Aug 30 2022 - Culinary Appropriation

Mooncakes are part of the Asian Autumn Festival, and when I read about them yesterday, I laughed at the thought of the work of putting together the ingredients and fulfilling the recipe.  It includes lye water, white lotus seed paste, red bean, green tea, mixed nuts and salted egg yokes that have been brined for 30 to 60 days.  These are Asian ingredients are mostly exotic to me.   And the salted egg? "Salted egg yolk is typically an egg cured in the shell to impart a delicious, rich umami flavour. As it is a popular flavour during Mid-Autumn festivals, more expensive and luxurious duck eggs are usually used.  To create them from scratch takes anywhere from 30 to 60 days." But the best part about the exploration of mooncakes is the surprise question, with its answer:  "Is it cultural appropriation to make mooncakes? It's like a foreigner putting on traditional Chinese clothing and claiming to be a native Chinese or well versed in Chinese culture. I would even go as far as to say that this is a form of culinary cultural appropriation. There are even mooncakes for your furry friends." I looked at that as a confused response.  Good thing the great melding pot of Europe with its mixing of cultures is in the past.  Otherwise, we'd be accusing each other of appropriation and starting wars.   We can find more absurd answers on Quora. These range from proposed examples to denials of cultural appropriation existing.  On Quora, people spout out anything and everything.  And other times, have factual answers. The first answer comes from Ross Boardman - "Award winning restaurateur, author of 101 Restaurant secrets Author has 12.4K answers and 33.3M answer views.".   No wonder he has the top answer to the question.   Here's an excerpt from his reply: "Is this something like when white people get dreadlocks and go surfing? Please folks, stop this crap. Wake up from woke. I’m currently looking at a menu of a chain pub in the UK. Let’s start the list; cheesy ciabatta, haloumi sticks, Southern fried goujons, nachos, katsu chicken, cheeseburger, chicken tikka masala and dirty chips (fries) with piri piri sauce. Am sure just based on that a bunch of angry white students are going to come out and glue themselves to the car park because at least those 8, rocking on close to 20 dishes, have been appropriated from other cultures." The rest of his mini-essay/rant is HERE.

Is a montage an appropriation? This is the combination of two (actually more) images.  The pattern part was the grungy floor in Erroll's Shoe Repair in St. Catharines.  Its original colour was yellowish.  I turned it to bright yellow and moved on to blue and red with one of the Topaz filters.  Then the additional colours in an arc came from a Flexifly version of one of my digital paintings.    Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca