 |
| Source |
No wonder then that the New York Times has a lengthy write-up: Asian-American Cuisine’s Rise, and Triumph. It is about "America’s long, complicated love affair with Asian cooking":
As a nation we were once beholden to the Old World traditions of early settlers; we now crave ingredients from farther shores. ...True, right? What a melting-pot this country is!
These are American ingredients now, part of a movement in cooking that often gets filed under the melting-pot, free-for-all category of New American cuisine. But it’s more specific than that: This is food borne of a particular diaspora, made by chefs who are “third culture kids,” heirs to both their parents’ culture and the one they were raised in, and thus forced to create their own.
The report continues:
Could we call it Asian-American cuisine? The term is problematic, subsuming countries across a vast region with no shared language or single unifying religion. It elides numerous divides: city and countryside, aristocrats and laborers, colonizers and colonizedSo, at this point, I should lower the boom.
The "Asian-American" discussed there has no place for Iran. No Kazakhs, No Nepalis. It is all about the "Asia" that Americans refer to: China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand. Not even Indonesia!
The American (mis)understanding of the world is unique in many ways. Reminds me of another map on this theme:
 |
| Source |
If only we would spend some time and energy understanding the world! Oh well; hasn't happened before, and ain't gonna happen in trumpistan!!!
2 comments:
Oh God - My belly is aching after seeing the second map. Hee Ho Ho.
Yes, you have blogged on this before. Of how Asia really means east Asia in the eyes of many. When the Asian Games are held, you see three totally different blocks in view. One is the East Asian bloc that is, as you say, what is considered Asia by Americans. The second is the South Asian and Middle eastern Bloc , where there is a fair degree of commonality in looks, food, and even religion (either Hindu or Muslim). And then there are the Central Asian countries from the former Soviet Union who look and feel Caucasian. Maybe Asia needs to be divided into three continents.
That picture of the Asian Games is completely spoilt these days by a fair sprinkling of Africans representing Bahrain , or Qatar, or one of the smaller Arab Middle Eastern Countries who win every event they compete in by a mile !
It is amusing when Burma is considered to be in that "Asia" when Burma, with its shared history with India and the bastard empire, er, British empire, is so much South Asian.
Post a Comment