Random lists

[oyceter]

Things that annoyed me

• Randomly flipping open Paste magazine to get music recs only to find people decrying a past Kanye West cover story in letters to the editor. "We don't like rap! Why do you write about rap? All this awful stuff about skanky hos!"


• Getting the Gourmet magazine to drool over the pictures and the recipes, reading the letters to the editor on a past issue on Latin@ food and culture only to find several of them going off on how irresponsible it is for the magazine to glorify Latin@ culture when all this illegal immigration is ruining the country OH NOES!

I would just like magazines for the plane ride that don't make me want to throw something, is that too much to ask?

Things that amused me

• The insane amount of people at Whole Foods. I always forget how crazy Thanksgiving here is.


• The insane amount of food pre-ordered by people at Whole Foods. I goggled at the piles and piles and piles of bags and boxes.


• Random things people left everywhere in Whole Foods because they didn't want to put them back. Included was a box of cranberries on top of a display of sodas, and a lonely yam abandoned by bottled water. It looked very sad.

Things that are happy

• Fondue for dinner! Alas, I forgot to bring my camera for food pictures.


• Thanksgiving plans! This year it is just me and my sister, and I think we are already planning too much, even though it's just a chicken, green bean casserole, dumplings, and mashed potatoes. I am dorkily excited about green bean casserole, which I have not made or really had before. Casseroles! So weird.


• I am in New York!

Comments

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

The rap thing is practically a white institution, "Let's whine about Black music that White people listen to", as if rap/hiphop/etc is really just about one thing (or as if any kind of pop music has a corner on saying not-so-great stuff about women).

Trashing Latin food though, wtf? Does ANYONE want a 'Gourmet' magazine just on German, Irish, and English cooking????? ("If it was good enough for the first few waves of US immigrants, it's good enough for us!"). I guess throwing Italy in there might spice things up a little bit!

[oyceter]

I know! I was so boggled by the Gourmet letters! I mean, possibly the Latin@ issue was very political? But still.

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

I poked around some on the internet coz I wanted to know more, and I found this discussion, which turned into being about something slightly different:

http://www.mangoandlime.net/2007/09/12/eating-in-exile-gourmet-goes-latin/

I kind of feel bad for the poor white guy who seem to have only been exposed to overly-Americanized versions of 'ethnic' foods and doesn't seem to realize it? My whole experience of Chinese food changed the first time I went to dinner with a Chinese (Taiwanese/Japanese) friend on the West Coast, who made sure we went to the International District and not just ordered for us but went up and talked to the server/cook and asked for exactly what we wanted etc etc etc. It was totally different from my previous Midwestern 'tacky Chinese restaurant' experience.

I feel like the guy in the thread is TRYING to understand, but is really not helping himself with how he's saying it. A few good meals can help him; not sure what to do with the people who responded poorly to the 'fastest-growing minority' bit (what I think people freaked out about re the Latin American food issue?) or that it's a non-French 'gourmet' cuisine?

I'll admit when a (white) friend told me he and his partner did a 'soul food gourmet' night, I was a little taken aback, and the foods they cooked seemed pretty far from my understanding of American Southern/African American cooking, but food is pretty flexible, and maybe it's me who is limited in my understanding?

[oyceter]

Oh, thanks for the link! I haven't read it yet, but word on Americanized versions of "ethnic" food. I am forever grumpy at anyone classifying stuff like General Tso's chicken as Chinese food, because no. Ditto with fortune cookies. And I have no problem with food changing, but it's how the Americanized version surpasses the original version that bothers me. It feels like another form of cultural imperialism -- it's not an unweighted change, and it isn't even acknowledged as a version of Chinese food. Sigh.