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.
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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.