an expansive category covering everything from pasta to baguettes to burgers to borscht.
No worries comrade, just a misunderstanding. Was fun to type up!
It's particularly funny since here in Aus at least three types are easily recognisable, along with the suburbs you go to eat them. And that's just coastal Han Cuisine. Meanwhile in Germany the "Asian Restaurant" served up Sushi and Dim Sims at the same time.
Not really tho. Literally every westoid has the internet
It's not really a food issue either, it's a literally everything about China-India-Africa issue. And I actually don't give a shit if mayos know anything about us, but I need them to stop having strong opinions and making harsh value judgements about stuff they have literally a toddler's understanding of (impossible I know)
I also netted dozens of downvotes on
once because I questioned if leaving the lobster vein in might be a New England thing (because literally 3 restaurants in Boston did that to me). They were literally frothing, while the same interaction reversed takes place all the time and the POC just expect the ignorance (some of them are even ignorant of it themselves)
Uh, no. Chinese food is not analogous to French food. It's analogous to European food. Bengali food, or Sichuanese food, is analagous to French food.
Every now and again you hear about people opening a "Chinese food" resteraunt in China. The locals are confused and the tourists are amazed.
This is true but at some level POC are to blame for this as well--I know so many Indian people who can't even name any states/languages and stuff
Every POC aware of this needs to honestly just refer to themselves as their provincial identity. IE:
"so what ethnicity are you out of curiosity"
"oh I'm Bihari"
"You're Chinese right?"
"yea, Fujian"
etc. otherwise these things will never be recovered