tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post6442809988346051407..comments2024-03-28T18:59:21.172-04:00Comments on Face to Face: Culinary wokeness as imperialist tastemakingagnostichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-43812900175418481862021-10-29T15:34:00.735-04:002021-10-29T15:34:00.735-04:00By the way, a good portion of that "Italian&q...By the way, a good portion of that "Italian" olive oil was from Turkey.<br /><br />I doubt much if any Iranian product is sold as a product of Turkey, if that were the case I would've also expected more Iranian product to be sold in Turkey directly but except for watermelons that are unseasonally early I don't know of any significant products.<br /><br />For me, the reason Turkish cuisine is not regarded as friendly as it should be is that Turkey still has some autonomy that it exercises from time to time at least once every decade, and it's culturally more alien than other western NATO partners. France has autonomy but is quite western. Korea is not western at all but has zero autonomy. Greece is only a wee bit western, but has close to Korean amount of autonomy. Some SE Asian countries are sweatshops. Turkey is neither, which in my opinion causes the coldness towards Turkish cuisine.<br /><br />Good article by the way, one thing that I always thought of was, if I ever had the ear of somebody with power within Turkey I would've suggested under-the-table sponsoring of every cuisine adjacent show (24kitchen how to cook programs to Hell's Kitchen MasterChef etc even including animes) to include at least one Turkish cuisine oriented episode. Really a good indicator and from working top to bottom maybe it'll change the behaviour of the administration towards Turkey.<br /><br />Speaking of animes, the kitchen show anime (I don't remember the name) has a crazy episode about Turkish kebab. Proud moment :DEmrah Dhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00649264377639837936noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-4602194928782355772021-10-29T15:09:42.514-04:002021-10-29T15:09:42.514-04:00I wonder if Turkey serves as a cut-out for Iranian...I wonder if Turkey serves as a cut-out for Iranian agricultural production. Iran is a geopolitical rival of the US, and suffers crippling economic sanctions, including the restriction of trade.<br /><br />Turkey is on good terms with the US, even if we don't have a full free-trade agreement with them. They're more developed, have a formidable military, huge population, member of NATO, and culturally acceptable to American and European consumers.<br /><br />So Turkey can get far more favorable terms of trade with the US / EU, as opposed to sanctioned nations like Iran. Or as opposed to lesser nations like Armenia, who have historically belonged to the Russian or Iranian sphere of influence, even if they are not weighed down by crippling US sanctions.<br /><br />It would benefit Iranian or Armenian producers to get their major exports into the wealthy, gigantic markets of the US and EU, even if it meant going through a middleman like Turkey, since the alternative is not selling their products in those markets at all.<br /><br />The Turkish cut-outs take a percentage of the Iranian profits, as a reward for serving as middlemen. They take Iranian pistachios or apricots or tea, falsely proclaim on the packaging that it is "product of Turkey," and then it arrives on supermarket shelves in the US and EU, where tons of (relatively) wealthy customers buy it.<br /><br />Most of the global trade system relies on the honor system, which has been revealed to be highly faulty in the olive oil scandal of recent years.<br /><br />Lots of "Italian extra virgin" olive oil is either not from Italy, or not extra virgin, and the labels proclaiming that they are, are straight-up lies. But those two terms garner a premium, and assuage the customers' mind about quality, so they are counterfeited.<br /><br />Likewise with products from Iran, which could never be sold in mass quantities in the US, even without the outright sanctions. American consumers are still fairly cold toward Iran, compared to their attitude toward Turkey. So, just lie about where the pistachios or apricots are from, and voila, American consumers wind up supporting Iranian agriculture, believing that it's actually Turkish.<br /><br />Turkey is already implicated in the olive oil scandal, as a country whose oil is mislabeled as "Italian" by Italian firms. So why wouldn't they play the other side of that relationship, and act as a safe, reliable quality indicator for some other nation with a shady reputation in American eyes?<br /><br />It's crazy thinking about how convoluted these global supply chains can get, due to geopolitical rivalries. But nature finds a way.<br /><br />Generally I'm in favor of restricting trade to benefit our own industries, but we don't have a natural sector for almonds, pistachios, apricots, hazelnuts, saffron, etc. It's all super-subsidized woketard Californian "farmers" who grow those crops in America, using up way too much water for almonds, for example.<br /><br />I'd rather just open trade with countries that are naturally suited to growing them, without making them monocrop exporters of course. Just being able to buy saffron from Iran, which makes 90%+ of the global production, rather than pay through the nose to buy it from countries that are not suited to growing it.