Please delete my comments . Thank you . No talking about religion or politics on food websites . Same as in a bar . No offence .
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Yeah, pretty much. 
But this gets to something else. Food you prepare at home is different than food you order at a restaurant; presumably one of those differences is b/c of the obvious exchange of $. I can understand why Eddieâs parents said what they did since my parents have the same attitude.
The thing is, for those of us of a different generation, born and raised in American, does the same thing apply (needing to charge less to âcompensateâ for our âforeign-nessâ)? And, if it doesnât or shouldnât, then why are âweâ blaming the white chef for charging as much as the market will tolerate for ethnic food (to get back to the LA Weekly article)?
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I donât think the LA Weekly article addresses pricing. That doesnât mean itâs not fair game here, but I think the article was primarily concerned with who is cooking/selling/representing a particular type of food.
yes, but if it is primarily street food, then by definition itâs going to be lowest common denominator in terms of ingredients - and price; i would expect the concept of gourmet street food (priced accordingly) to be a non sequitur to the local ethnic demographic. if i can afford kobe beef, iâm sure as (insert long string of expletives here) NOT making tacos (or burgers for that matter) with it.
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Ah. Got it.
And seriously. The âKobeâ hot dog. Someone please explain why anyone would make an emulsified sausage out of Kobe beef.
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the idea of grinding up a piece of perfectly marbled beef would confound me if iâd never witnessed other types of conspicuous consumption.
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Are you preparing Haiga rice these days or have you gone full brown?
I find the haiga rice pretty okay!
perhaps âgentrifiedâ would be the kindest way to put it.
a $5 taco made with prime rib better be good. but iâd rather have 3 tacos made with slowly cooked & marinated cheek meat. with a little bit of onion and fresh salsa on a freshly made tortilla for the same price sitting in my car parked in a non-gentrified neighborhood. but thatâs me.
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Kind of curious, are you a white person that lives in a neighborhood loke WeHo?
[quote=âfrommtron, post:45, topic:4931â]
most asian vegetables are actually grown following organic practices. They just arenât certified. They are also usually incredibly fresh. Most of the greens that I buy at 99 ranch are super fresh.
[/quote]True. Same is true of some farmers marketsâ vendors. Itâs not easy to get certified. Some small, pesticide-free farms donât bother. Agree about 99 Ranch and am lucky to live close to one.
[quote=âfrommtron, post:45, topic:4931â]
As a Vietnamese person, that might be hard to deal with. Why is it that it took a white dude who is a privileged member of the dominant culture to bring legitimacy to this food?
[/quote]You answered your own why. Because they are privileged members of a dominant culture. However, by raising the profile of the food (pho) you can argue that everyone gets to comes up. Carpe diem.
[quote=âfrommtron, post:45, topic:4931â]
Good stuff about Mexican & Bayliss. I have absolutely no doubt that Rick Bayless is where he is because heâs a white, Mexican food expert. Heâs probably aware of it as much or more than we are. I donât say expert lightly though. Heâs respectful and serious about showing the indigenous side of the cooking, and most of his recipes are tediously from scratch.
Again, maybe his profile has enabled Mexican chefs and cooking to be taken more serious. I donât want to get all heavy. But there might not have been an Underground Railroad without the help of quakers. There goes that rub again.
Happy cultural, ethnic, politically correct food eating!
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I hear yaâ
Nah. He actually believes being white has disadvantaged him in his cooking career. "A few minutes later, Pashman asks Bayless, âDo you think that at times in your career it has been to your advantage to be white?â
âI certainly have never thought about that,â Bayless says. (The luxury of being able to never think about race is pretty much the essence of white privilege in America.) He goes on to say that he âput everything together from nothing, basically, just like any other entrepreneur.â
Bayless not only refuses to acknowledge any sort of privilege, he goes so far as to say that he is actually the victim of the evil, mythical (dun-dun-dunhhhhhhh!) reverse racism.
âI know that there have been a number of people out there that criticized me onlyâonly!âbecause of my race,â says Bayless. âBecause Iâm white, I canât do anything with Mexican food. But we have to stop and say, âOh wait, is that plain racism then?ââ
I wasnât able to download the podcast. A partial transcript and your link (with a few quotes) was my info basis. I try not to base my opinions on editorials.
It was disappointing to read the quotes from Rick Bayless. Maybe his âsensitivityâ doesnât extend to self-awareness. I understand his defensiveness. But he should not have used the word âracismâ to defend it. Itâs tempting, but donât.
Iâm not surprised Rick Bayless denied any controversy. Sports news is an interest of mine. His older brother, sportscaster Skip Bayless, says their childhood was rough with alcoholic parents. He says Rick doesnât acknowledge any of it.
Rick Baylessâs opinions are based on his own struggles and reality, like most of us. And as @paranoidgarliclover wrote, (paraphrasing) some of the shit comes from our own tribe.
A quote from the piece.
âBayless is widely admired because heâs done so much work to study Mexican food and culture. He speaks Spanish fluently. He spent five years living in Mexico, visiting every state in the country. And he returns to Mexico every year with his restaurant staff for research and training.â I think thatâs pretty great. What else do you want?
As far as the âbi bum bundtâ guy goes. I have no idea who he is, and wonât put him in league with Rick Bayless. Radio (podcast) people are required to fill silence. They say ridiculous things. His comment was really dumb. I understand the concept of freedom from cultural confines, but donât say âbetterâ dude!!! Itâs not fucking better.
