Have you ever heard America called “the great melting pot”? Spoiler: it’s our food.
But really… my wife prefers Tex-Mex to more “authentic” Mexican food, and all of her grandparents were from Mexico, so I figure we’re in the clear.
Now, I do prefer Chicago pizza while she prefers New York style. Food might be a statement of culture, but deliciousness transcends!
EDIT: Nobody should attack pineapple pizza unless they’ve tried it, or unless they already know they won’t like the delicious taste. If you tried it on a “rubbery” pizza, you went to the wrong place.
EDIT EDIT: Wait, people don’t like fettuccine alfredo? What do you use for getting your fix of white sauce and noodles?
On the subject of Italian inventions being appropriated, and on the general topic of this thread, I have a bizarre question for you. Maybe the question is a half-joke. Maybe the question is a full-joke.
Does it bug you to see the term “fascism” applied to everything? Random example: MI2 calls Phatt Island a fascist dictatorship.
Is it more weird to call a rubbery dish “pizza” than it is to call a discriminatory opinion “fascist”?
Some might find silly we consider pizza as a cultural symbol, but it is indeed part of our culture. Fascism is not silly, but IS NOT part of our culture. Fascism is not something we are expected to safeguard as italians. As long as the term is used in a negative connotation, you can use it freely by me, and face the consequences. Conversely, it would be offensive if anybody would try to use it in a “cool” way.
I sincerely don’t know what a “Chicago style” or a “New York style” for pizza is supposed to be. And I think it is quite understandable.
I live in Italy, so I can have the real thing. I don’t know how italian emigrants were able to approximate the result with the ingredients they did find in America, because I have never tried their food.
Same for Fettuccine Alfredo, that in Italy we -simply- don’t have. I’m not saying I DON’T WANNA TRY Chicago style Pizza or Mac and cheese. I’m saying that in Italy I can’t find 'em, and I can have the real thing instead. And chances are that the next time I’ll be in Chicago or in New York I will prefer to taste some local “real thing” that I can’t have at home, instead of trying some imitation of italian food.
When I travelled in China I enjoyed many incredible and obscure foods, and I surely wasn’t looking for those fake spring rolls I can find in Italy. They can be delicious as you want when bought in the little shop around the corner in your hometown when you’re not in the mood for cooking, but it’s not what I’m expecting when I’m travelling.
What I find curious about my fellow american friends is that many of them cannot understand why they don’t find “spaghetti meatballs” or “New York Style pizza” here in Italy, and how is possible that we can enjoy “La Cage aux folles” more than “Birdcage”, even if Robin Williams and Gene Hackmann are just as great actors as Ugo Tognazzi and Michel Serrault.
Oh, I almost forgot: “pepperoni” is not an italian word. It might resemble “peperone”, which is the italian word for “ball pepper”. So don’t ask in Italy for “Pizza pepperoni”, unless you want a pizza with some ball peppers on it.
And if you go into a bar and ask for a “latte”, no barista will have a clue you want this:
If one day, by random chance, you were to take a bite of an Italian-not-really dish and discover that you prefer it to the food immediately accessible in your neighborhood, would this threaten your personal cultural identity as an Italian?
Ah, you are dodging! If it is true that your personal cultural identity is invested in preferring actual Italian food over imitations of Italian food in other places…
…then are your taste buds acting as free agents, or are they slaves to your image of yourself?
EDIT: Essentially: Do you like authentic Italian food because you like authentic Italian food (and being Italian yourself is a coincidence), or do you like authentic Italian food because doing so makes you feel more genuinely an Italian?
Well, the thing is not that we may ruin the foundation of our italianness.
But it’s not Italian pizza and that can’t be denied. It’s an American dish. Italian-American if you want, but still American.
So, if I try a Chicago pizza and think it’s great, I’d say “hey, you know what I love about American cuisine? Chicago pizza”. And if someone says that’s Italian cuisine, I’ll say it isn’t. It’s not that hard to understand.
Also, let me tell you that I don’t like the smug tone you’ve been using. We’ve been all discussing politely and in a civilized manner, then you barged in mocking other people’s cultural identity… that’s a bit of a faux pas in my opinion.
Is it? We’re talking about FOOD. Not race, gender, politics, or religion. We’re talking about literal taste. That’s a very interesting turn on “what is offensive”, isn’t it?