<br /><br />That's another obvious example of Iranian produce getting mislabeled as, e.g., "Kashmiri saffron" in order to get around the trade sanctions, and to get around the poor reputation that Iran has in Western eyes, compared to Indian cuisine.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-5619483203181213662021-10-29T14:43:25.134-04:002021-10-29T14:43:25.134-04:00Yes, status-striving plays a huge role in foodie c...Yes, status-striving plays a huge role in foodie culture, but I'm looking more at which cuisines get targeted for the hype. Trend-setters cannot search out and hype up any cuisine of their choice, which a pure fashion cycle would allow.<br /><br />They are required to remain, at all times, within the boundaries set by the Anglo Deep State. Occasionally they're given a literal visa to travel outside of those borders, but with the explicit task of denigrating the rival government.<br /><br />Creatives are only too fit for this role. They are culturally non-conformist, which means seeking novelty outside of their own culture. But it has no specific direction, other than "not from within our culture". Fortunately for the Deep State, creatives are also servile toward authority, and they will follow any orders from their superiors about where to go and what to do.<br /><br />So they're given free reign to explore Thai food and Thai culture. Yay, no parental supervision from Mom & Dad!<br /><br />But the second they reach the Burmese border, the Deep State slaps the back of their head, and scolds them about playing with children from a human-rights-abusing household. "OK, Dad, jeez, didn't know it was so serious... I'll come home right away..."<br /><br />Dorks.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-8711306908195360682021-10-29T14:29:03.173-04:002021-10-29T14:29:03.173-04:00The Philippines broke away from our sphere of infl...The Philippines broke away from our sphere of influence in the late 1940s, after we won them in the Spanish-American War of 1898. Not that they joined the Chinese sphere or anything, but they declared independence from the US -- that was quite a rebuff of the empire, after we wiped out the Japanese Empire from the Pacific islands.<br /><br />Ditto with Indonesia being a central member of the Non-Aligned Movement, rather than an American puppet or colony. Their food never caught on here either.<br /><br />That could change as those two countries become sweatshop colonies for US manufacturing corporations. Lots of clothing and electronics say "Made in Indonesia / the Philippines" these days.<br /><br />But we are most appreciative of the cuisine from cultures that we dominated and occupied for the longest time. Being less independent, they need reassurance that we're going to incorporate them in a relatively painless way, and elevate their elites within our imperial core.<br /><br />Cultures with a more tenuous connection do not need such reassurance, so they don't get hyped up as much.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-44292980748441266542021-10-29T09:56:26.419-04:002021-10-29T09:56:26.419-04:00How about Filipino food? The Philippines has long ...How about Filipino food? The Philippines has long been an American ally, and lots of Filipinos have a strong affinity for and knowledge about American culture. Plus there are sizeable Filipino populations in a lot of big metros. But the amount of Filipino restaurants even in an area like the NY metro is small. Apart from Balut, I don't think Filipino food is all that radical to an American who enjoys other Asian cuisines so I'm surprised to find it lacking in the states compared to even something like Thai food (which you can find even in small rural towns). Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-61170011287012313482021-10-29T04:13:44.033-04:002021-10-29T04:13:44.033-04:00What are your thoughts about the intersection of t...What are your thoughts about the intersection of this with status-striving? It seems to me that most "foreign" cuisines are introduced at either the high or the low end, status-wise, not usually in the middle. There is likely something multifactoral going on here, for instance most immigrants to a new country are, even if not poor, lacking in resources and connections in the new land vs their homeland. It's much easier to open a late night kebab place, a taco stand, a curry/chinese takeaway, a pho place in a strip mall, vs opening a restaurant that is seeking a Michelin star. Too, unless the restaurant is intended for its own co-ethnics only, it has to do something to appeal to the new adopted countrymen. These people most often have no clue what the foreign cuisine is, how to eat it, etc, and there needs to be some appeal there. Usually this seems to be on price. Mexican food falls squarely into this, as does Chinese food in the west historically, Indian curries in the UK/Canada, kebab in Germany, etc. The domesticated foreign cuisines seem to focus on cheap ingredients, simple recipes and flavors, nothing too crazy to make the locals go "yuck." People at first trying the food for the price or novelty then might go on to get a taste for