Abstract
Omnivorous cultural theory highlights the persistence of inequalities within gourmet food culture despite its increasing democratization, arguing that foods remain symbols of distinction through their framing as ‘authentic’ and ‘exotic’. Where these two frames have been shown to encompass problematic racial connotations, questions arise over how racial inequalities manifest in foodie discourse. Drawing from interviews with foodies of color living in Toronto, Canada, this article examines how these inequalities are reproduced, adjusted and resisted by people of color. It asks: how do foodies of color interpret and deploy dominant foodie frames of authenticity and exoticism? Analysis reveals each frame’s potential both to encourage cross-cultural understanding and essentialize or exacerbate ethno-cultural difference. Participants’ ambivalent relationship with foodie discourse (i.e. deploying it alongside critiquing it) highlights how cultural capital works alongside ethno-racial inequalities, and reveals the racial tensions remaining within foodies’ attempts to reconcile democracy and distinction.
Keywords
Introduction
When I take people to a restaurant they haven’t been to, an Indian restaurant, and suddenly they’re the experts on what is there because of one Indian friend they’ve had, that’s a little offensive. But on the other hand that sense of wonder and ‘oh my goodness’ and ‘its so cool’ can be a little disgusting in the same way. The best experience I’ve had is when people are curious and they just want to learn … (Jeya, 25, South Asian, Publishing Editor living in Toronto)
Jeya’s reflection evokes some key dynamics in foodie culture that serve as the starting point for this research. Foodies are difficult to encapsulate, but at minimum, we know that they are people who love to learn about and eat good food. In their 2015 book, Johnston and Baumann describe foodies as possessing a marked passion for food that manifests in a variety of traits (2015: 48–60). They are likely to work to continuously educate themselves on the qualities, histories and conditions of food; this often manifests in attention to exploration, or a willingness to consume unfamiliar foods. Foodies then utilize this knowledge and experience in a process of evaluation to assess the quality of what they are eating. The sequence of culinary education, exploration and evaluation culminates in identity, as food is often an integral component of how foodies see themselves. This article is most interested in the second of these descriptives: in foodies’ desire for exploration, for testing new cooking techniques, cuisines or ingredients; what Lisa Heldke (2003) calls ‘food adventuring’. Indeed, foodies commonly proclaim that they will ‘eat anything’ and previous research (Cappeliez and Johnston, 2013; Johnston and Baumann, 2007, 2015 [2010]; Warde, 2000; Warde and Martens, 2000) characterizes this group through the inclusivity of their taste preferences. This research shows that foodie taste is constituted by practices and preferences that cross high- and low-brow class boundaries as well as a wide breadth of ethno-cultural food groups. Foodies are therefore defined by their interest and openness to a diversity of a) ethno-cultural and b) classed culinary practices.
Jeya’s quote also evokes some fundamental internalizations about race that often go unnoticed when foodies talk about exploring exciting and trendy new foods. At a time when gourmet food culture has come under increasing democratization, foodie culture is often implicitly understood as race-neutral, with foodies conceptualizing their love of food as a reflection of their openness and tolerance towards difference (Cappeliez and Johnston, 2013; Johnston and Baumann, 2007, 2015 [2010]). The foodie inclination towards ‘eating anything’ can evoke a genuine, democratic desire to go beyond a whitestream canon of meat and potatoes and connect with ethno-cultural groups in a way that is intended to be respectful. And while such an interest may feel genuine and sincere for those experiencing it, such individual motivations can obscure the more subtle ways that inequalities permeate foodie discourse. Previous research on foodie culture reveals how seemingly democratic food assertions simultaneously ascribe and maintain status-based distinctions (Bennett et al., 2009; Johnston and Baumann, 2007, 2015 [2010]; Warde and Martens, 2000). Johnston and Baumann (2007, 2015 [2010]) identify the particular frames of ‘exoticism’ or ‘authenticity’ as structuring social legitimation within contemporary North-American food culture. These authors show that ingredients, cuisines, techniques, and restaurants that are appropriately ‘authentic’ or ‘exotic’ stand as markers of ‘good taste’, and framing food preferences in this way works to simultaneously highlight the democratic tolerance of foodies’ taste preferences yet also bestow upon them the symbolic capital that marks distinction.
While work on foodies has explored how class-based inequalities reinforce culinary status hierarchies, the racial inequalities underpinning access to and utilization of the discourse remain relatively unexplored (see Ray, 2016 and Warde, 2000 as important exceptions). Scholars have unpacked some of these tensions, showing that authenticity and exoticism encompass problematic racial connotations that perpetuate neo-colonial tendencies towards essentializing and Othering non-white people and the food they eat (Abarca, 2004; Heldke, 2003; Huggan, 2001; Said, 1978). Existing work has also examined how a white, Anglo-European perspective is framed as the central or ‘neutral’ vantage point of mainstream foodie culture (Guthman, 2011; Heldke, 2003; Johnston and Baumann, 2015 [2010]; Johnston et al., 2009; Slocum, 2007, 2010). However, such work has yet to go beyond a critical appraisal to document the uptake of authenticity and exoticism within the sphere of food preferences and practices among people of color (Harper, 2011; Suarez-Balcazar et al., 2006).
