I'm wondering whether anyone knows what we mean by the word "authentic" when it applies to food. Here are a few of the occasions that have made me think about it:
1) The other day, my wife (who was born and raised in Mexico) was upset that Trader Joe's labels one of their cheese blends "Mexican." "This cheese isn't Mexican," she says. "Wait a second," I ask, "What is Mexican cheese? I mean, Mexico is a pretty big country and I'm sure Mexicans have a lot of types of cheese. Do they also have an authentic, representative cheese?"
Of course, Trader Joe's must mean something by "Mexican" and my wife was clearly disappointed. But what is Mexican cheese?
2) Not too long ago, a colleague of mine from German Studies (so, someone who knows German culture well) took me to the local German restaurant and introduced me to German cuisine. "This," he said, "is traditional, relatively authentic German fare." Of course, not knowing anything about German cuisine, I had to take him at his word. I enjoyed it and learned a little about German dishes. Then, a few weeks later, a German friend of mine was complaining about how bad the said restaurant is. "People do not eat this in Germany and it is really more of a caricature of Germany," she said. However, there is a sense in which schnitzel and bratwurst are traditional, authentic German dishes - they certainly aren't Japanese - even if people have stopped eating them regularly in Germany.
So, do people have to actually eat the dishes of a certain country regularly to count as authentically from that country? Mexicans don't eat burritos, or at least not what we gringos mean by "burrito" - unless, of course, they know they can make a buck selling them to us.
3) Last, for now, I've noticed that whenever people say how much they like a Mexican restaurant in Williamsburg - or anywhere for that matter - they always qualify it by saying, "It's the most authentic Mexican around." And there must be some competition I'm unaware of because most of the restaurants put "authentic" next to the type of cuisine they're selling. But I simply don't know what people mean. First of all, would anyone put "inauthentic" in front of the cuisine they're selling? If not, what does "authentic" add? Second, as with the cheese, I don't know what they're referring to when they say "Mexican." If you travel to the Yucatan, you will eat (or not eat) one thing; if you travel to Guadalajara, you will eat something different; if you travel to East LA, you will eat something else. Third, there's no way of holding a restaurant accountable. There's nothing that would count in favor of the following complaint to the manager: "This isn't authentic!"
I'm wondering whether by "authentic" people really only mean that they like it and when a restaurant says they're authentic whether they only mean that you will like it.
Whatever "authentic" means - and I'm hoping you can help me out with this one - one thing is for certain: it depends on where you are. My wife insisted that "Mexican food" in LA wasn't Mexican - that is, until she moved to Williamsburg. And, whatever we mean, we can't be referring to the place (as a whole), or a way of preparing the food, or what you will find in the country on a Tuesday night on a local street. So what do we mean, if we mean anything at all?
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
"Authentic"
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ReplyDeletelike you said, food you may have in one part of mexico won't necessarily be the same as something you'd eat in another. is one more mexican or authentic than the other? not in general, no. i'd say it's relative to where one grows up, or at least what they grew up eating. why do i like la abeja's enchiladas? because they're a lot like what mom used to make. does that mean it's more authentic than another mexican restaurant? better than the rest? no, i like it because i grew up with similar tasting cuisine.
ReplyDeletePart of the trouble, I think, is that people are often just wrong when they claim that a restaurant is authentic. Restaurants want to get customers, and they know that a lot of customers like to feel like they are getting an authentic experience, so they put that word on their signs. But, of course, that doesn't make the restaurants authentic. This fact -- that people and restaurants can be wrong in their claims of authenticity -- means that those claims are at least a little bit more robust than claims of personal preference.
ReplyDeleteWhat more is there? Well, I think there are at least three separate things someone might mean when they call a restaurant authentic:
1) The restaurant serves dishes that you would find if you went to the part of the country that the restaurant represents.
2) The food at the restaurant actually tastes like the food you would eat if you went to the part of the country that the restaurant represents.
