No, I Don’t Want a Sourdough Pancake, But I Will Take a Dosa
The subtleties of writing respectfully about non-white cuisines
"Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are." - Jean Anthelme Savarin-Brillat.
In a world of growing physical distances and shrinking digital ones, it's becoming increasingly salient that cooking is indeed a 6th love language. The art and evolution of food and the traditions of sharing it with loved ones are historic and romantic and have unshakably stood the test of time and modernization. Food is more than simple sustenance. We are preparing an entity that contains eons of cultures, formulations, immigration, health, agriculture, and distilled emotions within its molecules. In a way, culinary arts are historians of habits - especially of cultures no longer colonized by the Western world. And in that sense, especially for immigrants, food is identity.
I first noticed the lack of cultural nuance in anything food-related when I rigorously began solving the New York Times Crossword. Occasionally, the writers would throw in a clue for "Indian Bread (4)". The first time it happened, I was perplexed. Could it be Naan? Or did they mean Roti? Or what if they had enough culinary understanding to trick me with a 'Puri'? The answer turned out to be Naan that time. And the next time, it was Roti. Then it was Naan again. But the clue? Always "Indian Bread (4)". That's when I realized that the key to solving culturally constructed clues in the Crossword (mainly when not related to America or Europe) is to think, "What does the West think Indian Bread is?" and not simply about what Indian Bread actually is.
Since time immemorial, food media has controlled the culinary expression of traditionally non-white foods with an iron fist, beating it into food writers that 'foreign' foods must be written about in a way that is palatable to White audiences. As journalists, the words we ascribe to situations and communities shape them. Food media has historically never operated with intentionality, nuance, or inclusive verbiage while covering cultural expressions through food.
This means that dishes from immigrant cultures such as Chinese, Indian, Thai, Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Filipino, Georgian, and many others must be described and compared to more familiar Eurocentric foods to make them understandable and interesting. Food establishments, no matter how lavish, serving such foods are reviewed with connotations of them being greasy, obscenely spicy, and firmly placed in the shadow categories of inferior and lowbrow, to be experienced when one feels adventurous. Goan, Punjabi, and South Indian foods are mashed together under the umbrella of "Indian," while pages of articles exist on the types of pizzas specific to each US state. Pork sisig, a Filipino dish, was declared the 'next big thing' only because Anthony Bourdain described it as 'ascendent," 'underrated,' and amazingly, a work in progress." Foods from immigrant cultures are expected to lie undesired until the white savior in food media adopts them – and repackages them to cater to the delicate sensibilities of their target white audience.
In 2017, Bonnie Tsui, in her Times op-ed "Why is Asian Salad still on the menu?" spotlights the racism in American restaurant menus. She observes that while Asian salads are next to the Greek or Caesar Salad, "the Asian salad is often the one that comes with a winky, jokey name." Names such as Oriental Chop Chop, Mr. Mao's, Secret Asian Man, or Chicken Asian Chop Chop (she links to menus that are now unavailable). She received some support for the column but also a lot of trolling. In an article published by Civil Eats and later Eater, Tsui told them, "We are not allowed to talk. We are not allowed to make critical observations about the language we use for food or see it as telling of our wider perceptions of the world and its people." Not only do non-white food writers not have control over the language used to describe their cuisine, but they are also retaliated against for speaking out.
The Dosa is a South Indian staple made from a fermented batter of rice and lentils. Over the years, it has been described by Western media using some combination of the words "crepes", "sourdough", or "flatbread". In a review of a Dosa spot in Long Island published in 2013 in the Times, Mary Jo Murphy says, "And the star among these is a pancake." As they go through the roster of dishes and try more, she further comments, "We also tasted the other kind of pancake, the uthappam, a kind of soft pizza with a variety of toppings and spices baked into it." The distance between a pancake or pizza and a dosa or uthappam is laughably large and an uncomfortable comparison. It drives home the point that every colorful aspect of 'foreign' cultures will be forced into the rigid mold of the American schema, no matter the cost to the cuisine. A dosa is a pancake, an uthappam is another pancake. The Naan is a bread, Roti is a bread, Phulka is a bread,Parotta is another bread. A kaleidoscope of taste and art from a nation that makes up 17.78% of the world's population squashed into two English words – pancake and bread. How is cultural identity meant to survive?