The contribution of this article is to consider the use of foodie discourse, and in particular the two frames of exoticism and authenticity, by those who are marked as racialized within it. I ask: How do foodies of color living in Toronto, a multi-ethnic global city with considerable opportunities for cross-cultural engagement, interpret and deploy dominant foodie frames of authenticity and exoticism?
Such a utilization is wary not to simply ‘give voice’ to an essentially marginalized group (Choo and Ferree, 2010: 131–133) but to investigate how shared experiences of racialization may work with other intersecting subject positions to reveal how inequalities work within the discourse. In the process of investigating foodies of color, we can learn more about foodie discourse itself, and how it is reproduced, adjusted and resisted by people of color.
I am interested in considering ‘foodie-ness’ less as a static disposition or identity that one either possesses or doesn’t, but as something encompassed in a person’s ‘tool kit’ (Swidler, 1986), or ‘cultural repertoire’ (Lamont, 1992), that people deploy in their daily, lived experiences. While many individuals may be exposed to foodie repertoires, they deploy them creatively in ways that are constitutive of the multiple elements comprising their specific subject positions.
Working to these ends, this article first reviews how foodie culture creates and maintains status-based exclusions, detailing the role of the dominant frames of authenticity and exoticism in doing so. It then explores how existing literature has identified ethno-racial inequalities encompassed in the frames. Following, I demonstrate, through an analysis of interviews with foodies of color, how participants utilized authenticity and exoticism and analyze what this implies for their engagement in cultural space. I argue that foodies of color in this study highlight both the potential of each frame to encourage cross-cultural understanding, and the tensions underling their tendency to reify and misappropriate ethno-racial difference. Foodies’ ambivalence with the discourse or their simultaneous deployments and criticisms of it, highlight how cultural capital works alongside ethno-racial inequalities, and reveals the racial tensions remaining within foodies’ attempts to reconcile contemporary cultural identity politics emphasizing democratic inclusion with their motivations to distinguish themselves from others.
Culture and Inequality within Omnivorous Culinary Consumption
Bourdieu (1984) has been foundational to theorizing how cultural tastes reinforce class hierarchies. He uses the concept of cultural capital to denote the symbolic and largely hidden aspects of class status (such as food tastes) that are displayed on the bodies and in the lifestyles of social elites to reinforce their status over others (Bourdieu, 1986). Since Bourdieu, scholars of omnivorousness have reformulated his theory to identify a contemporary shift away from the exclusive endowment of cultural capital through a few high-brow cultural genres towards more omnivorous consumption of multiple cultural forms spanning a multitude of high- and low-brow positions (Bryson, 1996; Peterson and Kern, 1996; Warde et al., 2007). Johnston and Baumann (2007, 2015 [2010]) characterize foodies as cultural omnivores, highlighting their openness to a diversity of culinary cultures and practices. These authors situate this openness within an ideological tension between contemporary cultural identity politics emphasizing tolerance and democratic inclusion (Bannerji, 2000; Bonilla-Silva, 2006; Mackey, 2002 [1999]), and foodies’ motivations to distinguish themselves from others. The authors argue that foodie discourse works to temporarily suture this tension by framing high-status foods as ‘authentic’ and ‘exotic’.
In detailing exoticism, Johnston and Baumann argue that foodies’ use of the frame operates around social distance and norm breaking. Social distance refers to foods popularly referred to as ‘foreign’, those that people consider novel or unusual, particularly from an American, white, upper-middle-class vantage point. The authors use this concept with an eye to making explicit the discourse’s presumption of a white, wealthy Euro-American referent. The authors also consider exoticism to encompass norm breaking. This refers to foods that violate the norms of mainstream North-American culinary culture, oftentimes standing out as ‘different’ and ‘exciting’. Significantly, the authors find that foodies sought social distance and norm breaking in relatively reserved ways such that, ‘gourmet food culture remain[ed] strongly situated in the North-American and European core, with other global food cultures added intermittently in ways that do not fundamentally challenge a Eurocentric culinary canon’ (Johnston and Baumann, 2015 [2010]: 104).
People invoke the concept of authenticity when they talk about ‘real’ versions of foods, preparations or techniques. Johnston and Baumann identify five elements in foodie discourse that flag authenticity: 1) geographic specificity, or food connected to a narrowly defined location or geographic place; 2) simplicity, or a sense of ‘honesty’, ‘purity’, or ‘rusticity’ in food, often constructed through hand preparation, and contrasted with the manufactured nature of the modern industrial food system; 3) personal connection, or a food’s association with an identifiable producer, chef or family that ‘puts a face’ to food; 4) history/tradition, or connection to an established history or set of standards, conventions or food traditions through time or space; and 5) ethnicity, or food that is perceived to be cooked and eaten by members of an identifiable ethno-cultural group. Such food is often evaluated as authentic because these individuals are assumed to automatically ‘know’ the right ingredients and techniques necessary for that food’s production, and to possess knowledge of how it should ‘really’ taste. Johnston and Baumann argue that despite these ubiquitous references to ‘realness’, the concept of authenticity is a clear social construction.