If I donât respond right away, donât think Iâm ignoring replies. I just want to get back to talking about food.
Happy eating!
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I think that a chef of any ethnicity should be able to cook whatever food he or she wants. âSensitivelyâ approaching the cuisine? The question is whether their food is good or not. And that largely depends on how well a chef can distill the distinctive characteristics of a specific dish or cuisine and express them in his or her food - whether thatâs putting his or her own spin on it while staying true to the original, or recreating it âauthenticallyâ (that is to say in broad terms, to make it indistinguishable from good food cooked by a native chef).
I donât believe that thereâs one definitive approach, but it depends on each cuisine. E.g. if a chef is cooking a Chinese banquet, he or she probably wants to pay attention to Chinese customs and beliefs about âtemperature,â progression of dishes, textures, types of flavor pairings, good or bad âluckâ pairings so to speak, etc. It doesnât mean that he or she has to follow the Chinese tradition to a T, but the food should demonstrate an understanding of the original characteristics of the dish or cuisine as a whole. So if a white chef makes a peking duck with a balsamic apricot sauce instead of plum sauce, thatâs fine. Or ceviche with Japanese fish and mitsuba and sudachi instead of cilantro and lime, thatâs fine, too. Thereâs room for more experimentation, of course, but itâs usually only successful if the new dish expresses the relevant characteristics of the original dish and avoids doing things which are contrary to the cuisine.
E.g. at Manresa, which is a good restaurant, I was a bit surprised to have a dashi soup with blistered shishitos. The shishitosâ char had a bitterness that was reminiscent of an overcooked dashi. Dashi cooked at too high heat becomes bitter, and that is contrary to the aim of a good dashi at the beginning of a meal in Japanese cuisine: clean, pure umami with depth and smooth, complex layers. A bitter dashi is sharp and âshort,â for lack of a better term. Here, this pairing was a rare miss by a good restaurant that very often pays homage to Japanese cuisine; even if Manresa is certainly not a Japanese restaurant, their nods to Japan (and the food of other nations) is at times quite overt.
On the other hand, I think of Saison - again, not a Japanese restaurant, but the inspiration and technique borrowed from Japan is at times very intentional (their ike-jime sashimi dish, kintsugi plates, hoshigaki persimmon hanging tradition, etc.) Their diamond turbot sashimi dish is to me one of the clearest examples of a Japanese-inspired dish executed so authentically yet uniquely by a non-Japanese chef. The âwasabiâ was made of kaiware daikon stems and jalapenos, and it had the clean, effervescent lift like that of fresh wasabi. Jalapenos and slightly bitter kaiware stems worked because California wasabi is notoriously âspicierâ than that from Japan. A âsaltâ of dehydrated roasted wakame was a perfect accompaniment, because the diamond turbot (karei) is notable for growing in umami as itâs chewed, and roasting the wakame concentrated that flavor. A vinegar of roasted bones was almost like a light ponzu, so the dish reminded me of the Japanese dish âhirame no usuzukuri.â The fish was killed ike-jime, rendering a slightly crunchy âhagotaiâ texture that gave a pleasant sensation as you chewed. Delicately floral chrysanthemum (shungiku) matched its crunchy texture. Here, Saison showed masterful understanding of âhazawariâ mouthfeel and how the flavors should build in such a sashimi dish. Yet the dish was uniquely Saison - not only because ingredients came from its own garden and local network of fisherman, but also because every dish there incorporates their live fire. Here, it was the dehydrated wakame âsaltâ and the roasting of fish bones, and in an otsukuri dish in Japanese cuisine, fire is not usually applied. Naturally, it was presented in a gorgeous glass box done kiriko - a glassware style which references Western technique applied to Japanese dishware.
Also, there are times when chefs of one ethnicity can cook something from another ethnicity and make their own type of cuisine. E.g. Itameshi, which isnât really Italian, but itâs become itâs own thing. Part of that success is expectation setting. Itameshi is a form of Japanese inflected Italian food, largely pastas and pizzas with Japanese ingredients, but itâs not represented as being authentic Italian food proper. Or look at creole French food from New Orleans.
There is another issue of how deferential or dismissive the dining public at large can be towards a local chef cooking a cuisine thatâs not of his or her original ethnicity.
I wish the food was what spoke loudest not only on the plate but also in the media - the background of a chef doesnât need to be so much of a focal point, and in my opinion, any chef should be able to cook the food of anywhere, and if itâs good, it should be accepted as such.
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Donât they use scraps that go to mince anyways for said hot dogs?
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they might. i certainly wouldnât want to see it wasted. but your question suggests that you missed the point - anyone whoâs routinely got scraps left over from kobe beef isnât part of the demographic that would find the concept of gourmet street food a non sequitur.
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Iâll also add that my main issue is not that those things exist (Kobe/wafting burgers and dogs) but rather anyone would pay extra for the privilege to eat it. There is literally no point to doing so.
But to each there own!
While I agree, I do think Wagyu beef tartare can be very good. Better than very good, in fact.
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i suspect itâd be comparable to any sort of negitoro type of offering.from the sushi realm - but there youâre using toro thatâs been scraped off the inside of the skin and thereâs really not much else you can do with it. if you had wagyu beef trimmings due to similar circumstances, then by all means go for it.
Has anyone actually ever made a real Kobe hot dog or burger?.. Iâve never seen one. Only fakes that cost like $16, when a real one would have to cost more like $160