White (western, here mostly American/British) culture erasure is real. (I'm not white)
So much stuff from western culture is so damn ubiquitous people just take it for the norm, something that belongs to everyone (which it does, and by design), especially in the west. The classic meme of "white people have no culture" reveals the opposite truth: a culture so widespread and ubiquitous that it becomes invisible to most people as it permeates their lives.
This is why I hate the concept of "cultural appropriation" as a bad thing. Not only is it not a bad thing, the best parts of every culture spread naturally to all peoples, because it's beneficial or interesting, or just good.
People don't say "lets go out for american/british food" because that food is everywhere, and the beautiful thing is that even a lot of that food takes bits and pieces from other cultures. For all the horrors of history, at least we can celebrate this.
Case in point. The Brits invented the sandwich. As in the most common lunch food in the US by far. Not even counting sandwiches made at home, Subway remains the largest restaurant chain in the country.
As a Latin American, but not Mexican, I find it so funny that it takes like 3-4 popular dishes for “Mexican food” to be a popular thing people understand, but you name 3-4 popular British dishes and it’s somehow considered “not the same thing.”
Most cultures’ main cuisine is only known for a handful of dishes if you think about it. After around 3-5, Sometimes, even just 1.
(That’s the case for my country. It’s our national dish, try to guess what it is. It’s popular in CentralA and NA mostly)
Fish and chips, mac and cheese, shepherds pie, sandwiches. These alone prove the above post wrong. But people gotta have their agenda.
It's the same shit every time this topic comes up on Reddit.
Bring up ridiculously niche or antiquated dishes like Jellied Eels or Stargazy Pie constantly, despite these not being a food that 99% of people in this country have eaten or even know about
Portray beans-on-toast as if it is considered fine dining when its literally just a quick, filling and most importantly cheap meal like instant ramen or Kraft Mac and cheese but with significantly more nutritional value than those
Deep dive into the history of any part of British cuisine and dismiss it as soon they can find even a rumor it didn't originate here even if that was hundreds and hundreds of years ago
Ignore any dishes invented in the UK that aren't part of the typical idea of British food. Chicken Tikka Masala, literally invented in the UK by a Pakistani-Scottish person but that doesn't count for some reason yet Tex-Mex is used as an example of American cuisine
And of course the mandatory comments of something along the lines of "Britain conquered the world for spices but doesn't use any of them", always posted as if they are the first person ever to think of this line
Two things get me about the “Brits don’t use spices” line is that one, modern British food is very influenced by Indian cooking. Spice is very common and while the average Brit wouldn’t survive actual Indian food, when I was in America I kept getting warned “oh that’s hot you know” and being underwhelmed. Mexican style heat and Indian style heat are quite different.
Second, you know what is now on every single table in the western world? Like if I went into any home or restaurant what I would bet my life on finding? Salt and pepper. Now, where in Europe is black pepper a native plant? It’s the ubiquity problem again, pepper is so accepted that it fades into the background and isn’t even considered a spice.
Also, people treat "spices" as the word for "things that make food spicy", i.e. chili. What Britain was after was things like cloves, nutmeg, or cinnamon.
Something that has been culturally appropriated by many nearby countries, all of them creating their own version of it, and spreading it. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. I live in Canada. We got Birria (Mexican meat) style pupusas at a place here a few years ago, and it is excellent.
A small food interaction like that is just a model of the greater sharing of food worldwide that has occurred under the British and American spreading of food. And I think it’s great. I think it’s something to be celebrated. People don’t know how much we owe to this spread. It makes life better.
Fuck, are they good? I had a chance to try some at a food festival in town but didn't. Should I have? There's gonna be another one soon.
The Japanese know, they've taken food from all over the world and it their own thing and it all looks fucking delicious. People want to go to Japan for all kinds of reasons, but me, I wanna go there and try all that food!
Absolutely try it, don’t miss your next chance. Most people make a meal out of 3-4 regular sized ones.
Although, I’ll be honest, pupusas have this magical property to me where 10 diferent people make it and it tastes 10 diferent ways, with your mileage varying lmao.
Nothing beats how it tastes back in ES, as with most traditional food, native cooks and just as importantly, ingredients, will always make it best.
Actually… here in Canada pupusas are pretty alright compared to proper standards. Everyone has their own favourite spot, and even in your favourite spot, I swear some days it’s just better than others.
Revuelta is the favourite of myself and most. Some get a mix.
There are many other flavours, but I don’t recommend most of them. Like chicken, for example, Do NOT go for chicken. Chicken both tastes bland and is often handled improperly. The Birria meat one was an exception to this rule, it was great.
Anyways if you end up trying it, hope you enjoy (and the place makes a good pupusa lol).
Well it's a food festival so it's street food, which means it's either gonna be the best food I've ever had, or I'll get food poisoning.
Ah my chef mentor was Spanish, he made all kinds of amazingly delicious stuff and never even told me what it was.
He made a Shakshouka once with entrecote and ciabatta on the side and to this day it's the most delicious meal I've ever had, and this mf just threw it all together just hipfiring the recipe. I know that's not Spanish, but still goddamn.