Unsettling Exoticism and Authenticity
Indeed, introducing a critical lens to these foodie frames means first acknowledging their socially constructed nature. Desires for both authenticity and exoticism must be understood as existing within modern, Western value systems prizing ideals such as individualism, sincerity and uniqueness in regards to the former (Fine, 2002; MacCannell, 1976; Taylor, 1991), and novelty and difference in regards to the latter (Ray, 2010; 2016; Said, 1978). Authenticity and exoticism resonate as values within a context where 1) modernization has fostered alienation from many aspects of social and material life through its emphasis on individualism and specialization, and 2) contemporary forms of globalization have encouraged the widespread movement of knowledge, people and commodities globally. Food lends itself well to considerations of origins and transformation due, on the one hand, to its materiality, and on the other, to its connection to social and cultural representation (Grosglik and Ram, 2013). The ‘realness’ of the foodie frames therefore come from the implications of their application in social life. When considered positively, these implications may entail the profits that immigrant restaurateurs garner from rising interest in diverse cuisines, or the ease with which people can access ingredients that make them feel connected to their ethnic identities. The Western fascination with authenticity and exoticism nonetheless also entails important negative implications.
Unsettling exoticism and authenticity additionally means considering their role in perpetuating neo-colonial ideologies known to essentialize and Other non-white people and the food they eat. In relation to exoticism, postcolonial theorist Edward Said (1978) has been foundational in revealing how the West’s fascination with ‘the exotic Other’ occurs within broader constructions of Orientalism. Such framing is problematic as it situates the ‘primitivism’ of the East in opposition to the ‘rationality’ of the West, reinforcing the West’s superiority. Exoticism therefore produces exciting but inferior difference, resulting in desire for it alongside a simultaneous fear of its contamination. As postcolonial theorist Graham Huggan discusses, ‘exoticism describes a particular mode of aesthetic perception … which oscillates between the opposite poles of strangeness and familiarity’ (2001: 13). Exotic difference consequently operates as a double-edged sword that grants non-Western cultural objects and people acceptability to the extent that they do not stray too far towards strangeness (Huggan, 2001).
Like exoticism, the presumed subject defining the boundaries of authenticity is a primarily white, Western one (Heldke, 2003). As such, those who invoke the privilege of defining authenticity can inflict harm on those implicated in its definition by misappropriating personal and cultural knowledge, essentializing cultural complexity, or valorizing marginalized statuses as prestige goods (Abarca, 2004; Fine, 2002). These instances are problematic because they summon people to act as ‘representatives’ of their culture. Doing so supports social distancing by asking people of color to occupy positions of bounded ethnicity whereby their role is to ‘enrich’ an otherwise normatively white, Anglo-Saxon society through ‘ethnic performances’ and ‘traditions’ (Fine, 2002; Minh-ha, 1989). Such sentiments reinforce people of color as ‘cultural Others’ and perpetuate a form of color-blindness that hides racial inequalities (Bonilla-Silva, 2006; Mackey, 2002 [1999]).
These dynamics manifest in food. For example, quests for culinary authenticity can entail appropriating personal recipes, which may work to erase or invalidate the histories of those who have created and effectively ‘own’ them (Abarca, 2004). Similarly, invocations of exoticism can alienate people of color from food spaces. For example, Harper (2011) shows how such invocations implicate people of color when they find their own cultural foods being labeled as exotic. Labels of exoticism invoked feelings of exclusion for this group by implying the objectification, ‘discovery’ and ‘mastery’ of the food they grew up eating, and themselves by association. These examples showcase how the frames of authenticity and exoticism hold the potential to rely on reified and exclusionary notions of culture wherein ‘ethnic foods’ are invited to be consumed but only when they assume particular, recognizable forms (hooks, 2012 [1992]).
Lastly, it is important to recognize that genuine acts of recognition also lie alongside these problematics. Indeed, foodies come into encounters with ethno-racial difference with a curiosity and openness that can lead to more informed understandings and increased tolerance for historically marginalized groups, while also offering important entrepreneurial opportunities for immigrants (Narayan, 1995; Ray, 2016; Slocum, 2007). In fact, many ethno-racially marked groups embrace cross-cultural food adventuring because it assigns a ‘specialness’ to their cultural identities that stands in contrast to histories otherwise marked by disregard, derision or exploitation (Narayan, 1995). While this specialness certainly holds problematic assumptions about what forms of non-white difference are celebrated as ‘special’ over others (Bannerji, 2000), it is important to recognize the genuine respect and appreciation that can encompass these acts.
To summarize, previous scholarship has found that a) food culture is still used to ascribe status-based distinctions (as Bourdieu argues), yet these distinctions must now be navigated within an era of increasing democratization, and b) the frames used to navigate such a tension hold the potential for both cross-cultural understanding and neo-colonial Othering. Questions remain within this work about how foodies of color relate to the foodie frames – how do they use exoticism and authenticity? Or do they use them at all? How do they feel when their own cuisines are marked as interestingly exotic or genuinely authentic? And what does this tell us about inequality within the discourse? This article analyzes interviews with foodies of color in Toronto to investigate how these themes – of status differentiation, Othering, and cross-cultural understanding – appear in their relationship to foodie discourse.