3) The dining experience that the restaurant provides is the same sort of experience that you would get if you went to the part of the country that the restaurant represents.
These three are related by the idea of "faithfulness to the original", and they differ only in what dimension is said to be faithful. An Italian restaurant in America that served the salad after the entree would be more authentic, along the third dimension, than one that didn't. A Mexican restaurant in America that refused to serve burritos would be more authentic, along the first dimension, than one that did. A Thai restaurant whose "five stars" was really spicy enough to kill you would be more authentic, along the second dimension, than the weak Thai food around the corner.
People who search for authentic ethnic food in America want, among other things, to have an experience that will resemble, as closely as possible, the experience -- types of food, taste of food, way of eating -- that they would get if they traveled to (at least some region of) that country. Authenticity, then, allows you to travel somewhere exotic without paying for a plane ticket.
As for your wife, I suppose what she is looking for is a way of traveling home without the hassle of actually going home.
I think Neal's onto something. The fact that a restaurant (or a blend of cheese) can be wrong when it calls itself authentic is reason to think the word means something stronger than "like." But I think this is true only if we can say what it is getting wrong or right. Neal's suggested criteria might help, but I think they might also take us further away from figuring out what we mean with regard to the majority of restaurants, since by those criteria (or some set of them), almost all "authentic" restaurants are wrong for calling themselves that - and would have to be.
ReplyDeleteAs for (1), the point of the German restaurant example was that Germans don't regularly eat " traditional German dishes." Also, because we're talking about authentic in the US, we have to keep in mind that for many cuisines, we're talking about authentic "Italian-American" and "Mexican-American" and "Chinese-American," not Italian, Mexican, or Chinese. That's both a point of history and because most Americans simply wouldn't eat what most Chinese eat.
As for (2), this sets the bar really high, since a lot of what makes the dish "taste" like what you get somewhere else has to do with local ingredients that go into it. So, in that regard, it's simply impossible (or really, really expensive) to make food taste like "the original." We also find this in the pizza wars - it's all in the tap water, right?
As for (3), this is perhaps the hardest and worst of all, since what ends up happening to restaurants that attempt to create "the experience" of being in Mexico, Germany, or China is that they end up becoming (sometimes gross and offensive) caricatures of "the original." What is it like to be in Mexico or Thai or China? Whatever it is, it's not trying to be like it's in Mexico, Thai, or China - and that by itself makes it a very different sort of experience. Besides, most restaurants simply can't be like the original in experience - for one, they would never pass the US health codes. (One advantage of the originals, if you ask me.)
So, I think Neal's criteria may be right and may apply to some restaurants in the US, but I think they suggest how few and far between those restaurants are, and how most likely the majority of us don't know about them or aren't welcome to them - often because they're really small, hidden, and in many cases aren't English-friendly. And I think the converse is true as well: the larger, more popular, and more friendly a restaurant is, the more likely it represents an American spin on the cuisine, or a newer global spin on the cuisine, which may or may not be authentic.
The ingredients!
ReplyDeleteEven in Southern California, with our 99 Ranch stores (Asian markets) and our mercados, I still hear cooks complain how the ingredients aren't right. A girl I was once dating was ecstatic to have found stinky tofu shipped in from Taipei (her home). When we tasted it, she apologized quickly and admitted that the stinky tofu at a nearby restaurant was better. She might have botched the dish, but she regularly prepared other Taiwanese dishes that were really good.
The Philly's Best restaurants out here blow. They ship in ingredients from Philly—Amoroso rolls, cheese, Herr's chips and other Philly food stuffs. It's not know-how: Robert and I figured out how to make damn good cheesesteaks in one evening of experimentation.
