Location as an Ingredient: The Authenticity Trap of Food?

Hear! Hear!

Honestly? I have largely given up on the topic. The Internet has made discourse divisive and toxic, and people use the subject to just bash my country unnecessarily.

The strangest part is people will earnestly say that British food is awful and Irish food is excellent - the two are practically identical. But at the moment, one country is considered on trend, and one is not. I am very old and remember when the opposite was true.

OliviaHoughton - I completely understand that frustration. The trope is just more of that unnecessary noise. I’ve spent years with 16th and 17th century English cookbooks, and it’s clear that the cuisine has always been a sophisticated, evolving language. Personally, I’ve never had a bad meal in the UK. I've had a blast trying out BBQ in the UK wherever I can. I still think about a simple lunch I had in Ironbridge, grilled mushrooms on toast topped with blue cheese. It was wonderfully honest and perfect in its simplicity.

Recall from your very first rhetoric course that the argument from novelty and the argument from tradition were right next to each other in the list of fallacies. Both "This is new!" and "This is how we've been doing it forever!" are common reasons, and often wrong or irrelevant.

OTOH I often scratch my head when someone posits a critic who disses something because it isn't like at home, or it isn't authentic because it's done differently over there than it is here. I rarely run into such critics. "I like it thicker" or "I like it sweeter" is more of a legit position to take, but I can understand how that often is communicated by saying that it's too thin or it's too bland. See, for example, how people (by which I mean thin women) say "It's so cold in this room with the air con running that I need to button up my sweater" when what they should be saying is that they feel colder than they would prefer, while those of us wearing office blazers and neckties (and an extra 20 pounds of flab) feel just fine with the air con running.

To be furtherly contentious, we tried a new Italian place a few weeks ago based on the website and yelp reviews, and it turned out that the staff, from top to bottom, were all Filipino. The dishes we had were all tasty and presented attractively, but the atmosphere, the vibe, was neither Italy-Italian nor Italian-American, nor even California-Italian. We probably won't return.

And regarding the British/English vs. Irish culinary stereotypes, the issue may not be the narcissism of small differences or the trending trends, but more of a dedication to cuisine issue:

I was having a plate of bangers and mash at a decent English chain outlet, and when the server checked on me, I asked for some more onion gravy, It didn't appear. When I asked again, the server explained that they would have to shave a portion off of a big frozen block of already prepped gravy and then microwave it in some container that they don't have handy for that size. So they aren't going to go through that kind of trouble. Sorry. (Shrug of the shoulders)

Wow.

The people in that restaurant's kitchen do not come across as aspiring career cooks. It's like the people in the back at a comedy club -- no one there is there because they want to become a great chef. They are there because they want to be around comedy, or they need work (obviously that would go together).

At least that's my feeling about why English dining is so much less pleasant than French or Italian, especially at a given price point. At the croque monsieur price level the English options are pretty awful. Ditto a good pastry versus a sausage roll. There have to be more than simply economic explanations for this -- something about the English food ways is wobbly. What's with the number settings on cookers instead of temperatures? It goes on and on...

IF I'm travelling, especially if I'm far from home, the food I eat in restaurants had better not taste like what I get at home. If I wanted that, I'd stay home. On more than one occasion we've enjoyed an Indian meal in London, an Italian meal in Munich, or Japanese in Vienna. I don't care that the meal isn't completely authentic to either the country I'm in or the country the dish originated in. Or we may eat in a place serving dishes typical or traditional in that country. If it is well presented and tastes good, that's all I care about. The location is irrelevant to me. And when discussing food, I don't conflate it with service. I've just as often experienced indifferent or worse service in New York as I have in European cities. An "authentic" label means nothing to me. It says nothing about its taste. Don't know what that says about me. Don't know that I care

Tldr? I don't care if it's 'authentic' as long as it tastes good.

My rule, in most cases, is "eat local, drink local."

If I wanted it to be like home, I'd stay home.

I've had good meals in every country I've visited and bad meal in every country I've visited. It's not the country, it's the restaurant and who they cater to as customers.

The only thing I compare to home is price. Not so much of restaurant food but markets, shops, etc.

I don't care that the meal isn't completely authentic to either the country I'm in or the country the dish originated in.

My two favorite restaurants in Prague were a Mexican restaurant and a BBQ restaurant, and they were Czech.

What's with the number settings on cookers instead of temperatures?