Methodology
Data for this project come from 25 semi-structured qualitative interviews with foodies of color in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Initially, I drew from five interviews from an associated project (Cairns and Johnston, 2015) that were conducted with foodies and with women of color. I analyzed these as the foundation for 20 supplemental interviews I conducted myself. Data analysis followed an open-coding methodology to categorize information relating to food motivations, as well as foodies’ relationships to omnivorousness, diversity and cosmopolitanism. Focused coding was then completed around the two themes of exoticism and authenticity. The questions guiding this analysis invited people to consider the frames, asking them to elaborate on how they felt about and defined them, as well as whether they considered their meanings to hold particular valence relative to their identities and experiences as people of color. An overall analysis of the interviews was also conducted to determine if or how participants utilized the concepts in an unprompted manner.
I utilize the term ‘foodie of color’ in this article to indicate people with connections to non-Western ethno-cultural backgrounds. All participants in this study identify with the term to the extent that they responded to a recruitment call utilizing that terminology. It is nonetheless important to emphasize that ethno-racial identities are fluid, dynamic, situationally dependent, and strategic (Hall, 1990), and a diversity of identities are encompassed within its usage. When introducing a participant’s identity, I therefore utilize the terminology that the respondent recorded in a demographic survey administered to them prior to the interview, in response to the question ‘How would you describe your race/ethnicity?’ The result is a variety of identity terms ranging in scope and specificity. In turn, this study does not set out to make absolute statements about ‘foodies of color’ or what they definitively do. My goal is to investigate the shared positionality of participants, in particular as it relates to their experiences of racialization and of connections to non-Western ethno-cultural backgrounds, in order to develop a more nuanced understanding of foodie discourse. Such an orientation takes seriously Choo and Ferree’s (2010) contention that studies of difference possess a danger in unreflexively re-centering normative social categories. In order to avoid such re-centering, this article works primarily with the consideration that experiences of racialization encompass only one aspect of participants’ identities, which, while important, do not define ‘an essential experience’ separate from the other identities or histories that define their lives (Baca Zinn and Dill, 1996; Collins, 1991). Apart from their shared location as ‘people of color’, participants represent diverse positionalities marked by intersections in race, class, gender, sexuality, and migration history, among others. They are also marked by a number of privileges that are typical of foodies in general (Johnston and Baumann, 2015 [2010]): they are relatively well educated and cosmopolitan, possessing a variety of international experiences, and hold relatively high household incomes. As such, many possess high economic and cultural capital that facilitate their navigation of the relatively privileged arena of foodie culture. Also of note, the demographic composition of the participants somewhat favors heterosexuals, females, as well as those with East or South-East Asian ethno-racial backgrounds.
The situation of this research within Toronto is also itself significant. Canada’s history of public policies encouraging (specifically non-European) immigration, and the particular concentration of this immigration within major cities mean that Toronto is a hub for immigrant resettlement, with 46% of its population born outside of Canada as of 2011 (Statistics Canada, 2016). Many immigrant entrepreneurs in Toronto are capitalizing on the previously described food trends such that foodies in this study are eating within a diverse global city that is richly represented in its food culture.
Findings: Exoticism
It is clear from interviews that the two dimensions of exoticism presented in Johnston and Baumann’s work – social distance and norm breaking – resonated with foodies in this study. Participants were largely unreserved in their desire to try everything, expressed pride in their diversified palates, and were attracted to foods that were socially distant from and unusual to them. Assertions by participants that they would ‘try anything’ were extremely common, and novel food items or cuisines were widespread motivators in determining what to cook or eat on a given day. However, deeper investigation into how they utilized exoticism to formulate their taste preferences revealed ambivalence towards its manifestation in ethnicity. Participants reproduced exoticism’s connection to ethnicity when it facilitated their engagement in foodie culture or when they felt that it allowed a form of cross-cultural sharing. However, most participants were explicitly uncomfortable with the frame, considering it to reproduce cultural misappropriation and neo-colonial Othering. The following four sections explicate these instances of reproduction, resistance and ambivalence, demonstrating how individuals contradictorily utilize their global connections to situate their own food practices.
Exoticism and Reproduction: ‘There’s Nothing that We Don’t Eat …’
As discussed, tasting the foods of different ethno-cultural groups was an integral part of participants’ food practices; many, such as Steph, a Canadian-born Chinese bakery associate in her mid thirties, relate the unrestrained nature of their food preferences to their ethno-cultural background: “We eat pork, fish, there’s nothing that we don’t eat. Everyone knows Chinese culture eats everything. Everything that moves and walks we eat!” In doing so, Steph, reproduces the connection between exoticism and ethnicity wherein her background provides a backbone for her adventurous food habits. Such narratives can be interpreted as participants’ attempts to situate their own ethno-cultural identities into the dominant foodie narrative of exotic food adventuring. In Steph’s case, her narrative relies on stereotypical understandings of Chinese people as willing to ‘eat everything’ to draw upon the culinary capital encompassed in such a position. However, such a narrative also allows her to utilize the frame’s connection to ethnicity in a way that she feels comfortable with.
