Until moving here, I hadn’t truly considered how eating Chinese cuisine in my country is a far cry from being “authentic.” Chinese inspired? Sure. But when I say “Chow Mein” for example I’m sure that I’m pronouncing it wrong. And I’m almost sure that whatever I’m eating wasn’t exported from China and onto my plate. And I hadn’t thought about this appropriation of Chinese food until recently.
Never was I more aware of this than when I heard Guatemalans pronouncing Chow Mein Cho-Meen.
It makes me laugh a little. But when I caught myself eating Guatemalan Chow Mein and thinking “This doesn’t taste like Chinese food” I had to stop myself because, well, I’ve never been to China. Furthermore, if a Guatemalan came to the US and ate Chow Mein, they might think “This tastes nothing like Chow Mein.” And we’d all be wrong because Chow Mein, like China, is far away from both of us. I don’t care if a Chinese person prepares the food for you in the US or Guatemala, I’m sure it’s not the same (with all due respect to that Chinese person, I’m sure it’s chow-mazing). I’m arguing it can’t be authentic Chinese food unless it was made with ingredients grown-in and prepared on Chinese soil. There are levels! I will agree. If someone who is Chinese makes their most authentic Chinese dish on US soil, I am not going to say: “get thee behind me, Chow Mein!” in fact I’ve never really done that to a food, ever. But you understand my point?
Why is this important? I lived a long time believing that authentic foreign things could be delivered to me without living my house, my neighborhood, my country. While I would venture to guess that every person recognizes this on some level, I should be leery of my countries’ take on other countries. And it’s simply that: it’s one culture’s take but the lines get blurred and we start thinking that the perception is an actual reflection. But our take on another culture is always and only from the outside looking in. But this is simply the subject of food, right? We’re just talking about things we swallow. But what impact do the things we digest have on the things we believe? It’s something I wonder as food is a friendly subject, something everyone can access without feeling bad about their perceptions or beliefs about the culture. In fact, you can feel perfectly cultured after you leave a food court in the mall if food is your rubric.
The picture of the- perhaps not even Chinese- man with long white eyebrows and beard shelacked on the door of the Chinese restaurants in Guatemala make me cringe. Whoever’s preparing the food most certainly doesn’t look like him. And it must be the same with Mexican restaurants in the States. There’s cheese on everything in the States. I’m here to tell you that if rural Mexico is anything like rural Guatemala, there aren’t often refrigerators in the campo so how could be this abundance of cheese? I’d be curious to know how Guatemalan food materializes in the States.
Eat whatever you fancy, but let’s not be so quick to simplify our perception of culture like our perception of authentic cuisine. The next time you see a picture of a Mexican food advertised without a sombrero, take note. Or how about Greek food without that font that we’ve all come to associate with Greek food? Pillar-shaped letters and always with a picture of the Parthenon in the distance. If we haven’t been to Mexico or Greece, how do we know what’s actually served there and if that font even appears in Athens? And moreover if we’ve been to authentic towns in Mexico and Greece rather than tourist destinations.
I’m in a country and in a situation where I’m constantly put in a box. I’m asked for money, I’m asked to take people with me back to the States (constantly), I’m charged more for groceries because I’m a white US American and I’m asked who I voted for. This has made me deeply question my biases toward other ethnic groups and races within my own country. The fact is that I’ve put labels and sticky notes and limited expectations on people who “come from somewhere else” even though I’ve prided myself on being inclusive of other cultures all my life.
And it makes me want to eat real Chinese food and know the difference.
