About ten years ago, I read a book (http://www.amazon.com/Good-Eat-Riddles-Food-Culture/dp/1577660153/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_4) that argued that many food taboos were actually based in the local ecology. For example, that pork ended up being a religious taboo for the middle-eastern religions because it was not sustainable to raise boars/pigs in that region, and something similar for Hinduism and beef.
I think ecology concerns are often a big part of my own food taboos, so when you said "controversial in the United States," I thought, "ugh, I don't know how to respond if it turns out it's whale meat or shark fins or another threatened species." (I'd read that for shark fin soup the rest of the shark basically gets thrown out. I think that those threatened species end up being expensive, so at least that's not classism, I think. I'll have to spend time thinking about if there's racism in my attitude there.)
So horse meat?
No big deal to me! I love reading about the food cultures you and Hyoun grew up in. You were wondering about having your kids open to other food cultures. We grew up with, in retrospect, pretty boring or bland food. In the Midwest, the non-local food traditions that was strangest to the other kids was actually not that strange: two usual Thanksgiving dishes combined - Pennsylvania Dutch potato filling. (Basically, combine mashed potatoes, celery, eggs, and stuffing and bake.) But my sister and I are now both moderately adventurous and try most things we're not allergic to, which has greatly expanded since our childhood.
The dish my parents called chop suey had water chestnuts and no tomato sauce, but did have noodles, ground beef, and peppers, and I think celery.
I enjoyed the two essays you linked to. I understood that troisroyaumes was talking about life in the Bay Area. Even if I were from the Bay Area, though, "You have to be pretty willfully oblivious to have never tried dim sum or pad thai before" kinda gave me pause, though. I imagine people like me growing up in the Bay Area with the severe allergies that prevent me from trusting restaurants would make enough friends to encounter those foods in someone's home. So maybe in the Bay Area even someone with my allergies *would* have to be willfully ignorant.
(I do love the few home-cooked Chinese and Thai recipes I have been able to have. Sometimes I wonder if it's cultural appropriation done wrong to take Asian recipes out of cookbooks and cut out all the ingredients that I'm allergic to. I mean, that seems like over-worry to my point of view, but maybe there's larger significance to certain meals that I'm not aware of.)
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syntheid
now with actual para breaks
Date: 2010-12-03 19:49 (UTC)I think ecology concerns are often a big part of my own food taboos, so when you said "controversial in the United States," I thought, "ugh, I don't know how to respond if it turns out it's whale meat or shark fins or another threatened species." (I'd read that for shark fin soup the rest of the shark basically gets thrown out. I think that those threatened species end up being expensive, so at least that's not classism, I think. I'll have to spend time thinking about if there's racism in my attitude there.)
So horse meat?
No big deal to me! I love reading about the food cultures you and Hyoun grew up in. You were wondering about having your kids open to other food cultures. We grew up with, in retrospect, pretty boring or bland food. In the Midwest, the non-local food traditions that was strangest to the other kids was actually not that strange: two usual Thanksgiving dishes combined - Pennsylvania Dutch potato filling. (Basically, combine mashed potatoes, celery, eggs, and stuffing and bake.) But my sister and I are now both moderately adventurous and try most things we're not allergic to, which has greatly expanded since our childhood.
The dish my parents called chop suey had water chestnuts and no tomato sauce, but did have noodles, ground beef, and peppers, and I think celery.
I enjoyed the two essays you linked to. I understood that troisroyaumes was talking about life in the Bay Area. Even if I were from the Bay Area, though, "You have to be pretty willfully oblivious to have never tried dim sum or pad thai before" kinda gave me pause, though. I imagine people like me growing up in the Bay Area with the severe allergies that prevent me from trusting restaurants would make enough friends to encounter those foods in someone's home. So maybe in the Bay Area even someone with my allergies *would* have to be willfully ignorant.
(I do love the few home-cooked Chinese and Thai recipes I have been able to have. Sometimes I wonder if it's cultural appropriation done wrong to take Asian recipes out of cookbooks and cut out all the ingredients that I'm allergic to. I mean, that seems like over-worry to my point of view, but maybe there's larger significance to certain meals that I'm not aware of.)