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Why Do Asian-Americans Confuse Nostalgia with Taste?
Maybe this is a northeastern thing, but I've read too many lengthy articles about how an Asian-American laments the loss of their slop for "Americanized" food and feels priviledged because they can enjoy eating sewage runoff while "westerners" can't.
The basic format of such an article goes like this:
1. Adjective heavy description of local area around restaurant of choice
2. Complaints about American food
3. Discovering the filthiest rathole of an Asian-American restaurant.
4. Loving, savoring, and having sex with the food, which is described in such a way that any sane personal would think they were eating the stuff a McDonalds would refuse to serve.
5. Five paragraphs of cultural elitism.
Every time I read one of these, I am reminded of the episode of "The Boondocks" on soul food:
In the case of Chinese-Americans, their love for this kind of food comes from poverty and famine that their grandparents and parents experienced, where they had to make due with eating what they could. For that, I'll give the Chinese credit for coming up with some quite delicious cuisine, when prepared well. However, in the poorest settings, it is not prepared well at all. But for Asian-Americans, this is the food they grew up with. They love it like any person would love their own mother's cooking. It's normal, it's understandable, it's common. Yet, for some reason, Asian-Americans think that this makes them special.
Having spent significant time in China, living on the cheap, I've gone to quite a few dumps of restaurants. In fact, I used to get take out regularly from one around the corner of where I lived in Hangzhou. I'm still digesting the chicken to this day. It was awful, sloppy, and smelled of garbage, but it was cheap. I learned to eat it and even like it in some ways. Upon returning to America, it became obvious to me that these dive restaurants praised by Asian-Americans were the exact same as my take-out place: awful. But since they grew up on this food and had spent so much time eating foreign food, they thought it was a culinary masterpiece. Myself, after months of living solely on cafeteria food at a Chinese University, going to a McDonalds in Shanghai felt like flavor paradise. However, I wouldn't go so far as to claim it haute cuisine, which is what too many Asian-Americans would do in that situation.
Oh, and to completely troll Q: A Japanese-American would never do this.
One final note, I am happy to say that I've just read a restaurant review by a Chinese-American concerning a local dump that has transformed into a respectable place for dining. And she still enjoys the food. Moreso, actually. How refreshing.
The basic format of such an article goes like this:
1. Adjective heavy description of local area around restaurant of choice
2. Complaints about American food
3. Discovering the filthiest rathole of an Asian-American restaurant.
4. Loving, savoring, and having sex with the food, which is described in such a way that any sane personal would think they were eating the stuff a McDonalds would refuse to serve.
5. Five paragraphs of cultural elitism.
Every time I read one of these, I am reminded of the episode of "The Boondocks" on soul food:
In the case of Chinese-Americans, their love for this kind of food comes from poverty and famine that their grandparents and parents experienced, where they had to make due with eating what they could. For that, I'll give the Chinese credit for coming up with some quite delicious cuisine, when prepared well. However, in the poorest settings, it is not prepared well at all. But for Asian-Americans, this is the food they grew up with. They love it like any person would love their own mother's cooking. It's normal, it's understandable, it's common. Yet, for some reason, Asian-Americans think that this makes them special.
Having spent significant time in China, living on the cheap, I've gone to quite a few dumps of restaurants. In fact, I used to get take out regularly from one around the corner of where I lived in Hangzhou. I'm still digesting the chicken to this day. It was awful, sloppy, and smelled of garbage, but it was cheap. I learned to eat it and even like it in some ways. Upon returning to America, it became obvious to me that these dive restaurants praised by Asian-Americans were the exact same as my take-out place: awful. But since they grew up on this food and had spent so much time eating foreign food, they thought it was a culinary masterpiece. Myself, after months of living solely on cafeteria food at a Chinese University, going to a McDonalds in Shanghai felt like flavor paradise. However, I wouldn't go so far as to claim it haute cuisine, which is what too many Asian-Americans would do in that situation.
Oh, and to completely troll Q: A Japanese-American would never do this.
One final note, I am happy to say that I've just read a restaurant review by a Chinese-American concerning a local dump that has transformed into a respectable place for dining. And she still enjoys the food. Moreso, actually. How refreshing.
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