"Frogleg" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 28 Nov 2003 10:40:01 +0100, Ian Hoare
wrote:

Salut/Hi Frogleg,
le/on Thu, 27 Nov 2003 15:08:56 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

*is* a large topic for discussion. However,... should I be denied
cooking or tasting Vietnamese or Chinese or Italian or Mexican food in
the US simply because I don't travel to Vietnam or China or Italy or
Mexico? I *know* it's going to be different

No, but you should be aware that what you're eating is vastly different.
Better perhaps in some respects, less good in others.

OK. I know it. It still doesn't mean that 'ethnic' food (home cooking
or restaurant) should be distained as "watered-down" (not your words,
but another poster's). I expect by now that *all* of world cuisine is
far different than it was 20, 50, 100, 1000 years ago. Does it include
chiles, potatoes, tomatoes, squash, or corn?


I just got back from a little trip to Germany. You can't get German bread
here in the States; it is as simple as that. That is what the original
poster and Ian, I'm sure, meant. They didn't say that there exists a
Platonic Form for German bread or Thai cuisine that remains the same for
eternity. I think you are the one insisting on some strict definition for
"authenticity," not us.


[...]
Well, I'm *not* someone paid to travel for food or any other purpose.

Neither am I, but I'm sufficiently interested in it to have been prepared
to
put aside all the money from ou B&B for two years, so that I _could_ find
out for myself.

This is a pretty exclusionary view. Good for you, if you enjoy and can
afford travel and pursuing your culinary interests. However, *don't*
feel free to rain on my parade when I 'discover' Ethiopian cuisine in
a DC restaurant or delight in my first green papaya salad. Don't tell
me what I eat and enjoy is crap, and I really *must* go to New Delhi
to taste *real* curried shrimp or Jakarta for rijstafel.


They have good rijsttafel in the Netherlands too! Just like there is
great Chinese, Thai, etc in the US. So, no, you certainly don't have to
travel to those countries. But if you are eating at some place that I know
serves crappy, Americanized fare, I will tell you it is crap. If I met you
on the street, I wouldn't, but this is a newsgroup inhabited by people with
a keen interest in Asian food; if you want to go to Olive Garden instead of
learning of a great authentic Italian place, you needn't read food
newsgroups with its food nerds to find out about the Olive Garden. I'm sure
Olive Garden might have some tasty dishes, but I'm not sure what your point
is in arguing on a food NG that we are elitist or something for prefering
other places.

If you don't like travelling, fine, but the reasons you have given for it
("I am a product of my culture"; "I'm not paid to travel") do not hold
water. The US is an dynamic, immigrant country and has had a long history
of travel (Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Mark Twain, Hemingway). There
were Americans most everywhere I went to in Frankfurt and Maastricht. Like
Ian, I am not paid to travel either. It is not expensive, especially to
someplace like Mexico. Some people just prefer buying expensive SUVs and
the gas needed for it, than taking a trip abroad.


[...]
Nice for you. I don't doubt your experience and delight. Just don't
tell me my *own* delight is inferior. I *know* a supermarket pineapple
isn't the same as what's on the breakfast table in Hawaii (which I
*have* sampled). But it's pretty damn good. And I'm happy to be able
to buy one. If a Vietnamese restaurant opens in my town, I go. I don't
say, "oh, well. This isn't as good (or bad?) as food in Vietnam.
Sigh." I say, "wow! This tastes terrific." I don't feel punished by
not having aged roosters available. I'm not sophisticated enough to
appreciate many of the fine distinctions. Just let me enjoy spicing
with lemon grass and cilantro, making my own (adaptive, probably
inferior) red chile sauce, and chicken broth. And visits to
non-authentic restaurants.


Methinks you are fighting against a straw man of your own creation. I
recently wrote here that American chickens, especial breasts, taste like
cottony crap compared to Mexican chickens. I think we should feel punished
for what has happened to our chickens the last few decades. That doesn't
mean you shouldn't eat American chickens (except for maybe the breasts), but
I doubt anyone felt like I was making them feel inferior when I wrote that.

Peter