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

Ryujin · Jun 17, 2015

Umbran said:
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.

I would define it as ethnic food, prepared by someone who either grew up in the culture or received some form of appropriate training in the cooking of said ethnic food (as in working under someone with the previously stated credentials), that is made with as close to the original ingredients as possible. I would say that the various regional East Indian dishes I was served, by the mothers of several East Indian girlfriends I had in my youth, would qualify for example.

Janx · Jun 17, 2015

Olgar Shiverstone said:
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!

That's because it's TexMex. It is authentic TexMex. If you want authentic Mexican, than you go to an authentic Mexican restaurant and not an authentic TexMex restaurant.

They are not the same culture.

Janx · Jun 17, 2015

As this thread is partly spun off on my comment about how the only way us Americans will know if we've eat a scone is if it was made by somebody from SconeLand.

Otherwise, all we know is that Starbucks says those triangle things are scones. Are they? Would Morrus agree if he ate one?

Ryujin · Jun 17, 2015

Janx said:
As this thread is partly spun off on my comment about how the only way us Americans will know if we've eat a scone is if it was made by somebody from SconeLand.

Otherwise, all we know is that Starbucks says those triangle things are scones. Are they? Would Morrus agree if he ate one?

I think that regardless of shape (they're usually round though) if it's vaguely (American) biscuitish and generally slightly sweet to the taste, then it would be a scone. A scone wouldn't look out of place on an Alabama breakfast plate, but the taste would be a little different (butter instead of lard, for instance).

Umbran · Jun 17, 2015

Janx said:
Otherwise, all we know is that Starbucks says those triangle things are scones.

Considering I've never eaten anything from Starbucks, I think I can validly say - speak for yourself on that "we". I get my idea of what scones are from cookbooks, since my wife and I bake them on a pretty frequent basis.

This does not guarantee authenticity, of course, but I was not taught what a scone was by the Starbucks Marketing Department.

nerfherder · Jun 17, 2015

Umbran said:
Considering I've never eaten anything from Starbucks, I think I can validly say - speak for yourself on that "we". I get my idea of what scones are from cookbooks, since my wife and I bake them on a pretty frequent basis.

This does not guarantee authenticity, of course, but I was not taught what a scone was by the Starbucks Marketing Department.

I admit that I've never made one, but this is likely to be a proper British scone, as baked by the great Delia Smith: http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/cuisine/european/english/plain-scones.html

nerfherder · Jun 17, 2015

Bullgrit said:
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.

I'm not too worried, but I'm quite interested to know whether something is authentic.

On a slight tangent, I am slightly saddened that Newcastle Brown Ale is no longer made in Newcastle, or even in the region.

Umbran · Jun 17, 2015

nerfherder said:
I admit that I've never made one, but this is likely to be a proper British scone, as baked by the great Delia Smith: http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/cuisine/european/english/plain-scones.html

I am not at home to compare it in detail to the recipes we typically use, but at a glance it looks much the same in content.

Self-rising flour, though? Sacrilege! And rubbing the butter in by hand like that is something we've done, and found to be overrated for most cases.

Jhaelen · Jun 17, 2015

Bullgrit said:
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?

I'm not sure I've _ever_ eaten anything authentic...
And if I've already eaten the food and found it to my liking, I surely won't change my mind afterwards for any reason. Note, that I'm not really familiar with Americanized food. I'm familiar with Germanized food

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.

Agreed! In general, I believe that it's better to eat foreign meals that underwent some revision and 'interpretation' by a cook who's familiar with local tastes. Pizza is a great example, as is Indian or Asian food. I consider it unlikely that I'd find authentic Thai food to be palatable, for example.

Danzauker said:
This is NONSENSE!!!

Not really. But as I indicated above, what's really going on here is that if you're familiar with the non-authentic, local version of a meal, e.g. pizza, it's likely you've developed a preference for it being prepared in that way. If you then get to taste 'the real thing', you may find it to be not to your liking.

I actually used to say the same thing ('When in Italy, don't order pizza - it's terrible!') until I was proven otherwise. You can find good pizza in Italy, as well, but it's harder than here in Germany

I've tried pizza in France and Ireland, as well. The former was okay, the latter was just odd. But of course it's possible that neither was representative...

Dannyalcatraz · Jun 17, 2015

Putting a slightly different spin on things- I have had terrible Tex-Mex in Missouri, and really good creole food done by Nebraskans in Texas.

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

Ryujin

Legend

Janx

Hero

Janx

Hero

Ryujin

Legend

Umbran

Mod Squad

nerfherder

Explorer

nerfherder

Explorer

Umbran

Mod Squad

Jhaelen

First Post

Dannyalcatraz

Schmoderator

Similar Threads