Food and nation, or consuming ethnicity, or some other interesting title

jonquil had an interesting comment on my giant rambling post on cooking Chinese food (among many other things) and on being Chinese, which made me start wondering just why it is that I take offense to suggestions to cook American food. And my knee-jerk reaction is taking offense, which is sort of strange once I sit down and think about it, given that I eat pretty much every kind of food and enjoy going out and hunting for new foods to eat. I think if people were to suggest things like a great recipe for pad thai or for palak paneer or for hummus, I would be much more amenable.

I tend to associate food with home (most people do, yes? or just me?), and I associate home with Taiwan. I also associate Chinese food with being Chinese. Maybe I am saying things that are completely obvious to everyone, but I only started really thinking this out today, so it's still interesting to me to watch the paths my brain takes. Probably more importantly, I associate American food with being American, which is a big part of my mixed reaction.

So for anyone who had no idea: I was born in the States and lived here until I was eight, which is when my family picked up and moved to Taiwan (where my parents were born and raised). Contrary to now, I hated Taiwan the first few years I lived there. It was hot, it was humid, and everyone spoke a language I sucked at (Mandarin Chinese, though now I think it is shifting more to Taiwanese, which I don't even have a rudimentary understanding of). And everyone ate really weird food. I don't actually remember that much of what I ate back in Colorado, but I'm pretty sure we didn't go out to eat in Chinese restaurants all that often, given that there weren't all that many back then. In Taiwan, my parents were probably overjoyed to finally be able to eat good Chinese food again, and we went out to Chinese restaurants a lot. Also, there just weren't as many western restaurants back then, much less American goodies like Doritos or Oreos. Anyhow, there was much culture shock on my part, and food was very closely associated with this. One of my very first memories of Taiwan is being taken to a traditional marketplace in which various vendors had hunks of raw meat lying out, whole chickens and ducks, fish and etc. It was very dirty, very noisy, and very strange. The one thing I remember most was the stand that sold frogs (for eating), and half peeking to grimace at the frog vendor taking out live frogs and chopping them in half for consumption. Needless to say, I was a very grossed-out kid.

My parents tried to get me to eat slightly more traditional Chinese food in Taiwan -- frog legs (my mom lied and told me it was chicken), raw clams, jellyfish, etc. My mom would always ask me to just take one bite, and if I didn't like it, I wouldn't have to eat it. If she ever did manage to get me to take a bite, I would almost certainly say I didn't like it if only for the principle of the matter. There were specific foods I liked, especially spring rolls and hu fun (flat rice noodles), but usually I would throw screaming fits about going to eat at Chinese restaurants again and again and again. I wanted to be an American girl, not a Chinese girl who had to eat weird food, and as a reflection of that, I wanted to eat things like mashed potatoes and pizza and macaroni and cheese.

After a few years in Taiwan, I started becoming more and more used to it and liking it more. But I think the general feeling that America was a superior country was a fairly common one in my school (bilingual, set up just for people like me, whose parents had moved back from abroad with their possibly non-Chinese-speaking kids). Shopping in America was better, the politics and government were better, and it was all in all a better place to live, so lots of people said. Plus, Doritos. And while this was going on, I was starting to get more and more attached to Taiwan, and so there was this awkward position of trying to defend it while not really being a part of it -- much as though I love my school, it was definitely a bubble of expat kids. ( Cut for length )