Know Thy Plate
Meatball. Rice n beans. Mayonnaise-eatin. General Tso. Curry-breath. Chicken & watermelon.
Food-based racial slurs levy on the concept of 'the other'. What any moron touting this language fails to realize is that there is no 'other' when it comes to food. Food is perhaps the most political art form that exists. Dialogues about health, race, economics, conflict and immigration can all be found on your plate. Pick a dish and you will find a deep history behind it. Take something as seemingly Japanese as ramen; what if I told you that ramen is actually based off of a Chinese recipe? Well, it is. The word itself is a Japanese inscription of the Chinese word lamian (拉麵), the original dish being Chinese-style wheat noodles in pork broth. If the Chinese had not migrated to Japan in the 19th century and brought the dish with them, then 'ramen’ as we know it today might’ve never been invented.
But the ultimate example of a cuisine being completely inauthentic to itself is American cuisine. People who throw insults like those mentioned are basically poking fun at the fact that the 'other' doesn't eat good 'ole fashioned 'American' food.
I hate to break it to you, but calling our food ‘American’ is just wrong.
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There's a line in The Godfather that I love. It’s a slur - kinda. It's the part when Tom Hagen goes to California and pays Jack Woltz a visit. Hagen goes on the Godfather’s behalf, to convince Woltz to give his godson Johnny Fontane a role in one of his upcoming films. But Woltz refuses, citing how Fontane stole his star actress/underaged paramount from him. He proclaims, "Johnny Fontane comes along with his olive oil voice and guinea charm, and she runs off!"
For whatever reason the line’s always made me laugh - probably because I grew up in a Greek-American household. If there’s one thing Greeks know it's olive oil; we practically bathe in the stuff. While the Greeks are unparalleled in their oil consumption, the Italians do give us a good run for our money; most olive oil that’s imported to the United States actually comes (“comes”) from Italy. The oil trade is filled with shady business practices - Italian exporters will blend oils from Spain, Greece, Tangiers, and even as far as Chile and market the stuff as 'Italian'. Though nowadays the oil trade is mostly run by large-scale corporations, in the past these dealings were handled almost exclusively by the mob - and they do still have a huge stake in the business. This dialogue makes me laugh for that reason - we have the mob to thank for olive oil's prominence in America, and Woltz uses the fact as a grounds to say a pretty odd racial slur. Nice!
The price you pay for putting dirt on the Godfather. Poor Khartoum.
Of course this is just a line from a movie - one that released in the early 70's, at that. But this doesn't mean that it does not reveal something larger about our food. There are certain staples that can be found in most American pantries that we understand are not really 'American', stuff like olive oil or soy sauce. But then there’s a grey area. Soy sauce has been around for a long time - most of the world’s soy is actually grown in the States - but we still don’t consider it ‘American’. We reserve that designation for the foods that define our culture, the ones that are inherently American. Yet when you look past the marketing ploys and regurgitated Food Network content, even the most quintessential American foods are actually imported or stolen ideas.
When you hear 'American' food your mind probably goes to things like pizza, fried chicken, hamburgers and hotdogs (stereotypical, yes - but c’mon, where else would the fried Twinkie have come to exist?). Admittedly, many of these foods became prominent after arriving in America. But each dish can actually be attributed to a different country, pizza being the most obvious of the bunch. Hamburgers and hotdogs both come from German tradition, the wurst being the inspiration behind the hotdog and the hamburger being a classic dish from, well, Hamburg. These dishes were adapted to suit people’s taste in America; your typical New York style or Chicago tavern pie (not deep-dish - never deep-dish) has little to do with pizza from Napoli. The same basic pattern can be observed in a myriad of foods. But sticking to the aforementioned pyramid of American cuisine, fried chicken still remains. And this is where things get complicated.
Fried chicken exists in many countries in some form, yet it is most commonly associated with America (the Colonel is from Kentucky, after all). But fried chicken is not a product of American ingenuity. It has a much darker history than that.
Chicken is essentially the world's ubiquitous meat-source, and for good reason - chicken’s inexpensive, easy to raise, and is permitted for consumption by most religions. For these same reasons chicken became one of the few proteins accessible to African slaves who were abducted and brought to the Americas. Some of the more 'forthcoming' masters (an antithetical term in itself) allowed slaves to keep their own chickens. Those who were not granted such liberties were provided a lesser equivalent; nearly all slaves received 'leftover' cuts of meat from their masters - hooves, ribs, jowls and the like. Enslaved cooks (most of them women) invented ways to transform these cuts into something tender and delicious - we can thank these same cooks for many of the fine dishes that we today call 'American'. Fried chicken eventually joined this list. It's a simple preparation, one that enhances chicken’s flavor without relying on overly long or complicated cooking techniques like braising. This made it popular amongst those slaves who were permitted to have chickens. Eventually, white bourgeoisie members developed a liking for fried chicken themselves. So who was responsible for preparing fried chicken for upper class citizens, slave owners and their social circles? You guessed it.