So, somewhere in the ingredient shipping process something goes wrong. The problem might be as straight forward as access to ingredients. Some Thai restaurants use jalapenos and non-asian eggplant because they either can't find the right ingredients or are too expensive to provide. (Perhaps ingredient substitution is why some Riversiders prefer Royal Orchid to Best Thai). Alternatively something happens in the packaging / shipping chain. Amoroso sends half-baked rolls to Philly's Best so to provide a "fresh" product. Ever wonder why store bought tomatoes are relatively tasteless? They are picked way early and shipped across the country (state, world) in trucks where the tomatoes ripen en route because of the time it takes to reach their destination and the ethylene used to artificially ripen the tomatoes. A store bought roma tomato tastes nothing like those grown in my backyard.
The packaging and preserving ingredients probably does a lot of damage to the authentic taste. (The substitution problem is probably not as much the source of inauthenticity: I can make damn good vegan bread (and did for Thanksgiving)—you couldn't taste a difference between the white loaves made with butter and milk and their vegan counterparts.) And I don't mean old-fashion methods of preserving—salting, drying, pickling—because those processes change our expectations...it's "new" food. When we eat kimchi, beef jerky, or jam we don't expect it to taste like cabbage, steak, or fruit. The problem lies in these odd chemicals companies use to enable the food to be shipped to markets far from the farm.
Perhaps, restaurants that want to be authentic should create farms and mimic the regional conditions from which their cuisine hails. Obviously, this is problematic...
(Two final comments about authenticity. (1) I am scared to go back east because I've been spoiled by California supermarkets: a lot of variety and local, somewhat fresh produce. I've seen the avocados in Erie and Philly...they're dismal. (2) Ever think about the authenticity of Italian pasta dishes? Pasta (noodles) were imported from China and tomatoes came from the New World. Here's the epitome of the paradox of authentic.)
Thanks, Ramsey. These are helpful.
ReplyDeleteLet's not forget that authenticity, at least in this context, is a matter of degree. Restaurants in America are only *more or less* authentic, depending on how faithful they are to the real thing. A Chinese restaurant that gives you chopsticks is, other things being equal, more authentic (along dimension (3)) than one that only provides forks.
ReplyDeleteSince it is a matter of degree, the term is used most helpfully (I think) in contexts of comparison. When restaurants claim to be serving authentic Mexican food, they should be interpreted as claiming only that the menu, food, and/or experience they provide is going to make you feel more like you would feel in Mexico than would, say, Taco Bell or Chevy's. Or perhaps all they are claiming is that the proprietor of the restaurant is at least making a sincere attempt to give you something that approaches the real thing, whereas other so-called Mexican restaurants don't even try.
(By the way, I don't agree that talking about authentic Italian food in America must inevitably be interpreted as talking about authentic Italian-American food. A restaurant that only gave an "Italian-American" experience -- whatever that is -- would for that very reason be less authentic than that hole in the wall Italian restaurant that makes you feel like you are in a little grotto looking out over the Mediterranean. In any case, it's always important to ask: "Authentic to what? Italy? Or only Little Italy?" Ramsey's final comment about cross-temporal authenticity seems important to this, too.)
ahhh philosophy :) like religion and politics, i dont wanna talk about it. Wopper Wednesday is a more appealing topic :D why cant everyday be wopper wednessday. Or taco tuesday, why do we have to wait to tuesday to have tacos at a cheaper price. wtf? lol.
ReplyDeleteOoff. Authenticity. That is a tough one. Part of me just wants to reply that the term can do a million different things, and that its significance depends on the context. Of course, that would be boring, perhaps more so for some of you than others.
ReplyDeleteI like Neal's comment that some people are just wrong when they claim that their food is authentic. But I would perhaps prefer to say that they are either lying or being duplicitous. On some level they could justify such description, but most of the times they are just marketing. "Authentic Tuscan cooking" sounds a lot better than "good Tuscan cooking."
On a deeper philosophical level, I think we all want to go back home, so to speak. Hence Neal's comment about doing it without the hassle of flying. I will not pursue the significance of that urge, which strikes me as vast. But I will say that the home we want to return to is slightly different from the place where the finest sun-ripened tomatos and the people who cook them reside. After all, they have that same urge.
Hence my creeping desire here in Germany to go to McDonalds for an authentic American hamburger.