As one of three necessities of sustaining life, food underlies every part of human society. Some of the first words you learn when speaking a new language relate to food. Holidays and celebrations often center around seasonal recipes. Cooking traditions are passed down through generations and are often infused in social movements. It follows that since food is such a large part of ethnic identity that dozens of racial stereotypes are food-related, informing how we interact with cultural biases.
After being altered to appeal to American palates, Chinese and Mexican food are pigeonholed as cheap or low quality. Indian foods like curry are worked into insults. Italians once suffered the same, even though their dishes are now accepted as American staples. While cuisines are increasingly incorporated into our American lives and culture, many of the insults tied to their cultures don’t leave.
Fortune cookies are widely associated with Chinese food and culture, even though they have Japanese origins and no basis in traditional Chinese history. Brazil’s national dish Feijoada is traditionally made with pig parts, but some appropriate its ingredients to be less “off-putting,” which can make the recipe more accessible, but it does erase crucial history from the dish. At its core, it is a type of assimilation into what is deemed palatable rather than cultural.
It is our responsibility to give cultures far older than we are room to breathe and be accepted. Like a rainforest needs biodiversity, we don’t want to lose cultural vibrancy by ousting or adapting, even subtly. Many of us don’t examine our gut feelings of disgust, instead choosing to trust our morally relative values — which can often be exclusionary.
Examples within a cuisine are often generalized to an entire culture when they are perceived as shocking or immoral, like Asians eating dogs or Peruvians eating guinea pigs. However, the American perception of these animals as pets isn’t something that is or should be shared across the world. Western cultures consider dogs to be pets first and foremost, but that carries no inherent correctness; cultures who eat dogs may even have originally domesticated wolves to be a meat source. While anyone can call a dish gross if it isn't to their taste; the problem lies in the common jump from distaste to asserting validity or lobbying insults.
The type of racism and stereotyping we carry is much different from past generations. We’ve bettered unjust systems and tabooed slurs, now opting for a slow, constant stream of misinformation and othering. While a joke about someone’s food is certainly not an earth-shattering transgression, it is an example of being less than considerate. They are commonly flippant, but going along with racial stereotypes based on essential cultural artifacts like food snowballs into meaner, widely-accepted racism. Ignoring the potential damage of your actions often manifests in escalation, especially as our language rapidly changes via the internet and new communication channels.
Certain cuisines are only seen as palatable because they have a correlation with international power and racial superiority — the menu is written by the victors. Low-income communities do not have access to cleaner, more organic groceries, which is systematic and often racially charged.
This food culture observation is a cautionary tale with a deeper pattern. Every generation makes progress and social change, but there’s a shared injustice that permeates society regardless, one that’s perpetuated by our words. No one wants a food that is deeply tied to their identity to be called disgusting. However casual, assumptions and knee jerk comments send a message that intolerance is tolerable. The next time you sit down to eat, know that you are sharing a meal with billions.
