Cultural appropriation, completely despicable if you think about wartime looting of artworks or colonial-style desecration, is now doing rounds in food. What it means in brief, is that if I cook what I call a Thai stir fry, or bake Dabo bread, I'm disrespecting the respective ethnicities. And I shouldn't dare make any twists on the dishes - that will be cultural misappropriation.
Right - so it looks like I should be cooking pierogis for the rest of my life, with an odd cassoulet thrown in since French cuisine doesn't count as 'ethnic', for some bizarre reason. [ethnic /''εθnιk/ adjective 1. relating to a population subgroup (within a larger or dominant national or cultural group) with a common national or cultural tradition. "ethnic and cultural rights and traditions"]. But I refuse to - so let's cook a few cultural appropriative dishes this week.
Did I mention Dabo - Ethiopian honey and milk bread, festively plaited, (mis)appropriate for the Easter table? Talking about plaited, beautiful festive bread - a shiksa baking challah, is that offensive? Surprise, it isn't - but I won't even dip into the reasons why not.
That's bread sorted. For supper, at some point this week I'll be making Vietnamese summer rolls, though it's barely spring (help! she's misappropriating seasons!). Five spice duck is a safe bet to offend, as it's such a fusion dish that it doesn't even call itself 'oriental' or 'Asian'. With a side dish of kimchi, while we're at it - hopefully the jar I told you to prepare a few weeks back is still going. And if you want to go meatless, here's the one to go for (just skip the bacon): appropriated technique of fry-steam-fry and some supremacist pasta in my potsticker tortellini dish.
Spicy bacon and cucumber salad might cause uproar: bacon! in a stir fry! And I'll complete my defiant week by hijacking tamarind and putting it in a tamarind date cake, of all things. Long live fusions - they're the best form of cultural diversity!