its unusual flavors and become a regular. <br /><br />BUT there is also the common situation where the foreign food comes in at the high end. French food falls into this category as does Japanese. Some of this is historical (the French basically invented the modern idea of a restaurant 200 years or so ago so had a head start on perfecting it) Some seems to be cultural, ie why is Japanese food in the US "classy" but Chinese not? Some of your cultural and sphere of influence theory might explain that. Also Japanese food came to the US largely not by a huge influx of Japanese people as Chinese food did, but rather from exposure of US servicemen abroad to the culture and cuisine. You see the popularity of Japanese food explode the same time as the fad for Polynesian food, another post-WW2 cultural bringback. <br /><br />You have foods that move from one category to the other too, like Italian, which only started to become "upscale" in the status-seeking 1980s. Japanese food too went more upscale during the 80s, becoming even today an archetypal status-conscious over-the-top, splurge food. The idea of a 1980s businessman doing lines of coke and sushi off a naked girl on the table exists for a reason. <br /><br />With the lack of a monoculture anymore I'm not sure any foreign foods can repeat what happened in the 80s though. Maybe the closest thing was the trend that started around the dot-com boom and peaked in the early 2010s of searching out weird, local, or "authentic" food experiences. There it didn't even really matter what the food was or from where, maybe constrained by your geopolitical fashions for in-empire and out-of-empire cultures. It was more "Hey, lets go out to eat, I know THE best authentic Thai place. We'll prolly be the only white people there, only Thais normally go there and there's no english on the menu, even better!" The status striving was more about being an insider in the know, and having the most unusual or developed tastes vs any objective things like price or the actual flavor of the foods, or the political orientation of the nationality the food is from. Vladimir Bnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-6375092024046310562021-10-28T16:45:36.397-04:002021-10-28T16:45:36.397-04:00Your points about Turkish cuisine stands, but stil...Your points about Turkish cuisine stands, but still it's getting nowhere near positive mentions when compared to for example Greek or Thai, even though being culinarily more significant or more important as an ally.<br /><br />Re: pork<br />While the stories of it takes place in middle east, Christianity as a religion was borne in Anatolia, a place with forests. Both Islam and Judaism was borne in desert where there aren't any forests. Levant coast is better than Arabian peninsula, but still. Pigs can live in non-forested environment but there is not much economic use for them there. No animal is domesticated without reason. Cattle is to store sunshine in grasslands as dairy products and meat, sheep and goat in worse and worse geography and climate to do the same, poultry for domestic waste and scraps around the house, and pigs for the stuff in forest that humans cannot eat such as wild chestnuts etc. So eating pork was a reliable indicator of us vs them for Islam and Judaism. <br /><br />my 2 centsEmrah Dhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00649264377639837936noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-72460878706629519622021-10-28T15:56:45.517-04:002021-10-28T15:56:45.517-04:00So it's mainly about intensifying the cultural...So it's mainly about intensifying the cultural division between Us and Them, and that may well map onto a competition over material resources between those two groups.<br /><br />But the materialist analysis about why some groups adopted the taboo in the first place doesn't explain its distribution or evolution.<br /><br />You see the same thing with Indo-Europeans being the Butter People, whether solidified in the west or clarified in the east. That is, as opposed to the Plant-Oil People with whom they came into contact (and competition).<br /><br />Saharo-Arabians do make something like butter, but it's by fermentation rather than churning milk and/or clarifying that churned milk. Namely, smen. That would not convince Indo-Europeans that smen-makers were true members of the Butter People mega-culture -- "it's fermented, and stinky!"<br /><br />And I don't think Saharo-Arabians use smen so much as an edible ingredient per se, as much as it is a cooking fat (i.e., to heat something up and provide lubrication while cooking). Whereas butter and ghee are supposed to be eaten as a central ingredient of the final dish, not only employed as a cooking aid.<br /><br />But now I'm getting carried away in the comments section, as usual. Maybe I'll write this up into more definitive posts later, after Halloween is over. I still have spooky season to attend to.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-53368389719783944902021-10-28T15:44:34.641-04:002021-10-28T15:44:34.641-04:00This incident made me curious about the taboo agai...This incident made me curious about the taboo against pork, which has been written about extensively already. But I don't buy the main theory, owing to Marvin Harris' cultural materialist framework. I.e., that some kind of ecological change made it less utilitarian for certain groups in the "Middle East" to stop eating pork, which they then codefied into a religious taboo.