Critics of this logic often argue that these comparative descriptions are necessary for Western audiences to understand and relate to a culture that is not theirs. They are not written out of malice or ignorance but from the perspective of popularizing foreign cuisines in the Western world and, in fact, uplifting them – bringing them more business and visibility. The counterargument to that vein of thought lies in the assumption that a dish is considered 'worthy' only once the Western world has embraced it. That the ultimate signifier of a cuisine 'making it' in the world is if it is understood, visible and enjoyed by the western audiences. Even in this argument, western food media retains its ability to cast the final vote on what food, and by extension what culture, is desirable.
It's often about where the burden of education lies. Non-white food journalists take on the burden of educating the masses, fighting against the resistance by Western media and their passive consumer structures that expect to only see, hear, and learn things that fit well with what they already understand. However, the reverse is not valid. Non-white food media professionals must actively learn to assimilate into what is considered the norm in Western newsrooms. In an article by Bon Appétite titled "When did Recipe Writing Get So…Whitewashed?", this invisible burden of education is illustrated in the conversation between food and recipe writers Yewande Komolafe and Priya Krishnan. Komolafe remembers an incident where she had to fight not to change the name of jollof rice to baked tomato pepper rice. "Nobody's going to know what that is. It's jollof rice. I don't know who calls it tomato baked rice." Whitewashing it changed the essential nature and significance of that dish. She notes that when she moved to the States, she "had to do the work to understand what a burger was, or what french fries were. Why are publications assuming that you as a consumer don't have to do any work?"
It's not about the act of describing a dish differently. The problem only arises when you describe a dish from one culture, ignorantly using terms from the dominant colonial culture. Writers of color have repeatedly demonstrated the ability to accurately describe a dish without whitewashing it. Take the dessert halva, a dish originally from Turkey that spread to the Middle East and Asia. Kashmira Gander, writing for the US edition of the British news source The Independent, describes halva as "a soft, delicate Persian sweet made using rose water, saffron, sugar, flour and water." The New York Times, on the other hand, called gajar (carrot) halva a "Glazed Carrot Fudge" and described it as "if eaten warm, it's like a really decadent warm cereal or oatmeal."
This illustrates a clear choice that Western media is making. There are ways to describe culturally significant foods while also being respectful, but it is not considered a priority.
Then, there is the great 'ethnicity' debate.
When Soleil Ho, American chef and food writer, joined The San Francisco Chronicle, she wrote an introductory column titled "Words You'll Never See Me Use in Restaurant Reviews" and it included the word 'ethnic'. Western food media loves that word – but only in one context. Ho writes, "We're talking about pho shops, taquerias, Indian buffets and Jamaican grills, places that we associate with the lowbrow and with communities of color. But don't all humans have an ethnicity that they identify with, even vaguely? The imprecision of the word — and the assumption that it doesn't apply equally to people and cuisines associated with Europe or white America — gives me such a headache."
According to Krishnendu Ray, a food studies professor at NYU, we have come to use the descriptor 'ethnic' for a category of things we don't know about, don't understand much, and yet find it valid to express opinions about – which is precisely the case in food media. Attaching the label of 'ethnic', a descriptor meant to apply to the whole world, to only a particular set of cultures, keeps them firmly cemented in their perceived role as an inferior cuisine. It carries the undertones of a lack of culinary finesse and a history not worth untangling under the giant banner of the catch-all descriptor.
When 'ethnicity' is near, its close cousin 'exotic' is never far behind. In her article "Stop calling food 'exotic'", staff food writer at the Washington Post, G. Daniela Galarza, is adamant that 'exotic' is subjective. What is exotic to her might not be exotic to someone else, and she feels like the word has lost its essential meaning over the past two decades. "More crucial problem is that its use, particularly as applied to food, indirectly lengthens the metaphysical distance between one group of humans and another, and, in so doing, reinforces xenophobia and racism," she said in her column, written in response to readers asking for 'less exotic' recipes after she posted a seven-ingredient, seven-minute ramen recipe. Tokenizing language such as 'ethnic' and 'exotic' taken together with the verbiage used when it comes to culturally rich cuisines contribute to the overall 'othering' of the people of that culture, never letting them rise to even footing within the realms of Western media.
The racism rampant within Western food media does not end at verbiage, though it may start there. It is also inherent in the timing of stories, like suddenly highlighting recipes by Black creators only during Black History Month or even the selection of stories. The editors are hungry for a quick weeknight Mapo Tofu recipe (it's already a quick meal) compared to an ode to a slowly simmered Bolognese sauce, bringing with it notions of what we should spend time on and what we don't need to.
As Lavanya Ramanathan aptly says in her WaPo piece on immigrant food, "It's time to stop talking about 'ethnic' food as though we're Columbus and the cuisines served up by immigrants are ours for the conquering."