In regards to smug tone…
If you so strongly identify food with culture, for realsies, then you’ve basically indicated that my Mexican wife prefers food that is a bastardization of her culture. Phrases like “the real thing” have been thrown around, as if the alternatives aren’t actually real, or inferior. So it kind of felt like I was following the tone set in the thread?
If I had this perspective of “food = cultural identity”, then I might have taken your words as a statement against her Mexicanness. But that would be silly, right? This is food.
Isn’t it funny to reflect on? Literal taste. Basil vs. pineapple becoming as heated as a medieval argument on transubstatiation.
EDIT: I do get bellpeppers on my pizza as often as pepperoni. They have a specific texture to them.
Actually, for some people there is more than that. Let me offer a different perspective.
In many places, food is part of tradition and it contributes to define the identity of a group of people. Some dishes are linked to religious events, others become part of daily routines to the point of having acquired a ritualistic connotation and others are simply linked to centuries-long habits.
Deviating from an original recipe is not uncommon but the concept of “right” recipe/ingredients does exists in people’s mind and adhering to it is a way to honor tradition and to feel part of that culture. Some people might find this adherence a bit rigid and others would simply ignore any deviation from the norm.
…then we shouldn’t forget that people’s behavior is influenced by how accustomed they are to the melting pot phenomenon that was mentioned before. Not all places have experienced the same level of cultural diversity and people’s reactions to changes to traditional recipes may vary a lot.
That’s an hyperbole, but I invite you to observe people’s reactions and to ask yourself if you are sure that you haven’t adventured into a similar territory.
EDIT: Oh, I forgot: there is also the symbolic meaning of a dish. Sometimes they are considered and used as symbols of a culture.
If you read a claim from New York or Chicago at being the world capital of pizza, and that makes you feel your own culture is misappropriated and negated… if you feel that your culture is responsible for “safeguarding” the global awareness of your food and what it means…
Then I encourage you to explore the reality of cultural/racial groups who feel similarly about music or hairstyles that originated from them and have become a part of their own cultural identity. With the extra facet that so much of it is linked to an actual history of discrimination and oppression (including blackface shows) against them.
If you react to the claim “New York pizza” with anger and cultural offense, then why should we expect differently from a specific group of black people when they look at white faces with hair contorted, playing a bastardization of YOUR culture’s music as if it were their own?
I think we should recognize those white performances as a type of raggae, just as the New York and Chicago dishes are a type of pizza.
EDIT: Some googling reminds me that reggae is specifically Jamaican or arguably “Caribbean”, and there is a bit of argument in regard to non-Caribbean reggae. Not just the skin tone but the appropriateness of authentic reggae lyrics (examples I read involved Ethiopia and the fall of Babylon) to the individual singer, or on the flipside the question of whether music without that content is genuine reggae.
I get your point and I’m aware that people can welcome or reject something depending also on how strongly or detached they feel about different topics.
Still, I think that your comparison isn’t correct, because rejecting something on a personal level doesn’t imply advocating for that something not to exist for those who like it, which is what happens when you cancel a concert.
Sure, that’s fair. But there’s something to think about if you were to hear someone say, “That’s not really reggae” or “that’s cultural appropriation”, and that was my point. I think.
We are going almost completely off-topic, but at least the tone of the conversation is returning into acceptable boundaries and is not just mere provocation. Btw, I’m thankful that the “fascism-provocation” was quite self-contained.
No. I said I tasted pizza from USA. Not specifically the new yorker one, but I’d have no problems. But I’m sure next time I’ll be in NY I’ll look for something spetial that I can find there and not at home, so I won’t have pizza. Is that strange?
Yes. It is. And there’s no need in discussing it. I can make some sparkling wine at my home, and it can taste good. But I can’t call it Champagne. And it would be ridiculous if I claimed that my home town in Italy is the “Capital of Champagne”.
This is the difference between what your taste buds say and culture.
And, I’m sorry, the comparison between music and food doesn’t fit.
In the last 40 years, in many countries of the world, much has been done to safeguard small realities from the melting pot.
The melting pot is important, but saving small valuable cultural experiences is important too. Maybe more.
Everywhere I travel to, i like to experiment. Experiencing the culture of the place is part of the marvel of travelling and learning. And food is a very important keystone in this research. So I prefer to “risk” and try something my taste buds might not appreciate at first, than going in the first fast food or pizza house just to remain within my comfort zone.
And if I can do that, it’s just thanks to the regulatory institutions that through certifications give the rules for producing and naming typical specialties.