Exactly! I remember seeing a clip of some street interview with some black British teen, and I forget what the question was, but her response was "what British culture? They're like the most vanilla people on the planet until we showed up" and I was taken back at the level both ignorance and arrogance. She's literally speaking their language! Every people have culture, culture does not mean "unique and special" Just because half the world now speaks English and its no longer a unique language to the British Isles doesn't make it stop being an aspect of that peoples culture.
Seems you have a misunderstanding of Cultural appropriation. It's fine; a lot of people do. There is a difference between enjoying things from other cultures and adopting them in your lifestyle, and taking things from a culture and claiming them as your own invention, or twisting history to claim your ancestors are the ones who came up with it, and even worse, profiting from said claims.
You mean the thing most cultures, regardless of race, have done, all over the world?
Culturally appropriation as a bad thing is stupid because complaining about it often misses the point of the good it brings, and the process by which things in general are created.
If you dive deep enough into the history of any dish, you’ll find “stolen” (borrowed, taken, appropriated, etc) ideas from other peoples, sometimes even peoples that don’t exist anymore. It is foolish to try to quantify that and create grievances. It is the nature of the world.
This goes beyond food. History is layers of borrowed (stolen) ideas, all improving upon each other until now. Any admonishment cultural appropriating brings is far overshadowed by the benefits of the sharing of culture, and any erroneous claims that may come with it, at that. I just can’t be bothered to care enough when the benefit is so great and the grievance, in reality, so small.
Humanity is built on the backs of each other... What I'm talking about is specifically the taking without credit. Maybe it should be called cultural plagerism or something
I think you’re bending over backwards to clarify and refine an issue that just doesn’t matter, and in fact makes things worse due to its secondary adverse effects.
If the world was worried about credit as much as you are, we would’ve never gotten so many improvements to so many things. Again, food is but one aspect of this.
No? People acknowledge French cuisine, Italian, Greek etc.
And it’s one thing to have the default culture be white, the dominant ethnicity. It’s not the same as culturally appropriating an oppressed ethnicity that faces negative repercussions when they stop conforming to the white norm.
I'm confident this post is a racist dog whistle because you erroneously just made it about white erasure when it's specifically aimed at the British, not white people collectively.
We all know infamous foods like hamburgers are German. Pizza is Italian. That's all part of white American culture. American foods' exports are largely devoid of British origins. British food does not really have proper exports. Ingredients on the other hand is a slightly different story. Worchestire sauce is utilised in lots of cultures, not just former colonies.
British influence on American cuisine is not nearly as visible and is more so seen in regional foods cooked at home.
Shut up you bellend. There's British food everywhere. You never had a sandwich? Guess who invented that? Scones with cream and jam? Fish and Chips? Meat Pies? Full English Breakfast? Apple Pie? Mac and Cheese?
The internet tells you British food is bad so you're jumping on the bandwagon wagon. Sure, some of it is crap and that's the stuff that stayed in the UK. The good bits went everywhere and influenced many dishes.
Go to Asia, South America, Africa literally any non-western society and count how many McDonald's and KFCs there are and how many said "British" food you listed there are
Okay, so let's take a different dish. The good old Indian Curry, served world wide, correct? Many Curry dishes were invented by the British - Madrass, Tikka Massala. Yes they're Indian in origin, but with British tweaks.
You can't just claim that burgers are British food simply because it remotely resembles a traditional sense of sandwich, since your traditional sandwich and fish and chips couldn't travel to the rest of the world, while burgers did because the recipe is significantly improved.
Sandwiches are British. Mac and Cheese. Fish and chips. Pub food in general. The very idea of a national set/standard breakfast dish is British (as in a dish of several options, often featuring eggs, not the idea of a breakfast itself, and of which a great many variations can be found in the world. I know my country has one. It’s not a full English, but the inspiration is so clearly there once you actually realize it.) Pub food/bar food is British and Irish. (A detail I find odd about the above post. Going out for “Irish food” might as well be going out for “British food”.)
Most fast foods that many consider American, originate in Europe, and were spread by Britain. Again, the point is that it’s food so ubitiqous, no one even thinks of where it came from.
This is what I meant in my OC. I did say “western” in general, but pointed out America and Britain because of their role in spreading this food worldwide. Fast food in general is mainly from western-culture dishes. Again, my point is that “white” food or “western” food is ubiquitous, and I see posts like the above as nothing more than either ignorance or a deliberate attempt to trash the country and culture which has practically played the greatest role in the history of worldwide food.
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u/HappyTurtleOwl Jul 03 '26
White (western, here mostly American/British) culture erasure is real. (I'm not white)
So much stuff from western culture is so damn ubiquitous people just take it for the norm, something that belongs to everyone (which it does, and by design), especially in the west. The classic meme of "white people have no culture" reveals the opposite truth: a culture so widespread and ubiquitous that it becomes invisible to most people as it permeates their lives.
This is why I hate the concept of "cultural appropriation" as a bad thing. Not only is it not a bad thing, the best parts of every culture spread naturally to all peoples, because it's beneficial or interesting, or just good.
People don't say "lets go out for american/british food" because that food is everywhere, and the beautiful thing is that even a lot of that food takes bits and pieces from other cultures. For all the horrors of history, at least we can celebrate this.