Is authenticity important for you when eating ethnic/regional food?

Bullgrit · Jun 16, 2015

Who makes the food does to speak to its authenticity.

As the title says, is authenticity important to you when eating ethnic/regional food? If you liked a particular dish/meal, would your like of it diminish if you discovered it was cooked by some young white guy working after school? Are you fine with Americanized versions of such foods?

For myself, if I like a food, "authenticity" is completely a non-issue.

Bullgrit

Morrus · Jun 16, 2015

If I like it, I like it. I prefer Britishified curries to authentic Indian food, for example. And pizzas are generally better everywhere but Italy.

Dannyalcatraz · Jun 16, 2015

Depends on my mood. Sometimes I don't care, sometimes I want the real thing. And, of course, there are some authentic things I NEVER want to eat.

Danzauker · Jun 16, 2015

Morrus said:
And pizzas are generally better everywhere but Italy.

This is NONSENSE!!!

Olgar Shiverstone · Jun 16, 2015

Not really. Good food that I like is good; I don't really care who makes it. Though I do appreciate honesty in presentation -- e.g. American Tex-Mex is not "authentic" Mexican, even when prepared by authentic Mexicans! But if the food's good I'll forgive it!

Ryujin · Jun 16, 2015

Morrus said:
If I like it, I like it. I prefer Britishified curries to authentic Indian food, for example. And pizzas are generally better everywhere but Italy.

I'm with you there. In Toronto I can find a lot of 'authentic' ethnic foods but all that matters is whether I like it or not.

Umbran · Jun 17, 2015

Define "authentic".

Is the tomato sauce in your favorite "Italian" restaurant authentic? How could you tell? There are as many such sauces as there are authentically Italian people to cook them.

I am not so hot on people advertising their food as "authentic" without their having a solid grounding in the cuisine they're producing. If you are going to try to make trade off a culture, you should give the culture the respect of learning about it. But, if they only advertise it as being in the style (which is really the normal way this is presented) then I don't care.

Dioltach · Jun 17, 2015

Generally I'm not too hung up on whether food's authentic or not. Sometimes it's interesting to try an authentic version of something to compare it with what you generally come across, and it can be interesting to try different countries' takes on foreign foods -- Mexican food is Spain is not the same as Mexican food in the Netherlands, for example, and Thai food in Britain doesn't taste like Thai food in Australia.

One exception is perhaps separate recipes that haven't been converted to another culture's tastes, but are close copies of the original. I'm thinking about various pasta dishes or paella, things like that. The recipe in another country used might be identical to the recipe used in the original country, but it will often not taste the same. If you eat the food in its original country or region, you're eating it as it was originally conceived: using the authentic ingredients grown in or raised on local soil, with local wine to accompany it, and in the local setting. I'm not trying to sound snobby, but it does make a difference if you've been breathing the local air all day and then eat food made with herbs that you've been smelling and meat from cattle raised on those herbs.

delericho · Jun 17, 2015

Bullgrit said:
As the title says, is authenticity important to you when eating ethnic/regional food?

I'm somewhat interested in 'authentic' food, but it's an interest rather than a preference - that is, I'm happy to eat whatever variants are out there, but have a curiousity as to how those compare to the "real thing". (I'm also well aware that the "real thing" is very often itself not some single, specific, and unchanging thing - virtually all foods have lots of different variants depending on who exactly makes it, when, and where.)

If you liked a particular dish/meal, would your like of it diminish if you discovered it was cooked by some young white guy working after school?

Nope, don't care. And, indeed, even if it's marked 'authentic' I don't care who made it - I care about how it was made and what it was made out of.

Are you fine with Americanized versions of such foods?

Yep, absolutely fine.

I do, however, claim about accuracy in labelling. Please don't claim to be 'authentic' if it's not.

Mustrum_Ridcully · Jun 17, 2015

The taste and overall experience is probably what's important. Sure, that may be due to the "authenticity", but it could just be because they put enough sugar or chili in it.