#implying they're dirty or animalistic or cruel or undiscerning or have bad taste

[thedreadvampy]

The thing is. Bad/gross food is rarely a DISH - when food is bad it's because it's been badly made, whether because of skills or available ingredients. but a dish p much only exists recognisably and has a name because someone likes at least one version of it.

which is to say. there isn't really a way of naming a dish, school of dishes or specific food culture and going EW ISN'T THIS DISH UNILATERALLY CONCEPTUALLY DISGUSTING without denigrating quite a lot of people.

like you don't have to like it in any form. but it's eaten and shared because it's good to a not insubstantial number of people when cooked right.

(and I don't really understand how you approach that with total incuriosity when it's a dish you haven't tried like. ARE rocky mountain oysters good? Maybe! I would very much eat some to find out!!!!)

this is actually something the British food poll did in a way the American ones I've seen haven't really - they described how the food they're imagining is, specifically, badly prepared (grey meat and veggies; unseasoned shepherd's pie). which is wildly tipping the scales by calling it British Food but. like. that is an on point definition of why that food is gross.

(this also applies to American chocolate, which like. Broad category but I think most of us understand this refers to low-cocoa high-sugar chocolate, probably with bucolic acid. so we are being invited to imagine Badly Made Chocolate not. the concept of chocolate)

personally I just think it's very rarely a good or funny idea to shittalk how gross any given food culture is. partly because food is important and culturally evocative for most people, partly because it's very...alienating? to be like WHO COULD EAT SUCH A THING? just because you wouldn't, and largely because to be frank it says more about you than about the food that you have so little imagination or curiosity that you can't imagine why a food might be enjoyable to folks who aren't you.

yes this includes jello salad, I would like to try it. ONCE. if it wasn't appealing to someone it wouldn't be so widespread.

#red said #like. as if talking shit about people for eating offal or offcuts particularly hasn't always been hugely loaded in race and class terms #ewww can you believe filipinos eat tripe. can you believe Chinese people eat pig feet? #YEAH I CAN AND YOU SHOULD TOO. Those are normal parts of an animal to eat and it's weird that you think it's weird #but it's also. a really common racist trope right? like. how often does racist rhetoric mention food being 'weird' or 'smelling bad'? #because shitting on someone's food and calling it gross is a really good shortcut to shitting on them and their cultures #implying they're dirty or animalistic or cruel or undiscerning or have bad taste #this isn't crying RACISM AGAINST WHITE PPL btw #just saying. maybe in general we should shut the fuck up about finding entire schools of cooking gross #and it's interesting you know. bc Americans in the notes of the American food posts recognise there are race and class sensitivities there #but not that there might be similar sensitivities around mocking another country's food