All this work adds great value to the product.
And this is the meaning of “cultural mis-appropriation” in this case.
You are free to take the first ingredients you find at your local supermarket and make a pizza. And you’re free to make a good one, too.
But ignoring completely history, tradition, and the work of other people about it and claiming you are “the capital of pizza” is negating culture, and is also a bit ignorant.
Oh, and all of this has nothing to do with raggae music. Sorry, but the comparison simply is wrong.
For what it’s worth, I meant no provocation from it and apologize since it resulted in such.
Would it work better if you thought of it as a different name? Like… American cheesebread?
Because this is a consideration: New York style American cheesebread IS an example of “something special that you can find there and not at home”. It’s on every list of foods associated with New York. You would be denying yourself a regional dish for the sake of semantics.
Okay, but we wouldn’t get that answer from a considerable number of Jamaican reggae enthusiasts. Your comment about “ignoring completely history, tradition, and the work of other people” hits remarkably close to what I’ve read.
No problem, the self-containment said it all, I appreciated that.
Ok, I perfectly knew my argument had this pitfall. First, no problem for me to call it “pizza”, if not for else, for the sake of simplicity.
There will be surely a moment in my life I’ll taste some “special pizza” there, but you know. I’m not in New York every weekend. I prefer to run out of things I have never tried before going for an american pizza.
If you allow me a joke too, I might say it won’t take me a lot, given the culinary tradition in the USA
It is different, since the “melting pot” in music has taken another direction. Contaminations are an essential ingredient in the birth of new styles, and every style has so many subgenres that nowadays it is practically impossible to define a specific artist or ensemble with a single word.
On the contrary, the good thing about the music is to make your cultural research starting from a specific artist and then exploring forward or backwards the tree of cultural contaminations, discovering more and more different music.
In food and wind culture we had the problem of the flattening and globalisation, the impoverishment due to bad imitations and so on. So there was the need to safeguard and protect the roots from disappearing (old recordings of music doesn’just disappear).
But I’m free, if I want, to go to a famous chef fond with contaminations and experiment also in that direction.
And conversely, I am free to research and look from old recordings of jamaican raggae music from the 30es, no problems.
We’re just discussing completely different things.
Yeah, sorry to break it to you, but food IS culture, especially for Italy and other places with a strong culinary tradition.
The fact that it isn’t for the US doesn’t mean it isn’t somewhere else.
This is another thing that’s typical American. You said “all her grandparents are from Mexico”, so it kinda implies that her parents were born in the US and your wife was born there too. So… well, she’s American of Mexican origin.
But anyway… we’re not talking about preference. We’re talking about claiming that “Chicago is the pizza capital of the world”. Chicago pizza could be 100% better than Neapolitan pizza, that doesn’t change the fact that pizza isn’t a Neapolitan dish. I mean, sorry @Gffp, I prefer Roman pizza. But I wouldn’t say “yeah Rome is the pizza capital of the world”.
Not strange to me. America has countless regional styles of pizza and they mostly hold no interest at all for me.
That said, as a New Yorker, I have a special spot in my heart for NY pizza which is as I’m sure we can all agree is the one true pizza, Naples be damned (jk love Neapolitan pizza)
So, you’re kind of into the fine details now. If it matters… her mom was born in Mexico but raised in the U.S., while her dad was born and raised in Mexico and lived there until about 35 years ago? She speaks Spanish when in the company of her father or in the company of various aunts/uncles, but more of an English-Spanish mix when around only her mom. My reference to her grandparents specifically was because they lived their full lives in Mexico, and she would visit them there.
It’s kind of a fine line when you live relatively close to a border and have identity-based ties in multiple directions. I think it was Gffp who warned against the error of equating the political state of Italy (1861) with the cultural reality of being Italian, and I imagine there are likewise Italians who have moved across a border into a nation such as France while still thinking of themselves as Italians.
In that vein, my household would interpret a statement like “she’s American of Mexican origin” as a widely gross oversimplification, and that’s even before one factors in the continental identity issues surrounding the word “American”!
. . .
More importantly:
Man, that means you aren’t playing the game! Have a little fun and cheer for your food team!
Unrelated: In a different reality within this multiverse, tomatoes never became popular in Italy, and the phenomenon known as “American pizza” is a disgusting bastardization that uses tomato sauce, flying in the face of the cultural history and heritage of one true Italian pizza. Boo, American tomato sauce!