<br /><br />The ecological argument boils down to the lack of water in those places, and how water-consuming pigs are.<br /><br />But doesn't that apply to Iran, Anatolia / Turkey, and the Caucasus? They are very arid and rugged, too. And yet the Byzantines ate pork, so did the Sassanid Persians, and the Armenians and Georgians never stopped eating it.<br /><br />On the other hand, the taboo against pork is present in Ethiopia, which is not arid at all -- it's full of grasslands and savanna. And they never adopted Islam, but are Oriental Orthodox Christian.<br /><br />The taboo precedes Islam (already present in the Second Temple Jewish food laws), and was present in Syria, parts of Egypt, Babylonia....<br /><br />To me it looks like an ethnic marker for the Hamito-Semitic mega-culture (so-called Afro-Asiatic). I'd rather call them "Saharo-Arabian," but we know who we mean. From the Sahara to the north in Africa -- not the sub-Saharan regions -- and the Arabian peninsula, including the Levant. Excluding the Eurasian landmass that Africa / Arabia slammed into, creating the steep mountain chains that divide the northern and southern parts of the "Middle East" (Taurus, Caucasus, Zagros).<br /><br />The taboo was widespread in that mega-culture already in ancient times, and the ecologies are too diverse to admit a simple materialist explanation. (And we fail to observe the taboo in cultures with similar ecologies outside of this mega-cultural region).<br /><br />When the taboo spread outside, it was only through the adoption of Islam and its narrow food taboos. Iranians did not adopt Arabian cuisine wholesale -- only the taboo against pork, which is central to the religion.<br /><br />As the Saharo-Arabians encountered other cultures (e.g. the Indo-Europeans), they came to emphasize the pork taboo because that was the strongest dividing line between Us and Them. We Saharo-Arabians are the pork-proscribers, and They are the pork-eaters.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-10534503479798724292021-10-28T15:22:18.869-04:002021-10-28T15:22:18.869-04:00Turkish cuisine may not be as celebrated as Japane...Turkish cuisine may not be as celebrated as Japanese, in the Anglosphere, but it is accepted and treated positively. Doner kebab is huge in Germany, occupied by the US since WWII. A similar food from Iran or Syria could never become such a success, in Germany or anywhere else in the Anglosphere.<br /><br />We call the candy lokum, "Turkish delight". If we were averse to Turkish cuisine, we would have left the adjective "Turkish" out of it.<br /><br />We also romanticize Istanbul, including its connection to food and drink. In America, there are tons of places called "Cafe Istanbul" or "Istanbul Market," even outside of the big cities on the two coasts.<br /><br />In the US, there could never be a widespread presence of "Cafe Teheran" or "Teheran Market". Or "Cafe Damascus" / "Damascus Market". (Outside of catering to local Iranian / Syrian immigrant communities.)<br /><br />For example, in any American supermarket, the foreign section sells halva by the Ziyad Brothers importers. The pistachio flavor is called "Mediterranean" in English, but in the Arabic script it's specifically called "Aleppo style". They would never use "Aleppo" or "Syrian" in the English translation, because Syria is from the Russian sphere of influence. Hence, the more generic term "Mediterranean".<br /><br />We also enjoy the meme videos of the Turkish ice-cream servers who tease the customers by keeping the cone out of reach. It humanizes them, instead of dehumanizing their food culture.<br /><br />A lot of our figs and apricots say "Product of Turkey" on the package. That would never happen with any food product from Iran.<br /><br />In sum, Turkish cuisine is not considered taboo, disgusting, etc., and if anything has positive exotic connotations in the Anglosphere.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-65521127860913029832021-10-27T07:56:30.794-04:002021-10-27T07:56:30.794-04:00While I agree with many of the points, as a Turkis...While I agree with many of the points, as a Turkish person I don't agree that Turkish culture/cuisine is one of the accepted ones. For example I have never seen once Turkish cuisine mentioned in Hell's Kitchen for all of its 20 seasons. Bourdain did a light version of the Libya/Iran treatment to Turkey, with a sprinkle of Russian treatment due to the Armenian dude. Turkey is mentioned neutrally every once in a blue moon in popular culture, and almost never in a positive light; not even in a demeaningly orientalist tone. <br /><br />About moving to a Russian sphere of influence, it's something that can never happen. Turkey might have warmer or colder relations with Russia, Turkey is either in western sphere, in her own sphere, or a lone pariah but never within a Russian sphere. It's unnatural. This is not coming from a specific political wing within Turkey but I'm making a more or less universal and neutral observation.Emrah Dhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00649264377639837936noreply@blogger.com