Hi readers,
This week’s post finds its inspiration from Sociologist Gary Alan Fine’s paper, “The Presentation of Ethnic Authenticity: Chinese Food as a Social Accomplishment”.
For an essay written in 1995, there are insights that are worth discussing today.
Through in-depth interviews with staff at Chinese restaurants, Fine examines how authenticity is crafted and experienced in these establishments within a mid-sized U.S. town.
Fine contends that authenticity is socially co-created by both the consumer and producer in an economic exchange. I’m writing out his findings and a few other things that I think are fun and interesting, hehehehehehehehe.
The full paper is fascinating and deserving of its own read, if you are interested in this type of thing. I’m not sure why you are here if you wouldn’t be.
Anyways, you can find a link to the paper here.
Authenticity as TRUTH!!!
Gary Alan Fine defines authenticity as “something that is accepted to be true to itself.”
This is already feeling a bit circular. How do we know that something is “true to itself”?
When determining if something is the “real thing”, when we ask the question “Is this true?”, we rely on a set of criteria—often unconsciously—that convinces us of its authenticity.
This mechanism, of course, varies broadly and is usually an approximation. The art dealer knows that such and such strokes are clearly the mark of such and such artist, a body builder’s physique is a sign that his workouts are producing the intended results, the excellent grade I received on a test is an indicator that I understand the material.
We’re convinced by these signs that it is telling us something truthful to some extent. Internally, we’re constantly negotiating without even realizing it.
Fine writes that the task of determining the authenticity of ethnic food functions no differently. Ethnic food in America being “true to itself” means that it is prepared “using the same ingredients and processes as found in the homeland of the ethnic, national, or regional group.”
The best example I can think of is your favorite childhood meal.
It’s surprising and wonderful that most of us are able to immediately know when it is prepared “authentically”, which is just a short-hand for saying that it is true to the flavors, ingredients, textures, and smells of what how it tasted—back in the day.
Sure, there’s a possibility that we might be wrong about what the dish actually tasted like when we were children, but like the scene from Ratatouille, our tongues have a hard time lying. It’s a type of knowing that transcends the murky waters of rational proofs and logics and presuppositions.
With a childhood meal, we discern truth by eating it, and this only works when you’ve had the dish before. You know the signs.
Americanized ethnic food, however, requires a modification of ingredients and cooking processes, preventing it from ever being “authentic”.
If authenticity in the form of ethnic food, let’s say Chinese food, can never be actualized in the US, why are so many people convinced that they’ve had the real thing, when they don’t “know” the signs?
Authenticity as Economic Exchange!!!
There’s a tension between what authentic Chinese food really is and the Americanized ethnic cuisine. For ethnic food restaurant owners, bridging this gap is essential to their financial success.
In the US, authenticity is validated when it is sold and exchanged as a product.
Chinese restaurant owners understand and carefully curate this economic transaction to convince the non-Chinese customers that their restaurant is indeed “the real thing”.
They give exotic names to their restaurants—Golden Dragon, Silk Road Kitchen, Lotus Garden—to create a hyperreality. The decor, the menu that only presents food that White people would enjoy, down to the little Buddha you see as you swing open the door are all things that restaurant owners do to convince you that what they sell is authentic.
People in the US who’ve never had Chinese food see and experience these signs, and what they’re buying is an alternate, reductive vision of the Chinese experience that’s been carefully curated to satisfy them.
Customers wrongly assume that authenticity is an inherent quality—like you have it or you don’t. They’re getting duped. They don’t see the invisible labor that goes into making it feel like that.
This, of course, only works because of what scholars call the Voyeuristic Gaze.
Authenticity as Identity!!!
When an American (anyone, really) enters an ethnic restaurant, it’s not just about satisfying physical hunger.
It’s identity work.
It’s identity work.
It’s identity work.
Scholars call this the voyeuristic gaze, “the internal desire of consuming goods outside the bounds of domestic life as a way to experience adventure”. Fine describes how the “construction of authentic food responds to the American quest for authentic experience and identity transformation”.
Furthermore, this unassailable belief in one’s personal identity as adventurous often clashes with their actual comfort level. In other words, just because you say you like ethnic food doesn’t mean you actually will.
Again, this is where restaurant owners are also WORKING to satisfy the customer’s physical hunger and identity-related desires.
Because restaurant owners have to prioritize financial stability over a cultural one, it is better for them to reduce their restaurant, their food, and ultimately their culture/identity in order to survival and “make it” in the US.
In the context of the US, so much of ethnic cuisine is still contingent on the satisfaction of the White person at the expense of the dignity of the ethnic person.
Story time.
My friend’s parents owned a local Korean market in Grand Rapids, Michigan. One day, this White couple ordered sul-lung-tang (ox tail soup), a Korean classic. To their dismay, they felt like something was off about it, namely, that it was very unseasoned. My friend recounts how they were struggling to eat the soup, and eventually started adding bimbim sauce to the dish to make it palatable to their tastes.
Eventually, they brought the dish to the store owners and complained that it wasn’t “seasoned” to their liking.
Little did they realize that the broth of sul-lung-tang comes unseasoned, and you’re supposed to season the dish yourself using the salt, pepper, and green onions on the dining table.
The desire to eat something “as it’s supposed to be” requires more knowledge and education than just eating it. You have to know how to eat it, and this takes cultural capital.
Access to this type of cultural capital in Michigan 2008 meant that you were Korean, had Korean friends, or had the nerve to go up to the Korean auntie and tell her that she made a mistake in a dish you’ve never eaten before.
My friend and I still laugh about this story now, but without the ethnic person putting in extra work to curate the eating experience, the voyeuristic gaze falls apart, they’ve failed to live up to their identity as an adventurous person, and they’re not coming back to your restaurant.
There are real costs. Ethnic people’s livelihood depends on maintaining the voyeuristic gaze.
You get the point. Food is always identity work.
Authenticity as Bounded!!!
Because culture is dynamic and always in flux, authenticity is always constrained by some aspect, like time, geography, personal preference, things of that sort.
I argue that the “essential qualities” of what makes food authentic is most intellectually honest after you’ve qualified your terms and boundaries.
For example, a lot of people think that what makes iconic “Kimchi” Kimchi is its bright red color that comes from red pepper flakes.
But this wasn’t always the case. In fact, it’s relatively modern.
Ji Hye Kim (at Miss Kims Ann Arbor) says in an interview that the emergence of Red Kimchi in Korean cookbooks “was only until 200 years ago”.
What many of us have taken as essential was at one point, unimagined.
This might seem unnecessarily picky (pun intended) to you, but because food is always identity work, I think people take things really personally and so they get really tense and frustrated when they feel as if someone isn’t creating something “authentic”.
It feels like an attack because they misrepresented you, like they got something about your identity fundamentally wrong.
My point is that before you decide to cancel them, I think it’s important to do your own research and ask questions in good faith to assess so that you don’t 1) make a fool of yourself or 2) fall into the trap of believing that your definition of an authentic “food” remains unbounded by time and space. Even the tiniest bits of humility and curiosity goes a long way.
This is also why I’m okay with calling Panda Express “authentic” in the sense that it’s authentically Chinese-American. Taco Bell isn’t Mexican; it never will be. And that’s okay. It can be authentically Mexican-American, and it’s really good at doing that.
This type of perspective allows food to exist without stigmatizing or insulting those who eat or don’t eat certain cuisines, and that’s a good place to start.