What sort of cooker have you been using? Every cooker I've ever used has temperature settings.

A lot of ovens here have "gas mark" numbers instead temperature numbers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_mark

I think the take away from avirosemail's post is that with enough determination you can always fins justification for your prejudices. Their first post bemoans other peoples lack of specific food complaints but to justify their opinion of British food they use a single example of poor service in a chain restaurant and a random thing about domestic appliance labeling.

Ah well.

Service in British restaurants is really bad. You will frequently have to chase up your order and find out it wasn’t put through, have to chase up missing items, struggle to get attention from waiting staff, have ridiculous waits for food etc etc. It’s just normal here.

What an excellent post...lots of "food for thought."

Service in British restaurants is really bad. You will frequently have
to chase up your order and find out it wasn’t put through, have to
chase up missing items, struggle to get attention from waiting staff,
have ridiculous waits for food etc etc. It’s just normal here.

I'm sorry but it really isn't. I've eaten out a lot over the years at all levels of restaurant and for the most part service has been absolutely fine, often good, sometimes excellent.

There is good food, mediocre food and bad food everywhere. I don't think the standards in a UK chain restaurant are likely to be any worse, or better, than in a comparable chain restaurant elsewhere.

I'll take criticism that gas ovens traditionally had numbers rather than temperatures when US recipe books stop using cups and embrace the amazing invention that is the weighing scale! :-)

Influencers, saying 'British food is bad' or 'British food is actually good...who knew?' has become a bit of an industry. The usual obsessions are a slightly irrational aversion to baked beans, complaints that we don't have decent mexican food and total confusion that eggs aren't stored in the fridge. There are obviously British influencers in the US posting similarly that barbecue is good, everything is too sweet and the inability to get a decent cup of tea is a crime.

One positive about British food culture is that we are generally very open minded to food from other places and are happy to adapt it to fit our tastes, we aren't precious.

Thanks, VAP, glad the dessert thread gave you 'food for thought'!

Food is a snapshot in time, a living language, constantly edited by
trade, time, necessity, and location, not a permanent rule.

Ahhhhh so true! It reminds me how often I sit down to a meal (or dessert) outside of the US for so much more than the food.... for the atmosphere, for the interesting menu, for things I've not seen before, for the people sitting around me. I will stop here, before I start waxing lyrical about my favorites spots, regardless of cuisine! PS, Uppsala has an excellent Japanese restaurant, it might be the best I've eaten outside Japan.

Emma I really disagree. Maybe it’s just Bristol but more than half the time I eat out I have to ask about my order in some capacity when I’d prefer it to be a nice relaxing experience. Recently I was told ‘dishes come out when they’re ready’ at an upmarket tapas style restaurant when chasing up items. Ok, but I clearly don’t want a plate of bread served to me when I’ve finished everything else.

I was having a plate of bangers and mash at a decent English chain outlet

Why not name it? I for one would be interested to know where it was and have some real context for your complaints. British people could have probably predicted it was going to be a bit rubbish by the name. The situation sounds like something you'd get in a pub to me, rather than a restaurant.

I can't think of a single "authentic English" restaurant near me at all. Pubs aren't restaurants. They don't count.

I'd never come across the term "ethnic restaurant" until I started reading here. It would be funny to lump everything that isn't meat and potatoes English under that term. Doing that has never occurred to me. What counts as an ethnic restaurant in the US?

Helen I think you might be going to the wrong restaurants. :-)
It’s interesting because if you read about restaurants in the national press they are often saying how good the Bristol food scene is. Maybe the food is good but the service hasn’t caught up.
In a tapas restaurant I would expect the food to come out “as and when’ but bread coming out at the end of a meal is poor.

I am genuinely struggling to think of a time when I really felt the need to complain.. I can remember a particularly bad meal in Jamie Oliver restaurant on Shaftesbury Avenue in London, but that was probably our own fault for eating in a Jamie Oliver restaurant on Shaftesbury Ave!

Edit. I’ve thought of one! Shockingly bad food in a Toby Grill attached to a Premier Inn just outside Warrington. Not my choice there was no where else near by. It was appallingly bad!

Toby Carvery was the main "actual restaurant" candidate that sprung to mind when I read avirosemail's complaint actually. You need to have quite low expectations going there I think. Not that I've been in one for many years.