Similar strategies are at play when participants express joy in seeing diverse foodies eat at restaurants or gain fluency with the foods they tied to their ethno-racial identities. All participants felt such encounters bolstered cross-cultural understanding and tolerance and many saw conversations around food as opportunities to ‘teach’ or ‘educate’ people about their cultural histories and add complexity to others’ understandings of them. Faran (25, Persian, in publishing) sees it as a way to counter negative narratives that circulate in relation to her home country: I love it especially because I feel like people don’t know a lot about Iranian culture … you know I get it, but its always nice to see people appreciating it. It’s a beautiful culture, very rich, and it just doesn’t get much exposure. Well there’s the politics and people get wrapped up in that, but nobody really thinks about the people and what they’re like and what they like to do and what they like to eat. And so it’s nice to have the sort of daily stuff appreciated, you know?
These two instances represent spaces where participants felt that foodie motivations for ‘ethnically exotic food’ were productive. The valorization of such a motivation allowed many foodies in this study either easy access to the cultural capital encompassed in such knowledge, or the opportunity to educate others on the complexity of diverse food traditions. However, participants’ explicit reflections on exoticism simultaneously reveal resistance to the concept based on the relationality of its meaning and its connection to negative difference, misappropriation and fetishization that are suggestive of neo-colonial theories of Othering articulated by Said (1978) and Huggan (2001). The majority of participants felt alienated from or at least uncomfortable with exoticism due to one or both of the above critiques. The nature of resistance varied by degree, but the majority of participants did not explicitly identify with exoticism, claiming, ‘they didn’t use it’, or, ‘it didn’t mean anything’.
Exoticism and Resistance to Relationality: ‘It’s Just Two Blocks Away From You’
First, participants highlight the relationality of social distance invoked by exoticism. By relationality I mean that the idea of social distance varies depending on the subject position of the eater (Johnston and Baumann, 2015 [2010]); what is considered exotic for one person may be normal for another. Participants highlighted relationality to critique the narrowness of social distance often implied by exoticism. For some, this perspective stemmed from ties to their ethno-cultural background wherein they highlighted that what others considered exotic, they ate regularly. Others tied it to cosmopolitan experiences they acquired through travel: I’m not sure whether it would be my background as Chinese or the fact that I’m well-travelled, so I’ve seen a lot, I’ve eaten a lot. Nothing is really that exotic for me … it’s really about what you have access to that defines these terms (Nick, 33, East Asian, program manager in university programming and part-time graduate student)
Here, experiences of racialization combine with cosmopolitan travel to structure a reflexive critique of exoticism that is revealed when defined outside of a straightforwardly Anglo-North-American lens. Such experiences highlight how variations in exoticism’s meaning depend on one’s social position and, therefore, that definitions of what constitutes ‘ethnic exoticism’ broaden or narrow depending on one’s experience with ethno-racial difference.
These narratives also reveal the range of experiences that shape participants’ ability to be reflexive about exoticism. For example, Nick’s discussion about his cosmopolitan history living and travelling abroad highlights the class privilege that often accompanies foodies’ comfort with norm-breaking, socially distant foods. However, as Steph’s narrative in the previous section reveals, foodies of color do not necessarily need to rely on these overtly classed experiences to ‘know’ about ‘exotic cuisines’; they can alternatively invoke the cultural capital embodied in their ethno-cultural backgrounds to draw on a similar knowledge of ‘exotic food difference’. These intersections in their identities nonetheless fostered a reflexive critique of exotic difference that led participants to question its usefulness.
Resistance to Ethnic Othering: ‘Exotic to Me is a Negative …’
Participants’ hesitation with exoticism also stemmed from their awareness of its connection to negative difference, misappropriation and fetishization. So while the majority of foodies in this study defined exoticism as ‘difference’, many also expressed that it possessed negative associations, particularly when exotic traits were perceived as ‘too different’. As Michael, Chinese, and a 43-year-old brand marketer articulates: ‘exotic to me is a negative, it sounds interesting but you kind of didn’t like it because it was too different’. Many expressed discomfort with cultural misappropriation, fetishizing and Othering of people of color that they felt was invoked in exoticism’s usage: ‘[exotic] just feels like you’re, um, someone else’s cultural background, or the reality of how they live, it’s not a novelty, and that’s kind of what it feels like’ (Faran). Such reflections highlight participants’ discomfort with Orientalist presumptions pervading the frame. Their narratives show that the ‘language of the exotic’ itself projects an orientalist gaze that negatively impacts participants’ experiences of the discourse in a way that make them feel excluded, Othered or different.