Slaves carried the brunt of the harvest and were then subjugated to prepare said products in the kitchen. Fried chicken became popular rapidly, the dish gaining popularity as black slaves developed their recipes in and out of plantation manors. After the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, one would assume that African Americans would no longer be responsible for building Southern cuisine from the bottom up. Not the case. Instead fried chicken continued to be associated with black people. Many freed slaves took advantage of this association and sold fried chicken at markets or train stations in order to support their families economically; these vendors were commonly referred to as 'waiter carriers'. Some of these businesses saw considerable success, and so fried chicken was further catapulted into 'American'/’Southern’ cuisine. Those early vendors and their enslaved ancestors, relegated to cooking by their masters, never did receive credit for paving the way to chickendom in America. Instead, white members of Southern high society like Mary Randolph began profiteering off the recipes African American chefs. She and others like her began publishing cookbooks which contained their 'own' recipes, most of which were actually stolen from the cooking traditions of generations of African American chefs.
And just like that, poof! Fried chicken became 'Southern’ food - *totally thanks to white people!* The labeling of fried chicken as ‘Southern’ persists today, though in reality fried chicken and most Southern cuisine has its roots in West Africa. One can only imagine the wandering & smiling American tourist in Senegal, sitting down for a quick bite to eat and ordering the local specialty, only to taste that first spoonful and be taken back to their Southern roots. They might ask to speak with the chef, saying to them, "Who taught you to make shrimp n' grits? Are you from the South?", to which the Senegalese would answer, "Why, my mother taught me. I've never been to America."
As this is the case with most American food. Our culinary traditions were claimed by America post-de-facto. It was slaves from West Africa and those who came afterwards who created our culinary traditions. Sustenance foods like fried chicken, barbecue, cornbread, and more can all be attributed to black cooks who, willingly or not, perfected those recipes long before white Americans ever did.
The issue persists today. African Americans are mocked today rather than accredited for their unanimous contributions to American cuisine, which have instead been accredited to white entrepreneurs such as Harland Sanders (yes - the Colonel himself). Black people continue to be negatively associated with fried chicken and other foods, hence the racial slur 'fried chicken & watermelon'. In some cases crude caricatures of African Americans are used in advertising for fried chicken restaurants - the logo for Chicago's own Harold's Chicken Shack restaurants is modeled after this regard.*
The entire narrative sucks. How such a simple dish came to be so misunderstood can only be attributed to America’s ongoing systematic oppression of black people. Any white American can go to a restaurant (sit-down or drive-through) and enjoy a piece of fried chicken without worrying about the stigma associated with it. Meanwhile black Americans have to deal with some bullshit stigma when trying to do the same.
*Fortunately, these restaurants are almost entirely black-owned, and although the branding is still offensive, the restaurants themselves benefit the ethnic group responsible for fried chicken's popularity)
This is just one of the stories behind those racist terms based on food. Each one carries its own ugly history, albeit to varying degrees. Though Mexican food is not always 'authentic' in the U.S. and is often mocked - hence the racist expression 'rice n beans’ - we at least attribute 'Mexican' food to the people who brought it here. Still, this dynamic has its own issues. America’s all-encompassing labeling of ‘Mexican’ food alters the perception of what Mexican food really is - a sophisticated, inventive, and regionally diverse cuisine. Take the Tostito chip. I challenge you to find any other brand of tortilla chip in the main aisle at your local grocery store. Those flimsy Tostitos rounds became so popular because they are made here, by Frito-Lay. This means they're cheap, widely-available, convenient - and American! It's clear that Tostitos have little to do with Mexico or Mexicans. In Mexico, chips (totopos) are typically made from fresh tortillas after they have gone stale. The tortillas are cut into triangles and fried till crisp, making them substantial enough to dunk into a salsa without losing their crunch. This is a far-cry from the Tostito chip.
Yet we in America are content eating Tostitos and slurping down premixed frozen margaritas - 'Mexican' food, to many of us. You're totally allowed to enjoy those things - hell, I've been known to from time to time - just as long as you recognize that these foods are not truly 'Mexican'.
America often steals and markets certain foods in a different light (i.e. Frito-Lays bastardization of Mexican totopos). In other cases ethnic foods are simply the byproducts of popular demand. Take the frozen margarita for example, or simply take a gander at what's served in Chinese restaurants in America vs. in China. Immigrants adapt their cuisines to serve the clientele in their destination market. Again - you can hardly blame them for this. They went into business to support themselves and their families, after all. If anything, these foods should be appreciated for what they are. These unique culinary traditions are born from extraordinary circumstances. They are worth valuing as things on their own - but they should not be mistaken as being inherently 'Mexican' or otherwise. Just as we shouldn’t be content considering fried chicken (or any Southern dish for that matter) inherently 'Southern' or ‘American’. Because it's simply not true.
Next time you sit down to enjoy a meal - be it American, Mexican, Italian or Chinese food - take some time to reflect on how 'authentic' an experience you're really having. Is there more that can be said of what's on your plate? What other factors might have had an impact on its makeup? Consider it. Consider the people, the cultures and the movements that dictate what we put on our plates and why we put them there. This doesn’t mean that you should not enjoy food for what it is - otherwise, why eat? Food is delicious. Food is comforting. But most of all, food is complicated. Think about your food.