Gerry M,
What counts as an ethnic restaurant here in the US is, I think, a restaurant serving food that is typical of a place, and/or has the name of a country or place in front of it, sometimes hyphenated with "American after it. Here in the LA area of California, as in places like New York and San Francisco, we are fortunate enough to have a population that includes people from just about any place in the world. The neighborhoods where people from one place settle is called by that name, and the restaurants are as well. E.g....Little Somalia, little Saigon, India town, Cambodia town....the list goes on and on. Also there are Mexican restaurants, Japanese, Chinese, Somali, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Nepali, French, Italian, Moroccan, Tex-Mex, Greek.....just to name a few. Non-ethnice restaurants are identified as American type food (steaks, burgers, fried chicken, fish, American style breakfasts, sandwiches, Mac and cheese, pot roast.....)
I imagine the same holds true in that cosmopolitan city of London. What a nice benefit to living in a big city! I remember when we had to drive from Long Beach to L.A. to get Thai food, back in the 70's, then would go to a Russian film, and maybe having a beer after that in an Irish pub. Nowadays we can get most everything in Long Beach, but a trip to L.A. or Hollywood is very doable to get a Somali meal. All the ethnic choices sure do make gastronomic life richer!

I don’t complain. I’m always totally polite. I just have to flag down a server to try and find out where my food and/or drinks are far more often than I would like.

GerryM, my expectations were definitely low and they weren’t achieved.
It was mid week and surprisingly busy. Maybe my mistake was choosing from the menu and not the carvery I think.

My other thought for an English restaurant was Harvester?

Oh my goodness, I agree with Judy. We’ve spent a lot of time in San Francisco over the last year. The neighborhoods where the different ethnic groups settled have wonderful ethnic food restaurants although the restaurants seem to have mingled within the neighborhoods. Yes, you find outrageous tamales and taco’s in The Mission but you don’t have to go to Chinatown to find the best Chinese dumplings at BAO or to North Beach to find one of the best Napoli style pizzas in the city at Delfina’s, they can be found in The Mission, also. American style food to me would be the warm sandwiches from the small neighborhood grocery stores like Bi-Rite and Mike M’s or the crab cakes at Anchor Mussel Bar in The Castro.

My other thought for an English restaurant was Harvester?

I've never been in one of those. I don't think they had any in Scotland when I was younger. Somewhere else you're going to get "authentic" English food, right by junction 10 of the motorway :) Wetherspoons and other budget brewers have cornered the market for that "pub grade" of British food. I think the heyday of Toby Carvery and Harvester was probably the 80's and 90's.

I like how you referred to food as a living language. When traveling, I want to experience the food of the locations I’m in. My first trio to Europe was to Berlin, Germany. My younger daughter and I visited my older daughter during her study abroad program. She introduced us to donor kebab in Turkish restaurants and to Italian food restaurants owned by Italian expats. We also went to German restaurants and had wonderful spaetzle and schnitzel.
In Italy years later, I wanted a break from the pasta and found an American style diner in Florence that has great cheeseburgers and fries. It was a fun place and the wait staff was on roller skates! No free refills on Coke, though, haha.
Food and cuisine are part and parcel of traveling. I embrace the differences and try to learn something as I go.

To Helen and Emma - in all my travels to the UK, I can say that I have only had one poor experience dining out. That was the Real Eating Company in Chichester. They opened late, they were understaffed and had significant number of menu items unavailable. Otherwise all of my experiences have been great. But then I am a diner or cafe kinda guy and I have no problem considering a pub a restaurant

I think of ethic as a useless quaint old word. If I go locally to Spice Palace and get Chicken Vindaloo, well that is American food at an American restaurant. If one visits a Mexican restaurant here in southeastern Virginia you will be introduced to salsa blanca - https://apnews.com/article/500b26e3e8b9473aa0dcb802707d5171

GerryM I have eaten in a Harvester, my parents were staying in an adjoining hotel.
It was fine. A worryingly wide ranging menu but everything we had was good. I’m not rushing back but I would have no problem eating there again if I had to.

Good food can be found anywhere, though whether it suits one's individual tastes is another matter. Based on my European experiences, German, Polish, French, Italian, Swiss, Czech and Serbian food I find delightful. Spanish, Scandinavian, Portuguese and Greek much less so. Oddly enough, I love English and Scottish pub food.