Ambivalence in Exotic Performance: ‘It’s Different When it’s a White Person Doing it …’
As is becoming clear, people expressed a desire to try diverse global cuisines alongside criticizing the meaning of that desire for ethno-racial inequality. Yet while participants largely acknowledged that they participated in the exoticization of culture difference to some extent, they also argued that their participation represented something different than one originating from a white subject position because it did not entail the same contested histories. As Faran says, I’ll do it with cultures I admire [exoticize them] or with foods from different cultures that I like. Something like going out for afternoon tea [laughs]. But I guess it’s different when it’s a white person doing it from another culture because there’s that background.
Jeya elaborates on Faran’s assertion of ‘that background’, namely, the position of bounded ethnicity often occupied by people of color, whereby they are asked to ‘enrich’ an otherwise normatively white, Anglo-Saxon mainstream: ‘forevermore Indian food will be this exotic fun thing to try rather than obviously, the food of our country. So it will always have that position, the position that visible minorities feel in general’. Such orientations reveal how power is infused relationally within the frame of exoticism. Participants determined that because they approached cross-cultural exploration from positions not marked by histories of domination, they could participate in exploring exotic difference in a way that was not harmful. Such assertions demonstrate how historic power relationships differentially structure the meanings that people derive from exploring social distance and norm breaking.
In sum, while participants embraced ‘exotic ethnic food adventuring’, their participation did not come without a simultaneous reflexivity and discomfort around its deployment. Participants were particularly troubled when the ‘language of the exotic’ projected an Othering gaze onto them and the food they grew up eating. This led them towards an ambivalent relationship with the frame such that they neither whole-heartedly accepted nor rejected it, but rather simultaneously resisted, manipulated and reproduced it in ways that were shaped by their social positioning within the discourse.
Findings: Authenticity
Authenticity resonated with foodies of color in this study in a similar way. Its five characteristics outlined by Johnston and Baumann (geographic specificity, simplicity, personal connection, history/tradition and ethnicity) were articulated quite clearly by the study’s participants, yet their relationship with authenticity was still extremely ambivalent. They drew from the frame to express their likes and dislikes around food, yet at the same time heavily criticized its connection to ethnicity. These critiques were based less on a concern about the concept’s exclusionary nature (as with exoticism) than about its tendency to rely on essentialist tropes that freeze food and the people who cook or eat it in time and space. As above, the following sections explicate these contradictions by demonstrating first, how participants reproduced and resisted authenticity, and second, the ambivalence that manifested in their simultaneous critique and application.
Reproducing Authenticity: ‘There’s a Certain Relationship that [a] Culture Has With Food’
First, foodies of color reproduced the frame of authenticity by drawing on one or more of the five dimensions that Johnston and Baumann identify to construct the types of food they enjoyed eating. Connections to specific chefs, families, traditions, geographic places, and simplicity all helped foodies construct what foods they deemed ‘good’, ‘worthy’ or ‘enjoyable’. These invocations were largely implicit, but at times came out explicitly, such as Michael’s reference to simplicity: ‘Authentic I guess implies purity. And in my mind the assumption is the country’s food is going to be better than inauthentic food. So therefore authenticity implies you know better quality’. Here, Michael summons the association of authenticity with the ‘pure food of a country’ to reference the idea that food originating from the country that it is discursively associated with is of higher quality than ‘inauthentic’ reproductions made elsewhere.
These references also illustrate the central role that ethnicity plays for participants in constructing authenticity. Participants were aware that invocations of authenticity held the potential to call on ethno-cultural groups and drew on these associations themselves; however, they held varying opinions about whether this held positive or negative implications for racial inequality. Karina is a 34-year-old Chinese woman working in digital communications. Her narrative demonstrates how people’s preoccupation with authenticity can indicate a desire to properly represent, and so respect, a culture and its history: I think sometimes certain aspects of Asian cuisine have become almost bastardized or tokenized in some way … For example, there are a couple restaurants downtown that tried to do an Asian fusion kind of thing and its being done by people who are basically taking it on as a trend as opposed to doing it from a more authentic place. And they’re not even Asian, which is not to say that if you’re not Asian you can’t cook proper Asian food, but, you know, there’s a certain philosophy behind food. … there’s a certain relationship that the culture has with food. And to make fusion cuisine without understanding what that relationship is and the underlying philosophy in that culinary culture, I think is a little disingenuous.
Here, Karina sees attention to authenticity as fostering a deep, respectful engagement with culinary cultural traditions, and juxtaposes it with ‘trends’ and ‘fusion cuisines’ that she sees as superficial and tokenizing. Therefore, while foodies do summon authenticity’s connection to ethnicity, some felt that such associations encompassed desires to know about and respect ethno-cultural diversity.
Resisting Authenticity: ‘Food Cultures are Constantly Reinventing Themselves’
Most participants nonetheless criticized authenticity, considering it a reifying concept that oversimplified the history and meaning of foods or cuisines, and expressed wanting to de-bunk its suggestion of essentialized ethnicity. As Sarah, a 24-year-old Vietnamese-Canadian undergraduate student, explains, these associations are problematic because they romanticize an a-historical version of ethnicity: I think now it’s almost like authentic and simple go together because people are very wary of these long ingredients lists … and it just pushes people to buy things that are more expensive because its marketed as rustic, better, closer to the earth … I don’t like the idea of romanticizing these systems because they are marketed primarily towards rich Westerners. And like a lot of Vietnamese cuisine, when I’m with my family, it’s as rustic as it gets. Like I made friends with a duck and then my uncle killed that duck and we had it for dinner, which I was very sad about. So that’s really farm to table, local, organic, and I kind of think that their lives suck. Like they live in little huts and there’s animals everywhere and they have to go to a well for water. So I’m very wary of romanticizing being so cultural and close to the earth.
