On the globalization of food and privilege in the kitchen

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On Eater.com this week, Navneet Alang wrote this required-reading article and says: “We are living in the age of the global pantry, when a succession of food media-approved, often white figures have made an array of international ingredients approachable and even desirable to the North American mainstream — the same mainstream that, a decade ago, would have labeled these foods as obscure at best and off-putting at worst. This phenomenon is why you now see dukkah on avocado toast, kimchi in grain bowls, and sambal served with fried Brussels sprouts. It’s a kind of polyglot internationalism presented under the New American umbrella, with the techniques and raw materials of non-Western cuisines used to wake up the staid, predictable flavors of familiar Americana.”

This article (and the recent food blogger drama, which was as much about “selling out” as much as it was about who, ethnically, gets to be famous/make money off their persona after years of women of color being in the kitchen while white women upfront get to reap the benefits) has got me thinking a lot about who gets to share what message and evangelize publicly which ingredients. 

Who benefits and profits from the globalization of cuisine?

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