Off the top of my head:
India:
Sugar
Pepper
Basil
Mangoes
Bananas
Ginger
(Ceylon) Cinnamon
SEA:
(Cassia) Cinnamon
Mace
Nutmeg
Oranges
Lemons
Limes
Central Asia:
Apples
Carrots (Afghanistan, could be considered MENA or India but the MENA category is too OP)
East Asia:
Peaches
Soy Sauce
Ketchup
Soy sauce
Sesame oil
Africa:
Coffee
Coca-Cola
Palm oil
Americas:
Chocolate
Vanilla
Blueberries
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Corn
Pineapple
Strawberries
Daily reminder that the idea of “national” cuisine is inherently nationalist, food doesn’t follow borders or skin color and pretending it does only plays into ethnonationalist ideals.
All food everywhere is a result of immigrants influencing local cultures, local climate, local needs. Seeing others take something you grew up with and give their own twist on it should invite joy in your heart, it is a sign of appreciation and respect that others would love a part of your life so dearly, that they would wish to replicate it. The fact that they attempt to modify it to make it into something that they can consider a part of their everyday meals is only a grander sign of love. The fact that we can share and incorporate each others produce, practice and recipes is a wonderful and cool thing that should be celebrated, not something to be used as a cringy dunk that really only exposes your own ass for not having a coherent logical framework.
Pretending like the meal you hold dearly isn’t also a product of that same process of immigration, appreciation, appropriation and procreation, is inherently reactionairy.
I guess this is some dumbass American thing I am not capable of understanding. You guys seem to suck at cooking, it seems like food is just signifiers over there. Ive seen users here dunk on the concept of using “salt” to season your food, because “white people use salt.” Same goes for herbs.
Whenever i talk to Americans and they talk about using spices, they can’t ever specify what fucking spices apart from “oh cajun mix from the local store” or the like. Maybe I’m lucky enough to see the words “paprika” or “cumin”, but I’ve yet to see anything but blank stares when I ask what they use for their other dishes. It’s all the same fucking spices on all dishes, because it is not actually about making good food. Like the kings of old, spices are used as a signifyer rather than something that should be understood and used in cooking.
Your hot sauces suck ass too. I don’t want some garbage artificial chemical capsaicing booster pack, I want a fucking hot sauce.
And your portion sizes are fucked and don’t even get me started on corn syrup.
Americans need to shut the fuck up about food.
All your dishes are German anyway.
Hear me out: garlic improves basically everything but sweet stuff. it should be in everything.
Okay, what are your recommendations, I’d love to compare with my spice cabinet full of only flavorful hot sauces that aren’t chemical bullshit and see if there’s anything new I should be adding to the collection.
I don’t have any. I live in a commune with an Ecuadorian chef who makes hot sauces for us, so I’m no longer subjected to all the weird supermarket shit. Move in with a Zapatista I guess.
Yes!
god damn i’m jealous. i have a handful of supermarket ones, but mostly it’s stuff I’ve had to import from latin america or asia. hot sauce availability in canada is mid.
:yea: I guess maybe go ask your local Latin American restaurant (if there is one) wether you can buy their sauce? Long shot I guess
I’m pretty sure it’s fucking all tapatio lmao. On the better side of store bought, but I live in the tiniest province so availability of basically anything interesting is low and there are like 3 Latin American restaurants I don’t have to take a ferry to another province to visit.
I going to pour one out for you, rip
Ok, may I play the World’s Smallest Violin for ye, on the isle you call the most wee of all provinces…
What brocht ye there, exile, … cheap property rent? Why do you live there lmao…
Cyclable-ness and needing the ocean. Much like a 19th century sick person in a cosmic horror story, I was told the sea air would do me good, and it has. The only weird thing I’ve discovered in the Maritimes has been Newfies, unfortunately.
Why so, don’t you have Nova Scotians, langoustines and the like, in your proximity?
If you have the time/space and fresh chilies available to you, lacto fermenting chilies with some spices and garlic, then blending them makes for amazing hot sauces that you can tailor to your tastes. It’s remarkably easy and safe to do.