For Sarah, her personal experiences reveal the often harsh reality that complicates romantic food narratives. Here, the association of non-Western ethno-racial groups with simplicity harks back to uncomfortable historical narratives in which such groups have historically been defined as ‘primitive Others’ on the basis of their presumed simplicity, which in turn served as a basis for their colonial domination. Participants like Sarah expressed discomfort with static, homogenous notions of ‘ethnic food’ stemming from the concept’s orientalist roots designating people of color as ‘cultural Others’. Participants’ resistance to ‘authentic ethnic food’ can be interpreted as resistance to these connotations. Accordingly, foodies in this study worked to complicate this association by drawing attention both to the complexities encompassed in cuisines as well as the consequences of reified narratives on the people implicated in them. Some drew from their own experiences of having the label placed on or near them and the foods they grew up eating to question how personal connection becomes tied to ‘ethnic authenticity’. For example, some questioned the authenticity that their friends or acquaintances associated with their mothers’ cooking, commenting that much of their mothers’ learning originated in Canada or another country of first migration. Participants’ narratives also reveal how the valorization of authenticity can serve to erase or undermine the individual knowledge and creative expression of immigrants. Shilpa questions the priority placed on intellectual over embodied knowledge, to highlight the distinction between fetishizing authentic food knowledge and respecting it, when she discusses her aunt’s experience with others requesting her recipes: I’m sort of like you know, if Bill Gates was walking down the street and you asked him to give you the secret to Microsoft, you think he would just give it to you? I mean I know that’s very different than a recipe but its sort of like, that person has worked their life. You know? If you spent your life in the kitchen and you created, that’s your work. If I came up to you and said just tell me what you’re working on at work, give me the secret, you wouldn’t do that. (Shilpa, 36, Indian, currently unemployed while in a career transition out of the business sector into social work)
Foodies of color also resisted the role of culinary cultural emissary when they felt such a position was performative rather than instructional. Heather (43, Chinese, owner of a pet sitting company) describes her discomfort when taking her friends for an ‘authentic Chinese meal’: In some ways I kind of felt like I was putting it on display, like oh look at this! It’s so authentic! And I didn’t feel authentic. I felt like I kind of put it on display instead of ‘lets just go out for a meal’, like a good meal, no matter what it is. It doesn’t matter that it’s Chinese; it’s just really delicious. You know what I mean?
In contrast to the joy participants felt around ‘teaching’ discussed in the section on exoticism, Heather demonstrates the uneasiness that arises when such a role is imposed upon them and/or misinterpreted by others.
Ambivalence and Authenticity: ‘There’s no Such Thing as Authentic Unless …’
Despite their apprehension, the majority of participants could not fully reject authenticity. Significantly, in doing so, they revert back to its connection to ethnicity, oftentimes resulting in complex, contradictory, and ambivalent narratives. Foodies often determined that they could accept authenticity so long as they defined it in its extreme form. The authenticity of food to a family, for example, was often cited by participants as an ‘exception’ to their critiques. Similarly, Anselem (35, South Asian, self-employed writer and publisher) invokes extreme geographic specificity while simultaneously rejecting essentialized ethnic authenticity: I still believe that there’s no such thing as authentic unless you are trying to pinpoint it to a specific time and place. Food is constantly evolving. Recipes are constantly changing. They’re changing with every iteration even, right? So unless you’re pinpointing it to the random dosa stand in the random street in Hyderabad in India, on that random street, and this guy has been making dosas for 30 years, and that to you is authentic to Hyderabad, then fine.
While such invocations reproduce the frame of authenticity, they nonetheless do so in a way that challenges essentialized culinary culture by highlighting the specific histories of those actively living within it.
In sum, participants’ lived experiences with ethno-racial diversity (stemming, like exoticism, from diverse intersections in their identities) ultimately meant that they were highly skeptical of an essentialized, authentic-ethnic food connection. At the same time, the idea of culinary authenticity was hard to eliminate or avoid entirely. Many participants openly admitted to utilizing the concept, yet demonstrated extreme ambivalence in its usage.
Conclusions
In investigating how foodies of color engage with exoticism and authenticity, this article demonstrates how dominant foodie discourse can be resisted and reframed, but is difficult to avoid entirely. Interviews with foodies reveal that despite their robust criticism and largely explicit rejection of dominant food discourse, many openly utilized its frames to construct what they believed to be ‘good food’. Such engagement confirms that this repertoire is one that is accessed by foodies from diverse ethno-cultural backgrounds; however, the critiques deployed alongside their engagement also reveal underlying tensions. Discussions with foodies of color problematize the reification of ‘ethnic food’, and the way this discourse perpetuates negative social distance between people. Participants echoed in their daily lives the critiques of food and critical race scholars (Abarca, 2004; Heldke, 2003; Huggan, 2001; Said, 1978) through their discomfort with each frame’s connection to ethnicity and to ‘ethnic food’. At the same time, participants were positive about the cross-cultural understandings that each could prospectively implore.
