Jimmy-Bob-Jumbo > asked rhetorically throughout
message ...
["Authenticity is" text elided]

I'm sorry to see that you're no better at reading here than in sdnet.eats
but I'll make it easy on you so there's less strain this time.

Authenticity is not the base for anything except what the cook believes it
to be.

I can easily point out that dishes that substitute anything non-native
(olive oil, corn, pork, beef) for those regions a cook is attempting to
mimic; none of those dishes that used those verboten products can ever be
"authentic." Because those items were not available to Mayans or Aztecs (or
the Yuccans).

Yet each culture has adapted their cooking, acceptance of different -- and
new -- foods, methods for preparing those new foods, and manners in which to
serve them as items became more available through trade.

A culture that holds so rigidly to the past will be supplanted -- often
violently -- while those that adapt and change to suit the population stay
around longer.

The Ranger
--
When you momentarily shifted from your customary pathological diatribes [..]
I began thinking your pills were working. Recent behavior indicates,
however, that you've been breaking them in half.
-- Oorah!!, sdnet.eats, 6/19/03