I did this with habaneros, onion, and garlic and it turned out amazing. Only thing I would change would be stopping the fermentation at like 7-10 days instead of letting it go for two and a half weeks. Too fermented for me, but my friends love it.
Nearly all of Central Europe, Turkey and the Levant agree with you there. I do, too. Garlic is flavor town central.
As an Algerian, I see this bullshit way too much between us and Moroccans, Motherfuckers really believe that on the Oujda Tlemcen border people stop eating Harrira and Baghrir on the other side, sometimes it’s funny everytime it’s fucking annoying.
How’s Maroc as your neighbor… I assume pretty annoying, even without conflict (Maroc’s a comprador nation, right?)…
At least you guys share shakshouka, right?
Comprador? no, The Moroccan regime doesn’t even try to hide on which side it is, It refuses to cut relations with the zionist entity hell it still wants to buy the Merkava tanks, yet it didn’t think twice about bombing Yemen. not even going to mention colonizing the Western Sahara or the Sand War.
Ok, so they’re the wannabe Saudis of the Maghreb…
I guess so
Anyways, technically, if we’re following the list of this food, Shakshouka is technically an Americano-Maghrebi dish, because you know, one of its ingredients, tomatoes come from South America, along with the some of its spices, cayenne and paprika, in Central and South Americas…
So um technically, Shakshouka is an Americano dish, sweaty
Just like how Pizza is Americano-Italian-American invention…
yeah, shakshuka is everything but israeli
I’m a food scholar by training (and I’m working to be a full-time food scholar, too) and you have largely summarized a bunch of conversations I’ve been in and books written on the whole “food is born out of migration, exchange, and local culture and biodiversity”
Very cool!
I’ll take that as a huge compliment, thank you. Is there any cool facts you feel like sharing, or corrections you’d like to make? I’d love to learn more. Do you have any books that you’d recommend a layperson?
New tagline dropped please mods
Good post.
Thank you. Ive taught a bunch of friends how to cook, (just the basics) and this mindset is one of many I have had to help alleviate them of.
You should cook food you like, and the primary indicator of when you’ve cooked “good food” is wether you like your food or not. This idea that certain things are taboo or wrong or that you have to enjoy certain dishes in certain ways, certain combinations or on certain occasions, only makes cooking more inapproachable. On top of that it is just weird ethno-nationalism when people insist only certain ethnicities are allowed to cook certain dishes, or that certain ethnicities are inherently bad at doing something or enjoying something.
Weirdly I only ever really see this from americans. They all like to point fingers at Italians, but all the Italians I’ve met have been chill as fuck about food - They understand that food is meant to bring people together, not tear them apart.
Americans are weird about food
Still very much present in the EU as well, especially when it comes to French and Italian cooking (not necessarily from the French and Italians mind you)
You definitely need “there are no rules” at first, but when your protege starts belting out Wonderwall in his best Bob Dylan impression, you have to switch to “there are some rules.”
Where I live, if you order a random taco off of a delivery service (I know, I know, I’ve pretty much stopped), you have a decent chance of your “taco” being on a fajita shell and containing iceberg lettuce, with a packet of mass-produced hot sauce on the side if you’re feeling adventurous. I think the weird absolutist positions well-meaning americans take is in response to this sort of disrespect for the history, the person making the food, the person delivering the food and the person eating the food.
Yeah I’m talking about people learning to cook for themselves. If I invite you over for pizza, you’re gonna be bewildered if I give you butter chicken with naan. If I order pad thai, I’m gonna be mad if I get served a burger. Give me tea and call it coffee? No.
But say I was served tacos al pastor and I wanted to make some myself because they were soooo good? But the store only has hard shell tortillas? And Im not actually a big fan of cilantro, and I like my salsa mild? I’m still challenging myself, exploring other ways of cooking exploring other cultures, showing my appreciation for them and learning to respect them.
Even the shitty spices are mostly a hard on for (much better) French 19th century food. Early US and European food is 80% horseradish and peppercorn and whatever local spices were available.
black pepper is Indian. and euros didn’t even adopt the good one (pippali) they adopted the one-note one
Depends on the time and place, some areas preferred long pepper or Grains of Paradise.
aka pippali