Foodies of color in this study therefore reinforced the general dimensions of the two frames presented in Johnston and Baumann’s work while also working to challenge their operation by situating them outside of a straightforwardly white, Western lens. Such a situation must nonetheless be challenged itself, as the foodies in this study cannot be straightforwardly placed outside a Western lens either. The cosmopolitan nature of many participants’ histories blur the line between the West and the non-West which then enables knowledge of diversity that has become a source of status in an increasingly connected, democratic world (Ray, 2016; Warde, 2000). Such status is inevitably bolstered by the high levels of economic and cultural capital that these foodies (on average) possess. Foodies in this study thus demonstrate how the global flow of people, information and commodities situate people as dominant cultural actors as well as ‘cultural Others’ simultaneously.
It is also important to underscore that participants were not situated uniformly in this ambivalence. Some were more critical of the frames than others, and foodies expressed their discomfort in different ways based on their particular positionality within the intersectionality of experience. Foodies’ experiences of difference, racism, assimilation and Othering varied according to the disparate elements comprising their specific subject positions, yet are encompassed within their broader positionality as ‘people of color’. It is difficult to determine based on the sample size in this research how people differentially engage with the ethno-racial tensions within foodie culture based on particular aspects of their ethno-racial identities. For example, do older generations of foodies have more tools to critique the discourse due to the perspective they have gained from living through the mainstream shift from distaste to fascination with the foods they grew up eating? Are foodies who have recently immigrated to Canada more likely to reproduce stereotypical associations between ethnicity and ‘ethnic food’ due to their desire to gain recognition from it? Certainly it seemed that education played a role in providing many foodies in this study with the tools to be able to articulate their discomfort. Teasing out nuances such as these will be an important contribution for future research on this topic.
Since these dynamics manifest in cultural consumption through the practice of omnivorousness, we are left wondering, what can foodies of color tell us about culinary omnivorousness more generally, and the tension between democracy and distinction formulated by Johnston and Baumann specifically? First, it reveals how the highly interconnected flows of global cultural capital make their way into cultural consumption, complicating and contesting the boundaries marking ‘exotic’ and ‘familiar’, ‘authentic’ and ‘artificial’ culture. It is clear that the increasing interconnectedness of the world inculcates North-American culinary culture in the form of heightened access to and interest in diverse foods and food practices; however, this article has shown that this interconnectedness has simultaneously broadened the range of experiences that people draw from to assess these concepts. This has implications for the culture itself because, as this article has shown, such experiences shape how people understand and interact within the discourse.
The contradictions forwarded in this article also offer insight into how cultural capital works alongside other inequalities, in this case, ethno-racial difference. It forefronts the fact that cultural capital operates within intersections of power and inequality that influence individuals’ ability to acquire and navigate its acquisition and enactment. On the one hand, these frames, and the culinary capital they bestow, are highly accessible to the cosmopolitan people of color in this study as they are able to draw on their global experiences and backgrounds to invoke them with relative ease. On the other hand, this accessibility is steeped within broader ethno-racial inequalities that shape their manifestation. Within this context, foodies of color seem to be confronted with a paradox between the discomfort they feel, and the cultural capital they acquire when signaling their ethno-racial identities. This paradox comes from their engagement within a discourse that simultaneously confers status and devalues them by virtue of their ethno-racial position within it. And it is this paradox that is highlighted when participants simultaneously critique and deploy the two frames. So while the two frames offer foodies of color greater access to cultural capital on an individual level by virtue of their ethno-racial identity, this does not mean that they necessarily disrupt the racial and economic ideological structures propping them up. Ultimately, the endowment of cultural capital in foodie culture is still attained through economic privilege and at the expense of reinforcing stereotypes that sustain ethno-racial inequalities.
This study therefore contributes to research on foodie culture by utilizing the perspectives of foodies of color to help reveal the cultural politics of authenticity and exoticism as they circulate within it. Johnston and Baumann argue that the two frames help to temporarily suture tensions between democracy and distinction within omnivorous culinary discourse. Interviews with foodies of color highlight that these tensions may not be equally settled for all consumers. While foodies in this study continued to use these frames to bridge democracy and distinction, they did so precariously, leading to contested and ambivalent meanings for those who occupy social positions that allow them to simultaneously inhabit privileged cultural space, but also see themselves reflected back in negative, Orientalized subject positions. This article forwards research into omnivorous food culture by offering insight into the ethno-racial inequalities permeating it and revealing points of tension remaining within people’s attempts to reconcile democracy and distinction.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank her dissertation supervisor, Josée Johnston, as well as Kate Cairns, Ronit Dinovitzer, Philip Goodman, Ann Mullen, and Monica Boyd for their helpful support throughout the writing of this paper.
Funding
This research is supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Grant.