For all our dietary awareness these days, one thing we don’t consider much is that our food has a backstory. While obsessing about gluten and fat and carbs, we are neglecting the culture and history and heritage. And we are malnourished because of it. Food carries much weight and power in our lives—defining who we are and where we come from. The foods that shape us as people and communities sustain us, give us life. But what happens when a particular dish or cuisine is consumed into another’s culture with no intent of honoring the backstory? What if the very dishes that shape us are stripped of their history and significance? In this episode of Persuasion, Erin Straza invites Kendall Vanderslice and Carolina Hinojosa-Cisneros to discuss the ways that food is laid to waste when its backstory isn’t preserved. The conversation touches on the role that power structures, colonization, lazy storytelling, and revisionist history affect our most beloved cuisines. Listen in to all this and more, and then continue the conversation on Twitter @PersuasionCAPC or in the CAPC members-only community on Facebook. Be sure to answer our question of the day: How are you learning to be more sensitive to cultural appropriation?
Links from The Episode:
One a Penny, Two a Penny, Hot Pagan Buns?, CaPC
Who Owns A Recipe? Race, Food And The Debate Over Cultural Appropriation, Forbes
Did you enjoy this episode of Persuasion? Give these a listen:
Persuasion 113 – How to Avoid a Scuffle in a Foreign Land
Persuasion 105 – Sandwich Snobbery & Social Exclusion
Persuasion 53 – The Self We Find in ‘Eat, Pray, Love’
Theme music by Maiden Name.