white people food

[mindstalk]

There's been a social media meme about "white people food", bland and unseasoned. Yesterday I saw a little video, first with some woman apparently cooking skinless chicken breast in white rice, cutting to a guy saying "Do you ever feel the urge to say 'I'm white but non-practicing?'" as he cut to a big spice rack.

This all irritates me more than it probably should. But let's think about some flavor options available to mid-level peasants -- not buying imports, but not limited to just eating an insufficient amount of barley -- in ancient or medieval Europe, depending on time and place:

salt: actual salt, fish sauce (garum), salted fish or meats

fat: olive oil, butter, lard, chicken or goose fats, suet

sweetness: raisins, dried apple, maybe other dried fruit. Honey? (might have been expensive)

alliums: onions, garlic, shallots, chives

herbs/spices: oregano, fennel, sage, bay leaf, rosemary, anise, cumin, juniper, lavender, marjoram, mint, sorrel, etc. (granted, this category is much richer toward the Mediterranean, but many herbs could be and were cultivated further north, and juniper is Scandinavian)

pungent: mustard, horseradish

acid/alcohol: vinegar, verjuice, wine, ale

Even if chicken-woman were avoiding the first three categories for alleged health reasons, there's still lots of options for pepping it up. And, to be fair, no evidence in a brief low-resolution video excerpt that she wasn't. Garlic, herbs, or marinade wouldn't have been visible.

Not to mention elites importing black pepper and other eastern spices, or the post-Columbian uses of paprika if not other chili peppers.

Granted, industrialization/urbanization, the Great Depression, and World War shortages or rationing, and the lowest common denominator of school cafeterias and TV dinners seem to have sapped the vim out of a lot of American or English home cooking. But that's a partial break in a rich tradition.

Comments

[conuly]

Don't forget the influence of 19th and early 20th century food faddery - the biggest part of which is this idea that flavors excite the senses a little too much and therefore are bad for the body. (There's no small amount of anti-immigrant sentiment here - the horrors of garlic!)

[mindstalk]

I hadn't actually heard of that! Unless it's part of John Kellogg's life. Though I have heard of some Buddhist/Jain avoidance of the dangerous excitement of onions.

[conuly]

Yeah, it was very much not just Kellogg! There were moral panics about children eating pickles, for crying out loud.

[mindstalk]

Well, the shape is suggestive.... :)

[anna_wing]

Jains avoid anything that grows below ground, not just onions, because eating roots usually kills the plant, and tiny insects might be accidentally killed as well.

There's no universal rule for Buddhists. Different denominations have different practices, and there are different rules for lay and religious.

But I think "white people food" is a ridiculous and rather racist term. I'd find Japanese food pretty bland as well, if I were expecting South and Southeast Asian spicing, but it's fine if I take it for itself, just a different cuisine with a different flavour spectrum, like all the different European cuisines.

I admit that US fast food is direly bad, and I wouldn't feed it to a compost heap.

[squirrelitude]

I think I'm mostly just sad about my English heritage of "boil it until the flavor is gone" as a favored mode of cooking. Roasting is not hard, people!

[mindstalk]

Boiling things _with_ flavor isn't hard either. Stew!

[squirrelitude]

True! You can make some very nice stews with what my English ancestors had available. (And I'm sure they would have made similar at times.)

[zxhrue]

huh. how interesting.

my background is mighty white. very few spices used by either sets of parents, or grandparents. salt, pepper, maggi seasoning. even the occassional 'authentic' tex-mex was limited to commercially prepared spice mixtures (nota bene, the tex-mex in question was made by an actual caucasion texan). rarely ever did the 'curry' powder come out (chicken salad). um, caraway, but that was a crypto-jewish immigrant great grandmother. cinnamon, mace, (mostly cookies). dill (seed) in pickles. celery seed (in tuna or ham salad). mustard powder (colemans) and cloves for the occassional baked ham. even the american italian food only had pre-mixed 'italian' seasonings. mostly straight up central PA german food.

of my (n>5) siblings, I am the only one who has a ridiculous spice cabinet selection, which is used heavily. and pretty much the only one who regularly cooks and eats non bog-standard white people food. decades in south asia _may_ have something to do with that;) but I was already an 'adventuress' eater/cook before that. I think it's in large measure that once one's palate is set, it's set, and my sibs got locked into late 60's/70's fairly bland 'american' food, and never really recovered. (I will confess the occassional inexplicable desire for kraft mac and cheese, SPAM, and Velveta based dips :) as an aside, I also really appreciate the subtlety of japanese food, which of course is a broad spectrum in it's own right. the differences in soy sauces alone have blown my mind more than once. it helped that for a few years I was friends with a japanese ex-pat who did his own cooking.

[mindstalk]

From what little I know of their families, I imagine my white (Irish or Jewish) parents mostly taught themselves to cook, but I grew up with

tacos (heavily seasoned and decently spicy)
tomato meat sauce (same)
pan friend chicken (same)
sauce with chicken livers
chicken coq au vin
beef stroganoff
some Indian shrimp curry
something involving a wok
chicken wontons (birthday dish)
chocolate mousse (ditto)
deviled eggs
garlic fried potatoes
French onion soup
other stuff, some of them simpler

Mostly 'European' dishes of decent complexity (more than _I_ feel like tackling), plus a few "ethnic" inspired ones.

Herbs and spices included at least oregano, thyme, etc; cinnamon; chili powder; allspice (confusing name for a kid); cloves; garlic powder; a frequently used garlic press; rosemary leaves and powder; various seeds I can't identify now

oh and of course a black pepper grinder.

probably forgetting a lot, it's been 18+ years.

Plus we'd go out for Thai, Vietnamese, Mexican, dim sum, sushi, Chinese, Lebanese. (No Indian that I can recall.) Occasional burger or pizza.

I have yet to detect big soy sauce differences.

[zxhrue]

if you have friends in japan, ask them to source either of these, the second is far superior to the first, and both are far superior to anything else. there are amazon listings for both, but currently unobtanium. I had mine carried back by a friend. on amazon they were running +/-$40 and +/-$50. cost me $14 and $16 respectively, and worth every penny.

Yamaroku 4 Years Aged Tsuru Bisiho Soy Sauce, 18 Ounce

Yamaroku 4 Years Aged Kiku Bisiho Soy Sauce, 18 Ounce

there is a youtube video about the manufacturer, titled

"Five Generations of Making Soy Sauce the Traditional Way"