When I eat, I'm more concerned with whether I enjoy what's served to me than its authenticity. At the same time, I want to expand my culinary horizons to ascertain whether foods I have yet to try might be delicious to me. My conclusions above result from trying stuff I didn't yet know. And finding out I really don't generally like the way Spanish, Scandinavian, Portuguese and Greek cooks prepare food.

We all need to find our own culinary way. Bon courage!

"Pubs aren't restaurants. They don't count."

Actually I've generally been happy with service in pubs. Friendly and cheerful as a general rule.

My parents took me on at least 5 road trips when I was a kid. I got conditioned with the false belief that in travel, all food has to be eaten in restaurants. That is not necessarily the case. I figured out that often, there are foods I can buy in a local grocery store that are ready to eat. Staying in a place with a stove burner and a pot may allow me to prepare something like sweet potato or lentils. I suppose if I had travel companions, I would be more likely to eat more restaurant food. I doubt it is healthy to eat restaurant food every day. The vast majority of it is made with oil, salt, and/or sugar. It is usually high in fat and/or sodium. In England in an 8 night trip, Germany in a 15 night trip and in Spain in a 13 night trip, I didn't eat restaurant food even once. In Greece I had restaurant food least 3 times. In Italy i tried restaurant food at least once and some kind of octopus in tomato sauce bought in a grocery store, once. As long as i get the right nutrients, who cares whether i eat banana or pre-cut fruit or instant sugar and salt free hot cereal with bottled water from a contaner i carried with me, for example, on a park bench instead of spending time waiting for restaurant food I don't trust to be healthy enough? My great-grandfather with my same last name had a heart attack and dropped dead 6 weeks before he would have turned 40. Food is just fuel. The point of travel is whatever monuments and landmarks you see. You could cook any recipe at home. You didn't need to travel far from home to buy it in a (mid to hi end) restaurant (with table service).

@VAP, I love that story about salsa blanca when eating local in Virginia. Great.

Here on the best coast, white sauce often means the Halal Guys chain restaurants version of tzatziki, with some artificial junk thrown in to make it smooth and stay fresh through the apocalypse. There is an entire sub-culture of Halal Guys white sauce imitators and obsessives.

There is more than one reddit discussion page devoted to it!

One thing this thread is reminding me of is a conversation a friend of mine had with the Lakota proprietors of a roadside souvenir shop that sells "Indian" goods. The nations in that region pursue mostly abstract art -- geometric designs , basketry, etc. but the owner said that tourists want kachina dolls and feather headdresses and such, so they sell them kachina dolls and feather headdresses and such.

Food is just fuel. The point of travel is whatever monuments and landmarks you see.

To you it is but for others food is an intrinsic part of travel. I have a group of friends that pay into a pot every month and once a year we have a long weekend somewhere in Europe where the sole purpose is eating great food (and drinking a lot of beer). We've had so many fantastic meals and whilst we do undertake a bit of sightseeing the main focus is on food, drink and just being together.

"Food is just fuel"

Then don't come to Singapore :) where food is a huge part of thr culture, and one of the key reasons people visit. Same for many European countries.

I'm not a foodie myself, but food is very important for many travelers.

Food is a snapshot in time, a living language, constantly edited by
trade, time, necessity, and location, not a permanent rule. I've
really come to dislike the word “authentic” because it has come to be
synonymous with good or excellent. When we say the food abroad is
amazing only because it's authentic, we are ignoring the skill and
history of communities back home.

Such an interesting perspective, especially since food is unimportant to me when I travel (and at home) so I never would have considered it this way. I'm not an adventurous eater at home or away and never have a desire to be. To me, food is something you wolf down over the sink so you can move on to something more interesting. But you're right, putting your own stamp on a traditional recipe is a skill and should be celebrated.

Such an interesting perspective, especially since food is unimportant to me when I travel (and at home) so I never would have considered it this way.

I'd say that my view has also been shaped by my perspective as a historian where I get to see how food, cooking a cuisine evolve over time. I enjoy cracking open historic cookbooks and have a nice collection of 16th and 17th century cookbooks.

I'll take criticism that gas ovens traditionally had numbers rather than temperatures when US recipe books stop using cups and embrace the amazing invention that is the weighing scale! :-)

It is all just noise. It's why I learned several systems 😊 - Old English including troy and avoirdupois weights and can play with imperial and metric, then I love the old cookbooks for the lack of measurements... measurements are just subjective.

William Rabisha gives us this pancake recipe in 1661
TAke a pinte of Curds made tender of morning Milk, pressed clean from the Whey, put to them one handful of floure, six eggs, casting away three whites, a little Rosewater, Sack, Cinamon, Nutmeg, Sugar, Salt, and two Pippins minced small, beat this all together into a thick batter, so that it may not run abroad, if you want wherewith to temper it, add Cream, when they are fryed, scrape on Sugar and send them up; if this curd be made with Sack, as it may as well as with Rennet, you may make a Pudding with the Whey thereof thus. (The Whole Body of Cookery Dissected,...)

Or
Thomas Dawson's to Fry a Chicken from his 1587 The Good Housewife’s Jewel
Take your chickens and let them boil in very good sweet broth a pretty while. Take the chickens out and quarter them out in pieces. Then put them into a frying pan with sweet butter, and let them stew in the pan. But you must not let them brown with frying. Then put out the butter out of the pan, and then take a little sweet broth, and as much verjuice, and the yolks of two eggs and beat them together. Put in a little nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, and pepper into the sauce. Then put them all into the pan to the chickens, and stir them together in the pan. Put them into a dish and serve them up.

The best we get is a pint of curds and 6 eggs

My parents took me on at least 5 road trips when I was a kid. I got conditioned with the false belief that in travel, all food has to be eaten in restaurants.

That is not a false belief, it is just something that does not work for you.

Food is just fuel.

No. But of course you are welcome to have your opinions. But food in more than just food. It is the window into the soul of a culture, what they value, where they have been and what has influenced them.

Food is just fuel. The point of travel is whatever monuments and landmarks you see. You could cook any recipe at home.

We all travel for different reasons. It might be monuments and landmarks to you but to me it's also culture. Food is the essence of many cultures. To experience that in its native area and prepared by locals can mean a big difference. You might be able to get the same dish in the US, but more than likely, unless it's in someone's home, the recipe has been modified for the American palate.

And no canned food tastes as good as freshly made.

Food is just fuel

That is one of the saddest things I've ever read. But you do you.

VAP what an interesting post. It got me thinking about the foods that I have tried in various places.
The memories have not been just about the food but the experiences.
Sitting outside in Rome and enjoying a delicious pizza. Roaming through Trastevere and coming across Roma Spirita and having cacio e pepe for the first time.
Enjoying a Sunday Roast in London and trying fish and chips at a pub in Covent Garden.
A beer hall in Munich enjoying Schweinshaxe, pig knuckle with sauerkraut. Crowded, with music playing and beer flowing.
Sitting outside in Strasbourg with friends, a cool but sunny day enjoying spatzle.
Cullen Skink followed by
Cranachan in Edinburgh.
Stampot in Amsterdam.
And I’ll end with sitting outside along a Paris street having croissants or cheese and baguettes watching the flow of Parisian life.
While all of those are certainly examples of food and eating away from home it becomes much more. It is a small way of experiencing a different culture not only by trying different foods but by being among locals and tourists. Some of the food was delicious and some may have been a bit forgettable but the experiences that food had brought to us was what we enjoyed.

I think the problem is with the word "authentic". It's just too broad and undefined to stand up to scrutiny. Many American travelers say they want it, but really want the American versions they're used too. "

I am not a foodie, but enjoy the experience of being in a restaurant in a foreign country and seeing how people live.

PS I am happy with both British and Irish food. Bring on the mushy peas -they're authentic.

Remember the “Two Fat Ladies” cooking show ? The British food looked good to me. They certainly used a lot bacon. How about Icelandic Hotdogs? Anyone ever try the fermented shark meat there? I’ve had Surströmming in Sweden, which is fermented herring.

Interestingly I could care less about museums or monuments, but I’m definitely interested in food.

How about Icelandic Hotdogs? Anyone ever try the fermented shark meat there?

Iceland presented a unique dilemma, in that I don't eat seafood, mutton or lamb. Though my dislike of lamb was the result of mom's inability to cook.

But, ya know, suck it up. Knowing very little about food in Iceland I did my first food tour there. Did sample arctic char and roast vegetables but couldn't bring myself to sample the mashed cod and vegetables. I really liked the lamb stew and the lamb hotdogs were pretty dang awesome. I enjoyed a horse steak and a whale steak but there was no way I was going to try fermented shark.

My eldest son tried fermented shark when in Iceland and he said it was the most foul thing he's ever eaten.