Residents and visitors alike know that venturing into the culinary universe of Mexico City means entering exotic worlds reflected in the foods of distant places, which, represented in restaurants, constitute a small piece of the country of origin for many foreigners living here. What makes a cuisine authentic? Do these approaches to so-called ethnic cuisines (simply by virtue of their origin) through these restaurants truly tell us about their food? How can we determine that a cuisine is authentic? Does the fact that the person preparing the food is from the cuisine’s place of origin guarantee its authenticity?
I recall a Thai restaurant where seeing the cook’s Asian features and some items written in Thai script on the menu gave me a false hope about the authenticity of the food served there. My encounters with Thai, Indian, and Ethiopian food have been in restaurants that claim to be authentic, where the owners are from those origins, but their locations are set in cities different from their home countries.
In this globalized world, food is one of the most commonly used examples to explain, in a way, the availability of the same products in many latitudes around the world—for example, pizza, sushi, and our beloved and always highly regarded taco. But we also know that these foods are adapted and tropicalized in various ways: it is likely that a Japanese person would not recognize sushi with cream cheese, roasted chilies, and other concoctions as a preparation identifiable as Japanese; likewise, Mexicans do not recognize the taco with crunchy tortilla, cheddar cheese, and other creations from taco chains in the United States.
Furthermore, flows of people and migratory trends allow for the transfer of techniques, products, ingredients, and consumption habits to become a reality. Today, more than ever, we can taste dishes that, in other times, would have been impossible to know, except by actually traveling to the place of origin of the dish.
Let us consider the cuisine of a country. A simple plate of beans, for example, essentially involves the same preparation steps as the beans eaten at home or at a neighbor’s house, but there is a world of difference. Some voices will say that authenticity has to do with origin, but then, would a Mexican chef with a French restaurant in an Anglo-Saxon country be a culinary fraud? This is the greatest controversy surrounding the celebrity chef Rick Bayless or culinary writer Diana Kennedy: they are people who, traveling throughout the national territory, have dedicated themselves to collecting and researching Mexican culinary techniques and have successfully brought them to the neighboring country. Staunch nationalists will say this is an affront to the homeland.
Without patriotic zeal, the appreciation of Mexican cuisine as such is a separate topic, but this phenomenon of external valuation is the product of a complex historical past. Moreover, it is not that we lack talented cooks abroad, but unfortunately there are evident factors such as limited social mobility, lack of connections, or little access to entrepreneurship opportunities to develop their full potential.
Authentic cuisine, or even an imitation with adaptations, allows us to travel through flavors. By learning about other techniques and preparations, we can understand aspects that shape the identity of a people or group. When we grasp a bit about these differences and similarities in relation to our own, we broaden our worldview and could even become more tolerant toward diversity.
Originally published in El Economista
#culinary #cuisine #Gastronomy #Gourmet #heritage
— This article was originally published in Spanish by Liliana Martínez Lomelí. Translation generated with AI from the original text.